Trying not to sound either too concerned or too calm, I frowned slightly and asked, “What do you want to know about Rod? And why? Are you considering recruiting him?”
Roger leaned back in his chair, the picture of ease. “In a sense, I suppose. He holds a pivotal position, as he influences staffing. MSI is critical to our business interests, as we’re the two major players in the magical world and we’re recruiting from a similar talent pool. That means he’s someone I’d like to talk to. So, what can you tell me about him? I understand you’re rather close.”
I got the impression that this was one of those loyalty tests I’d expected. Could I win my way deeper into the Collegium without betraying a friend? Swallowing the lump in my throat while trying not to look like I was swallowing a lump in my throat, I said, “Yes, he’s a good friend. He was the one who recruited me into MSI and one of the first people I got to know well on the job. He’s also dating one of my roommates. What did you want to know about him?”
“Do you think he’d be open to a little, shall we say, inter-corporation cooperation? His predecessor used to work with us, and I’d like to reopen those ties.”
“He might be.” Were they trying to get Rod on the payroll so he’d hire Collegium plants at MSI? I didn’t want to compromise him, but it would really help our operation if Rod became part of it, and it might give me more excuses to talk to him, maybe even from within the office. “I could probably sound him out a bit.” I hesitated, worrying my lower lip with my teeth. “But there is some potential awkwardness, since I just broke off an engagement with his best friend. I haven’t talked to him since then.”
“What do you think would make him more open to cooperation? Money? Prestige?”
“He doesn’t seem to be hurting for money, that I can tell. He does just fine with women. I think what he’d like is recognition and maybe the sense that he’s making a difference, that what he does matters.”
For a split second, Roger’s pleasant smile became utterly terrifying, though I couldn’t quite tell what had changed in his face to make it so. Maybe it was a predatory glint in his eyes. His lips might have thinned ever so slightly. Whatever it was, it made my blood run cold, and I became acutely aware that I was playing a very dangerous game.
“I think I can work with that,” Roger said. “Thank you, Katie. You’re already proving yourself to be quite an asset.”
“Would you like me to talk to him for you?”
“Oh, no, don’t worry about it. I’d rather not have you linked to this.”
Of course, I was going to talk to him, as soon as possible, to warn him. It was too bad that I couldn’t contact anyone on the outside while I was at work so I could get to him before Roger did. I smiled at Roger. “Okay, but let me know if you need me to put in a good word, or something.”
“I’ll do that.” He opened a folder that lay on his desk and said, “Now, I’d like your magically immune eyes to help me out here.”
We spent most of the rest of the day doing rather boring verification work, going over documents to check for embedded spells and veiled clauses—only, unlike my work at MSI, instead of looking for things others had hidden in contracts and other documents, I was apparently making sure that the right things had been hidden. I supposed I could see where having the wrong nefarious doublecross could ruin everything. I tried to remember any names of individuals or businesses in the contracts, but there were so many, and I didn’t get time to pause and commit them to memory since I was reading along with Roger. The work was just as boring and tedious as it had been in my early days at MSI, though the setting was more pleasant.
I was a little surprised that someone deemed a rising star would be doing this kind of work himself rather than having me work with a secretary. It must be part of evaluating me for the job, I thought. I did catch a few errors, and I had to wonder whether they were accidental or intentionally put there to test me. He certainly came across as more pleased than chagrined when I spotted a problem.
I was even more surprised when he called a stop to the day’s work at ten minutes before five. “I believe that’s enough for now,” he said, interlacing his fingers and stretching his arms out in front of him. “We can get back on this tomorrow. Now, do you need those breadcrumbs to find your way back to your office?”
“Down the hall and keep walking until something looks familiar?”
“That should work. Send up a flare if you get lost.”
I didn’t really need to go back to my office, since I didn’t have anything there, but I thought it would look good to at least check in and see if I had any e-mail. I was skimming through subject lines of company-wide memos when I heard a light rap on my door. I looked up to see Evelyn.
“How did the first day go?” she asked.
“Okay, I guess,” I replied.
“I suppose it is hard to judge from just one day. Do you have any questions?”
“Not really.”
“Did anyone show you where to get coffee or lunch?”
“It hasn’t come up yet.”
“There’s a break room just behind the room where you did your paperwork, and if you don’t have anything scheduled during lunch tomorrow, I’ll take you and the other new people down to the cafeteria so you can find your way around.”
“Okay, thanks. That’ll be great,” I said.
“You probably don’t need quite as much handholding as the others, since you came from a magical company. We’re having to orient them to magic at the same time as they’re learning about us.”
“I think that’s going to happen no matter where you are when you learn about it,” I said. “This place has some unique policies, but MSI was weird in its own way. Here, you can hardly tell magic is involved most of the time. There, they go out of their way to be as magical as possible.” Come to think of it, I’d hardly seen any traces of magic here. A nonmagical person could visit these offices without having any idea that there was magic involved, other than the windows whose views didn’t make any sense.
Evelyn smiled, and for a moment I had the vague sense that she reminded me of someone. I couldn’t quite place it, though. Maybe she just had one of those faces. “I’m sure you’ll be a big help to the others, which is another reason I wanted us to all have lunch together tomorrow.”
“I’d be glad to help with the Magic 101 briefing,” I said, though I did have to wonder if that would be a good idea, considering we were all apparently competing for the same job. My mission would stall out if I wasn’t chosen, so should I help the competition? On the other hand, even if I didn’t help, there was no guarantee I’d win, and if I’d made friends, maybe I could still get some info.
After I shut down the computer, I joined the flow of black-clad people out of the offices and to the changing rooms. The one with my name on it opened at the touch of my palm. I decided I might as well take advantage of the shower, since having decent hot water and pressure and no roommate waiting for the bathroom was a real luxury. After the shower, I got into my own clothes, hit the button to call for the car, and settled down to wait. As many people as I’d seen, I wondered how they could possibly manage to drive everyone to and from work. Or did everyone get the same treatment? Would that only last until I was fully trusted? Did rank-and-file employees have to ride a bus with blacked-out windows, like a school bus of evil?
The light flashed, and I headed out for the elevator to catch my ride home. I hoped Marcia was home first again because I needed to talk to her about Rod right away. I’d been with Roger all afternoon, and I hadn’t seen him do anything to signal anyone else, so there was a chance I might be able to warn Rod before he was approached. I knew that without a warning, Rod would turn them down. Then again, that would make it seem more genuine when he accepted later. They didn’t seem to stop at the first no.
Actually, I didn’t wait for Marcia to come home. I shoved my office phone into my purse and shoved that under my bed, then shut my bedroom door and went out into the living room to use the apartment phone to call Marcia’s cell. “I need to talk to Rod about something,” I said. “Why don’t you have him come over for dinner?”
“Okay,” she said. “Is this about that thing you were talking about yesterday?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll take care of it. We’ll bring takeout. Are Gemma and Philip there?”
“Gemma left a note that she was out.”
It was fortunate that our apartment was at the rear of the building so I couldn’t stand at the window, watching for them. I worried that the Collegium would be monitoring me and the comings and goings at my apartment. Or was that inflating my own importance? Did they really care all that much what I did, or did they trust that their security measures were good enough to keep me from doing them any damage? Figuring that this was too important to take any chances, I turned on the TV so that my work phone would be even less likely to pick up any sound from our conversation. While I waited, I wrote down the names and other details I remembered from the documents I’d reviewed that day.
I just about leapt on Marcia and Rod when they arrived, I was so keyed up. “Has anyone approached you with any suspicious-sounding offers?” I asked Rod before he’d quite made it through the doorway.
“I’m doing great, Katie. Thanks for asking,” he said, grinning. “And how’s your new job going?”
“Since you’re able to be that flippant about it, I’m going to assume that no, they haven’t approached you.”
Looking a little more concerned, he asked, “What’s going on?”
“No, don’t!” I shouted at Marcia, who’d picked up the TV remote. More softly, I added, “Just in case. They made me take a work phone home with me, and I’m afraid it could be a listening device. It’s under my bed, but I’m not taking any chances.” To Rod, I said, “The first thing my boss asked me was if I thought you were likely to be open to being recruited. Like we guessed, your predecessor was either Collegium or on their payroll, and they seem to want to make sure to get more of their people hired on. So you’ll probably be approached soon.”
“This is getting pretty serious, isn’t it?” Marcia asked as we gathered around the dining table and Rod unpacked to-go containers.
“It was always serious,” I said.
“So, should I turn them down or take them up on it?” Rod asked.
“You should probably turn them down at first. Make them work for it. But then it might help to at least pretend to play along with them. We might learn more.”
“And we’d know exactly who in the company was Collegium. I’d have to hire some of them to make it look real, but at least we’d know.”
“And maybe it wouldn’t set off alarm bells if I stayed in touch with you.”
He handed me a plate and the container of rice. “That’s our Katie, getting something for us on her first day undercover.”
“I’d say it’s technically my second day, because just going on the interview counted as intelligence gathering,” I said, dishing rice onto my plate.
More soberly, he said, “So it is worthwhile, you think?”
“Well, I’m not going to bring them down tomorrow, but I’m learning a lot.”
While we ate, I summed up the work I’d done that day. “They seem to have their hands in a lot of businesses, magical and otherwise. The nonmagical people have no hope against them, since they wouldn’t even know that they’d need magical immunes to check contracts. They’re able to take over businesses left and right. Of course, I have no proof that this is actually something they’ve done. I just know that there are magically veiled contract clauses that could be used to do such a thing.” I handed Rod the list I’d made. “This is all from memory, the best I could do. Since I can’t carry anything in or out, I can’t take notes or write it down when it’s fresh.”
“I’ll make sure our verifiers are on high alert,” Rod said, folding the list and pocketing it. “But we probably can’t warn all these people without the Collegium suspecting you. It might even be a test.”
I gulped. “Oh, right, I hadn’t thought of that. If everyone mentioned in the documents I reviewed is somehow prepared for them, they might figure out it was me, even more so if they set it up that way. But I hate the idea of anyone getting bilked when we could have stopped it.”
“I wonder how often that sort of contract double cross has happened,” Marcia mused. “Even if people read contracts, would they memorize them to the point that they’d know there were whole new clauses in there the next time they checked the contract?”
“It’s not just the Collegium that does that,” Rod said. “That’s why we have verifiers to check everything.”
“But this is on a huge scale,” I said. “They seem to be trying to build a massive conglomeration under their control.”
“It does sound a lot like mob tactics,” Marcia said. “Only with magic.”
“And way more corporate,” I said. “This doesn’t look like any seedy backroom at a neighborhood social club. If it weren’t for all the weird security measures and stuff like not even knowing where the building is, you’d think it was any other major multinational firm. And the people are actually kind of nice.”
“Just don’t go native on us,” Rod said, laughing. “We don’t want to have to deprogram you.”
“No worries about that. I can already tell that they’re up to no good. I just need to get in a little deeper to see what they’re really trying, maybe learn more about how the organization works.”
“The moment you feel uncomfortable or scared, get out of there.”
There was something else I wanted to ask him, but I wasn’t quite sure how, so I waited until we were done with dinner and Marcia was putting the leftovers in the refrigerator. “How’s Owen doing?” I asked softly. “I know this is rough on him.”
“He hasn’t exactly said anything, but you know Owen. He doesn’t say things. But don’t worry about him. He’s a big boy. After what you’ve watched him go through, it wouldn’t kill him to see how the shoe feels on the other foot.”
“I just want to be sure he knows that nothing I said was for real. It really was about the assignment.”
He reached out and pulled me close in a brotherly hug. “You don’t have to worry about that one bit. He knows.”
*
The next day, I made sure I had nothing on me from the outside world when I left the changing room, and I made it without setting off any alarms. I found my office with only one slightly wrong turn, and there was a stack of folders waiting for me, with a note from Roger on the top, asking me to go over them and check them against a master document. I took that to mean I’d be working on my own. Perhaps one of my so-far unseen competitors was working one-on-one with him today.
But I didn’t mind being left to myself, since that meant I’d have a chance to concentrate on memorizing names and other information. It felt like busy work, but it made the time pass quickly, and before I knew it, there was a light tap on my door. I looked up to see Evelyn. “Ready for lunch?” she asked.
I closed the folder I was working on. “Sure!”
“Come on, and you can meet the others.”
First we went to the office next to mine, where an African American woman in maybe her midthirties was studying documents that looked similar to the ones I’d been working on. She looked up and rubbed her temples when we entered her office. “Lunch?” she asked, sounding grateful to be interrupted.
“If you’re ready to go,” Evelyn replied. “Trish, this is Katie, another one of the newcomers. Katie, Trish.”
“Hi,” I said, with a little wave.
“Does he have you doing stuff like this?” Trish gestured at the documents on her desk.
“Yeah.”
“You know, there’s a reason I didn’t go to law school, but you’ve gotta wonder, what else is hiding out there.” She shoved her chair back from her desk and stood, twisting to stretch her back. “Enough of that, and I may go nuts.”
“It’s best to take frequent breaks,” I suggested.
We headed to the next office, where a slender blonde who couldn’t have been too long out of school sat staring into space. “And this is Rebecca,” Evelyn said.
“Bex,” the young woman corrected. “Is it lunchtime already?”
“If you’re ready.”
She jumped out of her seat. “I’m starving. And you must be the other new people who’ll probably get the job we’re up for.”
Trish and I introduced ourselves, and all of us headed for the cafeteria, Evelyn leading the way. “Of course, with most of the employees here having magical powers, a cafeteria is somewhat unnecessary, but we actually make it a policy to use as little magic as possible. That keeps our magical visibility low, and we can save our resources for other things.”
The Collegium dining room looked like any corporate cafeteria, just with better food, no cashiers, and everyone dressed more or less the same in perfectly tailored clothes. Once we had our food and had settled at a table, Evelyn said, “So, what do you think of Roger so far?”
“Hard to say,” Trish said with a shrug as she speared a lettuce leaf on her fork.
“He’s cute,” Bex said, smiling.
“I guess, if you fantasize about country clubs,” I said, which made Trish smirk. “He hasn’t yelled at me yet or forgotten my existence, and when he asked me to come to his office, he didn’t make me stand there until he finished something else before dealing with me. That already puts him ahead of most bosses I’ve had.”
“You and me both,” Trish said, nodding.
“Why aren’t you his assistant already?” Bex asked Evelyn. “You’re the office manager, so it seems like you’d have the job.”
“I’m not magically immune,” Evelyn said. “That keeps me out of the running. I’m a member of one of the lesser families involved in the company, which gives me a job, but doesn’t put me on the executive track, I’m afraid.”
There were so many questions I wanted to ask about that, but I didn’t dare, not yet, so I filed the information away for future reference. As far as I could tell, I wasn’t supposed to know for certain that I was working for the Collegium rather than for some corporation.
I’d have thought that since we were all up for the same job and were in a mob-like organization, Trish, Bex, and I would have to guard ourselves from backstabbing by each other, but it didn’t feel that way at all. Instead, we bonded over the shared experience of being thrown into this odd situation.
“Not too long ago, I’d never even heard of magic, and here I am now, working for basically the Citibank of magic,” Trish said.
“I know!” Bex said. “This isn’t at all what I imagined magic would be like. Where are the moving staircases and portraits that talk, and stuff like that?”
“MSI—the last place I worked—was a little more like that,” I said.
“We try to keep up with the times here,” Evelyn said. “Having magic doesn’t mean you have to be stuck in the Middle Ages. The world is passing institutions like MSI by.”
“Well, what do you expect when the CEO is more than a thousand years old?” I said, raising an eyebrow and feeling guilty for speaking ill of Merlin.
“Did they have all this security?” Trish asked. “I don’t mind getting a fabulous work wardrobe, but I have to say, I’ve never heard of having to change clothes to go to work, unless you’re in an operating room or making computer chips.”
“Nothing like that there,” I said, “but I wouldn’t have been surprised at that place if they’d made us wear wizard’s robes with moons and stars all over them.”
“Did they sort you into houses?” Bex asked with a giggle.
“I’m kind of surprised they didn’t,” I said.
“Believe it or not, we do something like that here,” Evelyn said. “You’re sorted during the interviews and grouped into the divisions where you’re most likely to fit, based on the executive running it.”
Trish, Bex, and I regarded each other. Trish raised an eyebrow and said, “I don’t know what that says about us.”
“Maybe it just means that he has good taste,” I said.
Later that afternoon, I finished my work and took it to Evelyn, as the memo on top had instructed. She thanked me and asked, “How’s it going for you so far?”
“Fine, I guess. I’m sure my workload will change as I get further along.”
“Of course! But what you’re doing now is very important to the company. It’s not just busy work or a test.”
I ran into Roger in the hallway on my way back to my office, and he gave me a toothpaste-commercial smile. I thought I might even have seen a little glint off his teeth. “Did you already get through all those documents?” he asked.
“I just dropped them off with Evelyn.”
“Outstanding! Then you can head out for the day.”
It was nice to get to go home an entire hour early when I finished my work. That was rather unprecedented in my working experience. As soon as I made it home, I wrote down everything I remembered from the documents I’d read that day. I remembered a lot more because I’d had the time to really think about it, but I still felt like my list was incomplete and inaccurate. I just hoped it did some good, even though I doubted they’d given me anything truly critical.
Rod and Marcia came in together right after Gemma left for her spin class. I stopped myself from handing my information to Rod right away when I saw how grim he looked. “It looks like I’ve joined the club,” he said, sitting heavily on the sofa.