the table. He stared at Shamus, waiting for him to talk.
“I think there’s something wrong with the wells,” Shame said.
Zayvion’s eyebrows rose. End of reaction. “All of them?”
Shame took a drink of water. “Like I know? I don’t have access to all of them. But the one beneath Mum’s place . . .” He shook his head.
Zayvion did not look pleased. Then he pulled on the somber mask of Zen, of calm, of duty, and simply looked emotionless.
Well, that was helpful.
“Want to tell the new girl what can go wrong with the wells?” I wasn’t a complete idiot. In the time I’d been taking classes from Victor, Liddy, Maeve, and Jingo Jingo, I’d realized that Portland has four natural wells of magic beneath the ground. That was unusual. Other cities had wells—usually one. Sometimes two. Rarely three. But the Portland area had four wells, one of which was beneath the Flynns’ inn, which Shame’s mother ran, just on the Vancouver side of the river, and all of which were a hard-guarded secret.
The waitress hurried over, three plates balanced across her arm. She placed everything on our table, plunked down a carrier of condiments, and left us to our meal.
“So?” I asked. “What can go wrong with the wells?”
Shame took a huge bite of burger, pointed at his mouth, and gave me a shut-up-and-let-me-eat look while he chewed.
Closers such as Zayvion, Chase, and, apparently, Terric could take away the memories of any people they judged were a harm to themselves or others when using magic. Judge, jury, and executioners, Closers had the final say about what people remembered about magic. It made me uncomfortable. Shame told me once that Closers take away Hound memories if Hounds stumble across magic they shouldn’t know about.
I’d asked him and Zayvion if I’d ever been Closed. It would explain a lot. It would explain why I randomly lost my memories when I used magic.
They’d both said no. Shame told me he didn’t think anyone in the Authority was really interested in me before my dad’s death. And while Zayvion hadn’t exactly agreed with that, he said he had never seen or heard of anyone being ordered to take my memories.
I wasn’t sure if I was glad about that. If my memories were taken by a person, there was still a chance I could get them back. If they were taken by magic, I could kiss those parts of my life good-bye.
Still, I didn’t know what could go wrong with the wells that the Closers couldn’t handle. They could just erase any memories about them if someone outside the Authority found something out.
I looked at Zay. “Well?”
“If Sedra is calling in more Closers, it might have something to do with the gates, not the wells,” he said.
“They’re closed, right? No openings in the last two months? Since my . . . test?” What I didn’t say was since there had been a huge fight, and Cody Miller’s spirit had sacrificed himself to close the gateways between life and death.
“Wild storms can blow the gates open,” Zayvion said.
“Neat. So you Closers have some work ahead of you, but it’s not a big problem, right?”
“It is very, very difficult to close a gate during a storm,” Zay said. “Magic doesn’t work right in wild storms. It can be hard to access, or come too quickly and foul or mutate spells. And if the wells are also affected by the storm . . .” He shrugged.
“Can enough Closers contain it?” The Authority was tight-lipped about membership. I wasn’t even sure how many people were a part of the Authority in Portland, much less other cities, or the world. And I had no idea how many of those members were Closers.
Shame shoved french fries in his mouth, mumbled, “Lunch,” and gave a nod toward my plate. “Save the world on a full stomach.”
Fine. If they didn’t want to talk about it, I’d find out when I went to see Maeve later. I took a bite of my burger. Juicy, hot, nothing fancy, but as soon as I got a bite of it, I discovered I was starving.
The door opened, letting in the brisk wind and a man and woman.
The man was at least six feet tall and wide as a football field, his long, shiny black hair pulled back at the base of his neck. He wore cargo shorts, flip-flops, and a black and red Blazer jacket, even though it was February and cold, and moved with that island-warmth vibe