Chapter 33

FRIDAY, MAY 15

1:50 P.M.

BASEMENT LEVEL, MAGIX HEADQUARTERS

“When I was eleven years old,” Lina began, “I crashed my bicycle in the street, and a car drove over my left leg. Uncle Lionel saw it happen and rushed me to the hospital.”

Uncle Lionel? I glanced at the custodian. The Cleaner was Lina’s uncle?

“He stayed by my side until they took me back for surgery,” she went on. “It was the most intense pain I have ever felt. Most of you wouldn’t know how excruciating it is to have your femur snapped in two. But Mason knows. Don’t you, boy?”

I stared at her. What did my broken leg have to do with anything? So what if Lina and I had that in common? It didn’t mean I was going to be her friend.

“The surgeon who took care of me was brand-new to the job,” she continued. “It was his very first operation, and he did a remarkable job, considering it took three metal rods and seventy-two stitches to piece me back together. His name was Dr. Roger Archibald. Does that ring a bell?”

It did. That was the same surgeon who had taken care of my broken leg. Where was she going with all of this?

“Your surgery was actually Dr. Archibald’s last,” Lina said. “Did you know that?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t realized it. Why did that matter?

“Three months after your surgery, he was in Utah, celebrating his retirement with a skiing trip,” Lina continued. “On his drive up the canyon, he came across a vehicle that had hit a patch of ice and gone off the road. Inside the car were a mother and two small children, upside down, three feet deep in a freezing river. Old Dr. Archibald didn’t hesitate. He splashed into the water, rescuing the mother and both children. But his legs were severely frozen, the nerves permanently damaged. He’s in a wheelchair now, but his act of pure goodness triggered a release of magic deep within the earth.” She pointed to the thermometer on the glass table. “The magic reached the top and it bubbled out, soaking into certain objects the doctor had touched. Objects that had meant something throughout his life. That’s how I became a human boon.”

“That’s impossible,” Avery snapped. “You can’t be a boon. The detectors don’t register anything when they look at you.”

“That’s because the boon is inside me,” she said, pointing to her left leg.

“The metal rods,” I whispered. “They filled with magic after Dr. Archibald saved that family . . .”

“That’s not how it works!” Avery cried. “The magic fades as soon as it enters a person’s body.”

“Also true,” said Lina. “After I received my powers, I was confused about how it had happened. Uncle Lionel stumbled across my old X-rays while using a detector. He realized that one of the rods in my leg had become a boon. We set out to make more human boons like myself, building our criminal network. We injected small known boons under our subjects’ skin, but the magic faded, just as Avery pointed out. Nothing worked.”

“It’s because you’re making it up,” said Avery.

“No,” barked Lina. “It’s because the boon cannot be inserted. It must already be inside the person when it turns magical. It was an ordinary rod in my leg for over two decades. Then, three years ago, it became a boon, making me immune to all other boons around me. Once we realized how this had happened, my uncle and I stopped trying to create human boons. Instead, we looked for another like me. We knew Dr. Archibald had caused the magic to boil over, so we started there. It was a daunting search—literally thousands of X-rays from his long career as a surgeon. But we narrowed it down. We knew it had to be a permanent implant that Dr. Archibald had touched. We knew it had to be a surgery that meant something significant to the doctor. And that’s how we figured it out. I was his first surgery . . . and you were his last.”

I shook my head, my hand absently rubbing at my old scar on my right leg. “No,” I muttered. “I’m not a boon. I don’t have any special powers . . .”

“You never had time to discover your powers,” said Lina. “Because my people got to you first.”

“The vent cover,” Avery whispered. “It was a dampener boon that stopped any magical abilities Mason might have had.”

“Now you’re catching on,” said Lina. “The metal rod in Mason Mortimer Morrison’s leg was one of the most dangerous types of boons ever known.”

“What does it do?” I asked, dreading the answer but needing to hear it.

“It activates other boons without knowledge,” she said.

“That’s how I used the music box during my book report.” I spoke softly.

“Yes,” said Lina. “Because Vanderbeek removed the vent from your bedroom the night before. You were in possession of the music box by the time the dampener wore off. We knew you’d activate the little box the moment you opened the lid.”

Everything made so much sense now!

Avery was staring at me like she didn’t even recognize me anymore. “The banister post that you used to break the window on the ninth floor,” she said. “I couldn’t figure out how you used it when neither of us knew what it could do.”

“And the bedspring,” I said, remembering the way my leg had cramped. “It froze my leg because . . . I’ve been a boon all along.”

“Well, just for the last three years or so,” said Lina. “And it was a full-time job to keep you from finding out.”

“You broke up my family,” I whispered. “You tried to ruin my life.”

She shook her head. “Your dad became a problem when my sources picked up traces of reversal boon magic on his hands—a gift he was planning to give you. But we couldn’t let that happen.”

“Because a reversal boon would have changed the vent in my room,” I said. “Instead of dampening magic, it would have amplified it.”

“Which, in turn would have caused your magical ability to flare up before I was ready,” she said. “It’s difficult to coordinate everything from the basement of a hidden magical building. My two years locked up here really slowed down my plans for you.”

Plans for me? That sent a shiver down my spine.

“What are you going to do with him?” Avery asked, her voice threatening.

“Magic isn’t fair,” spat Lina, her beautiful face twisting. “It benefits those who are Ignorant, and it punishes those who are Educated.”

“Hey. If you want to forget about magic,” said Avery, “we can arrange a memory wipe. We can easily turn you into a happy little Ig.”

“Except you can’t,” said Lina, patting her leg. “We looked into having the rods surgically removed—they were intended to be permanent, even though my leg has been healed for over twenty years. Unfortunately, surgery isn’t an option. The magic has fused itself with my leg. Removing it could be fatal. That’s why I’ve been rotting down here in Magix’s basement for the last two years. My immunity boon won’t allow any memory wiping to take effect against me.”

“And you’re mad about that?” I asked.

“Millions of Ignorants are bumping into magical boons every day,” said Lina. “The magic is rubbing off on them, giving them a great day. Giving them a little boost. So why don’t we get to benefit from it? Just because we’re Educated? Because we have knowledge? When one of us touches a magical boon, we get no extra boost. All we get is more responsibility.”

“It’s a responsibility we’re willing to accept,” said Avery. “And we’re not left totally helpless. We get to use the boons for their true magical power.”

“Which I can’t do,” barked Lina. “I’m immune. Whether I know about boons or not, they’re useless to me. It’s not fair. And frankly, I’m tired of it. If we can’t all benefit from the boons”—her voice dropped dangerously low—“then no one should.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Not me,” she said. “You.” Lina stood up slowly. “Do you know why I asked my uncle to steal all those boons from the Church of the Faith?”

“To get Magix’s attention?” I guessed. “So you could frame me later?”

“That was only a small part of it,” she said. “I selected the church because it had every kind of boon that I needed for the device.”

“What device?” Avery asked.

“The largest manipulated boon in Magix history,” said Lina. “After the church was robbed, Uncle Lionel began smuggling the boons down to me one at a time. I had done years of research, and I knew exactly what it would take. One by one, I began assembling the boons, linking them together in unique ways that would allow their powers to flow together unlike any boon before.”

As she spoke, she crossed the room until she reached the grand piano in the corner. Reaching down, she pulled back the cover to expose the black-and-white keys. “Uncle?” she said.

Lionel Albrecht crossed to the piano, lowering a finger to play a single note.

At once, something magical began to happen. A huge contraption rose out of the piano, individual pieces clicking and unfolding until it loomed almost to the vaulted ceiling.

“My greatest creation,” she said, gesturing grandly to the device. At the center was the black piano bench. Random objects leaned over it, surrounding it on three sides—a filing cabinet, a chandelier, a baby’s high chair, a porcelain plate, a vacuum . . . The things went on and on, all of them interconnected, too many to see clearly. Too many to count. Instead of a piano, the whole thing now looked like a mad scientist’s command center.

“These are the boons from the Church of the Faith,” Lina said, “painstakingly assembled and connected. I had only five left over, and I arranged to have them dumped in your bedroom, Mason. I thought it might help incriminate you.”

“What is that thing supposed to do?” Avery asked, a quaver in her voice.

“When activated, this device will shoot a beam of anti-magic straight to the center of the earth,” Lina said. “In a matter of seconds, it will permanently fry the magic core, leaving the world a much fairer place to live.”

Avery gasped, her eyes darting to the thermometer on the glass table. “You’re trying to destroy magic?”

“Won’t it be nice?” Lina replied with a smile. “No more favoritism for Ignorant people who brush up against a magical boon. When I’m finished, people will have to make their own good days without relying on unfair magic.” She walked slowly around the piano, dragging her fingers along the edge of the device. “The problem is, my device is incomplete. It needs one more component—a pilot, so to speak.” Her dark eyes pierced into me like daggers.

“Me?” I shrieked. “You expect me to operate that thing? No way!”

“I didn’t want it to be you,” she said. “But you’re the only one who can. You see, combining boons to create magic devices can be tricky business. Sometimes you need a boon with a specific power, though it doesn’t really matter what the object is. Other times you need a specific object, regardless of what it actually does.” Lina cast a glance at the piano machine. “In order for the device to work, it must be operated by a human boon. The specific power doesn’t matter. That was why my uncle and I tried to create our own. When it didn’t work to inject boons into people, you became the only choice.”

“Not the only choice,” I pointed out. “If you’re really a human boon, why haven’t you operated the device yourself?”

Lina snarled like an angry animal. “Didn’t you hear anything I just said? I can’t operate boons. I’m immune! It’s up to you, boy.”

“No way!” I cried. “Not happening! I just barely learned about magic. I’m definitely not going to be the one to destroy it!”

“You are a difficult child,” Lina said. “You were supposed to operate the device two days ago. We took advantage of Avery Lawden’s desperate need to prove herself and planted a note in her locker so she would break you out of your room. Uncle Lionel was in position on the ninth floor. He made sure you took the wine cork to operate the elevator. But he had already rigged it to overload, carrying you down to the basement. Everything worked perfectly, except you wouldn’t—”

“I wouldn’t sit down on the piano bench,” I finished, remembering the cactus needles in the seat of my pants.

“Yes, yes. Then you had to be clever and call the agents down here so you could slip into the elevator and escape . . .” Lina frowned. “I had to dispatch Wreckage, and the whole thing became a wild goose chase. We knew you were in my uncle’s apartment. You set off a signal when you moved the bed. Agent Clarkston could have apprehended you there, but we thought it better to lie about finding the music box and lure you back here on your own.”

Avery and I had uncovered a lot of clues, but there were a lot we had missed. Now things were quickly falling apart, and there was nothing we could do about it.

Lina clapped her hands. “All right, then! Why don’t you climb up onto that piano bench and stop wasting my time.”

“You can’t make me,” I said. “Knowledge is power. Power is magic. That device will only work if you explain how each of the boons is connected, what each one does, and how it works. I won’t learn. I won’t listen. I’ll plug my ears and scream and shout until—”

“Your boon,” Avery said, her voice weak but intense enough to capture my attention. “You are a human boon that activates other boons without knowledge.” Her face was crestfallen, and I felt sick when I realized what she was saying.

“The girl is much smarter than you,” said Lina. “I don’t have to give you any knowledge about the device. Your magical leg will automatically activate it. You will burn up the magic core, and you’ll never even know how you did it.”

I tried to run. It was the only thing I could think of doing. But I only made it a few feet before Wreckage yanked on the chain around my middle, tugging me to my knees.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Lina Lutzdorf said. “I just want to end magic forever. But if you don’t cooperate, I’ll be forced to take more severe actions.”

“What can you do?” I shouted, my face red. “You can’t kill me!”

“No,” said the woman. “But there are other people in this room who are more expendable.”

Panicked, I looked at Avery, then at Mr. Lawden. He remained perfectly still on the armchair, but I saw a tear running down his face.

“Don’t do it, Mason,” Avery whispered. “It doesn’t matter what they do to me. You can’t help them destroy magic.”

“Of course, we also have your mother.” Lina’s sentence made my blood freeze.

“That’s a lie,” I said.

Lina shrugged. “My people picked her up in Maine. She was quite the fast traveler with that atlas boon.”

I shook my head. “Don’t threaten me.”

“And then there’s your father,” she said. “Mr. Morrison might seem safe, locked away in prison. But sometimes inmates meet with accidents. . . .”

My dad. I could picture his face, laughing, always cracking jokes. I thought about how he’d never actually broken the law. How Lina Lutzdorf had stolen a year of our life together by sending him to prison. I knew he’d be proud of me for getting this far. He trusted me. My mom trusted me, too. And that was all I needed. Suddenly, I had a plan.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

“Mason!” Avery shouted, her face crumpling under the betrayal. I couldn’t look at her. I had to focus on what needed to be done.

I had to activate the device.