Cho played with the string of her tea bag, wrapped around the handle of her mug. It was the one Matt had gotten from NASA as a child, decorated with stars and rocket ships, the name MATTHEW around the rim like a banner.
“There’s something else,” Cho admitted. “Although it’s classified, and I . . .” She looked out the window. The neighbor’s painful blue fairy lights were blinking rapidly enough to give someone a seizure, and Sloane could see the family of four in the apartment across from theirs sitting down to dinner.
“I’m not supposed to say anything, but I think there’s a code of honor that needs to be upheld here,” she finished. “So.”
“This is about the device, isn’t it?” Sloane said.
Cho nodded. “Something went wrong. Well—technically the device worked, so ARIS considered it a success, but—”
Sloane noticed the rapid rise and fall of Cho’s chest, the tendons standing out from her neck.
“Albie was always good with fire,” Cho said. “So we agreed that he would try to use the device to light up a ball of paper in a controlled environment. We had technicians standing by with fire extinguishers, and Albie was in a flame-retardant suit—all the precautions we thought were necessary. So he pointed the device at the ball of paper and . . .” Cho shook her head. “The fire was out of control,” Cho said. “It enveloped three of our technicians. Two of them got out with minor burns, but Darrick, the one who was directly in the path of the flames . . .”
“Dead,” Sloane supplied.
“Yes,” Cho said.
Sloane had seen Albie manipulate fire before. He put the Freikugeln in his left hand, squeezed in his fist, raised the right . . . and light and heat, tongues of flames, danced around his fingers. None of them had really figured out how to control their artifacts, so sometimes tiny flickers were all he could muster, and other times he could level an entire building. Their use of magic had always been unpredictable, which was why it had been good for all five of them to be present at any given time, to maximize their odds of success.
If people die because of your help, she had said to him, you’ll have to carry that around.
Like a prophet.
Sloane let out a laugh.
“Slo,” Matt said, eyes wide.
“Well, thanks for that little revelation, Cho,” Sloane said. “You can go now.”
“Sorry, Eileen,” Matt said. “She doesn’t . . .” He lost the sentence right in the middle and fell silent.
“I understand,” Cho said, getting to her feet. “Let me know if you have any questions. I can’t answer them on the phone, obviously, but you can just ask me about tea, and I’ll know what you mean.”
She handed her half-empty mug to Matt, avoiding Sloane’s eyes, and picked up her coat and purse, which sat on the low table next to the front door. Matt went to walk her out, but before exiting the apartment, he shook his head at Sloane.
When the door closed, she grabbed her keys, hat, and sweatshirt and ran to the back door.
Avoiding the reporters had seemed important ten minutes ago, but she didn’t care anymore. She ignored the flashing and clicking of cameras as she ran down three flights of stairs and then around the corner to the basement steps. Each unit had a small storage space there. Matt and Sloane’s held mostly decorations for each major holiday, even Valentine’s Day. Sloane generally made it her business to hate things like that, but she had a soft spot for cheesy decorations.
As she approached the door to their storage space, her body began to tingle and burn. She unlocked it and pulled the chain for the light. A stack of identical plastic crates, labeled with a label maker, greeted her. She shoved them aside and knelt in the corner where there was a loose chunk of concrete. A second heart beat in her chest, its rhythm counter to her own.
Under the concrete was a sewing kit small enough to fit in Sloane’s palm, and in it, a box of sewing-machine needles of various sizes and thicknesses. A few were broken in half, jagged at the break. She plucked two medium-size pieces from the box and held them up to the light, her hands trembling.
Koschei’s Needle.
TRANSCRIPT OF THE U.S. SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND SUBCOMMITTEE ON DARK ONE ATROCITIES
MEETING REGARDING PROJECT RINGER, THE ARIS (AGENCY FOR THE RESEARCH AND INVESTIGATION OF THE SUPRANORMAL)