something. The only thing I could put my finger on was that the disks had been used for a lot of bad things. And now Stotts wanted me out at the lab where the disks were made, to Hound something when there was very little magic left in the city.
A break-in? Maybe someone on the board got a judge on their side and was seizing property.
Whatever was going down out there, Stotts had not sounded happy.
“That’s a hell of a long time to think over your answer,” Shame said. “Try a short word like ‘no.’”
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just—I think I’m missing something. That maybe Violet said something.” I pulled out my notebook and scanned back through the entries. Nothing that immediately looked like a clue. “And no, the lab hasn’t come up in any of the Beckstrom Enterprises business I’ve been involved in. But I’m not the CEO. Violet is.”
“And?”
“She told me there was some contention among the board members. They didn’t like not knowing what, exactly, she was developing, and why she wouldn’t let them get their hands on it. Plus, she moved in with Kevin.”
“Cooper? Her bodyguard?”
“She said she received threats. Why don’t you know about this? Kevin’s a part of the Authority. Doesn’t he report in or something?”
“Not to me. Any field agents—hell, all of us—report in to Sedra. She’s the mastermind.”
Yes, I knew that. I’d just never needed to report to her myself. Things had been really quiet the last couple months. All I’d been doing was training and learning. My teachers reported in for me.
“Do you think they can help Zayvion?” I asked. “Maeve, Jingo Jingo?”
Shame was quiet. “You said he went into a gate.”
“Yes.”
“He might find his way back. If a gate were opened near his body.” Shame took a breath and wiped his hand down his face, as if trying to mop off exhaustion. “Complicated by Jones using light and dark magic, all the disciplines. Opening a gate for him might go bad fast. Or it might help him remember what it’s like to be alive and bring him back.”
“So why aren’t they trying that? Hells, you and I could open a gate.”
Shame wiggled the fingers of one hand. “No magic, remember? It takes magic, a lot of it, or a lot of different kinds working together, to open a rift between life and death. Gates aren’t easy.”
Maybe not, but I’d watched Chase open and close them with a snap of her fingers. But then, she was Greyson’s Soul Complement. And they could break magic’s boundaries.
I rubbed at my forehead. The left side of my face still hurt. I’d probably be half tanned for the next few months. Since I had my notebook out, I made notes about everything that had happened. City lights, just electric, no magic, washed the pages in white and yellow. I finished my notes and gazed out the window at the magicless city.
Cars that were just cars, nothing shiny, nothing magic, drove past. In the low light of the sky’s exhalation into darkness, people walked the streets.
Mostly they looked the same. Oh, maybe a few older coats, maybe more bad hairstyles, thicker waistlines, and a limp or two. But mostly, the kinds of magic people used to enhance themselves were noticeable only close-up—the perfect noses, teeth, complexion, sparkling wit, dulcet voice, and so on.
We’d gotten so used to taking care of flaws with easy fixes. What’s a little headache now and then for the illusion of youth? Seeing people with their true faces on was odd. Fascinating. The big noses, laugh lines, thin lips, frowns, crooked teeth—the imperfections somehow caught at the soul of humanity, and left it bare to be seen, the beauty and ugliness. It felt like suddenly we’d become what we were. For good, and for bad.
That lack of magic gave me a glimpse of something I didn’t know I was missing. A reality, an honesty, magic could not create. And like seeing a foreign land for the first time, I was caught by the beauty of it.
Lead and glass lines and conduits still wrapped like steel ivy up the outsides of the buildings, crawled up and up, and met at building tops where the gold-tipped spires of Beckstrom Storm Rods stood like beacons to the stars.
But stripped free of Illusion, Glamour, or the comfortable blur magic offered, crumbling brick, peeling paint, rust, and disrepair showed through. The sidewalks were not as clean, the plants not as tended, windows dirty, broken, or boarded. Safety