For almost an hour, I paced back and forth under a tree, as Rey relaxed in its shade. I knew how long it was because I checked my comm unit, or the numbers glowing in the sky, every few minutes.
“Why hasn’t Loken contacted me to say he’s okay?” I said for about the tenth time since Rey had forcibly removed me from the Council.
My chest ached. Loken had to be okay. If we got through this, if there was still a world for us to live in eight days from now, maybe we could work out our differences. I’d be less of a wreck than I’d been since Pace had died. He’d be less of a zealot. We could get back to salvaging something of a life.
At five minutes before the scheduled morning meeting for my task force, I stood before Rey with my hands on my hips. “Time to go,” I said.
Rey glanced down at his own comm. “They haven’t called us.”
“Right. They haven’t asked us not to show. So I think it’s fair that we go to the morning meets.”
“When did you get so bossy?”
“I’ve always been this bossy.”
He grinned. “True. And I’ve missed it these past months.” He leapt to his feet and brushed the grass and dirt from his clothing. “Let’s go.”
I climbed onto his back, and he raced us back to the Council building. Fortunately, I remembered right away to squeeze my eyes shut, so the world rushing by wouldn’t make me ill.
“Wow,” he said after a minute, tapping the side of my leg.
My eyes flew open. I braced myself for the worst. I tried to recall everything I’d felt and thought the day before, when I’d created that ether shield. I’d need that shield ready—and preferably some offense too—if we had to fight.
I scanned the Council building. All was back as it should have been. The wall had returned to its normal state—a fence with vertical bars. Clustered around the gate was a large group of Believers, but smaller than the groups that had been there the two days prior. Their red and yellow robes stood out in stark contrast to the bright white and chrome of the Council building.
As we pushed our way through the crowd, my nose filled with their scents—earth and wind and sunlight. I’d never noticed how they smelled before, like they had a oneness with the world. I wondered if they all smelled that way.
“Come on.” Rey pulled me the rest of the way through the crowd. He activated the gate by swiping his hand across the biometric security plate near the latch. The gate whirred open just enough to let us squeeze through.
Inside the property, I left Rey on the lawn and raced downstairs to the training room where the Ethereals had met the day before. I was a few minutes later than our scheduled meet time, thanks to Rey’s arguing with me about whether we should come or wait for a summons.
All faces turned toward me as I entered.
“You’re late,” said Loken, his expression flat.
“And you’re obnoxious.” I headed for the space on the floor beside him, the only remaining place in their circle, and tried not to breathe heavily after my run through the building. Loken’s slitted gaze followed me as I flounced onto the floor next to him. I hoped I looked cool and confident—instead of desperate to hear what in Solaris’s name was going on here.
He turned his attention back to the others. “As I was saying when we were interrupted”—he shot me a pointed glance—“two of the escaped Mages are still on the loose. Before dawn, we found one of them in a generator room on the third floor. We attempted to secure the property.” Another piercing look in my direction. “But he escaped. We assume the other left the area sometime yesterday.”
“Any more casualties?” Jin asked. The whites of his eyes were redder today than they’d been the day before.
I’d only known the man for two days. In those days, I’d found him to be confident and passionate, enough to go against his people’s ways and join us. But this man—with the slumped shoulders and a trace of stubble on his chin—was like a different person.
I shot a questioning glance at Krin and inclined my head toward Jin. She shrugged.
“Of the two injured during the briefing yesterday, Palis didn’t make it through the night. Coron should be fine, but he’s out of commission for at least a few days.”
“What about civilians?” Jin asked.
“We got a call ten minutes ago that one of our Mages did some damage about fifty miles north of here. There’s a body count.”
“How many?” Jin’s jaw tightened as he squeezed out the words. I imagined guilt eating at his insides, chewing at his very being, turning his soul into something that could not be mended.
I knew the feeling.
“It wasn’t your fault, Jin,” I said.
“Wasn’t it? I damaged the security panel with my little running-around-the-room stunt yesterday. Would they have escaped if the cell hadn’t been damaged?”
“It’s hard to say,” Loken said.
“Did they escape during any of the previous timelines?”
No response from Loken.
Jin’s shoulders slumped even further. “So it wasn’t inevitable. It was just my recklessness.”
I jumped to his rescue. “But lots of things have changed since the prior timelines, right?” I looked to Loken for confirmation. He nodded. “You may have played a teeny-tiny role in this change, but it’s a combination of factors. My guess is that there was no—or very little—Mage-combat training in the other timelines. You can blame the escape on that just as much as on anything else that’s changed.”
Jin’s frown deepened. “So you’re telling me I would have helped the Mages escape last time too, if I’d only been given the opportunity?”
“No,” I said. “I’m saying that all of us played a role. Everyone involved. The Council for deciding on the training. Loken for bringing us downstairs.” Loken glared at me. “Elder Ethereal for attacking you.”
Loken flinched when I mentioned the elder. “Elder Ethereal was helping us train.”
“That’s not helping Jin,” I muttered softly, so that only he could hear.
Jin didn’t speak. His shoulders rode just a little bit higher.
“So what now?” I asked Loken.
“Now we go get those bastards. Unfortunately, that means your training has to be cut short, but we have to deal with this crisis.”
Loken led us to the elevator off the main hallway. Just like with the door to the basement, a metal panel occupied a rectangle of wall space next to the door. Loken pressed his hand to it. His hand twitched and then a small light above the panel flipped from red to green. With a hiss, the elevator doors slid open.
“Did that thing just prick your finger?” I pointed at the metal panel.
Loken nodded and stepped into the elevator, beckoning for the rest of us to follow him.
“Is that the way the door to the basement works too?” The elevator doors closed us inside. “That can’t be sanitary—the same needle pricking everyone who comes through here.”
“There’s no better way. It checks my DNA and my handprint. In the past, the security panels used to scrape our fingertips for the DNA. But that system was too easily fooled with someone else’s dead skin cells, nail filings, or hair.” He took in my appalled expression. “Don’t worry; it’s self-sanitizing.” He wriggled his fingers at me. I scooted to the other side of the elevator so he couldn’t touch me. “I’ve never been cleaner.”
“Did you just make a joke?” I asked as the elevator doors opened.
Loken tilted his head to the side, as if contemplating this. “Hmm, no, doesn’t sound likely.”
He grinned and strode from the elevator toward one of several dozen transports. Every single one of them rested flat on the ground. No wheels. They were all Breather transports.
I wished Rey were here so I could see him drool over this.
The elevator dinged behind me, accompanied by voices and movement. People spilled past me into the room. A door banged open, and more people trampled out from the stairwell.
“Gods.” Rey’s voice echoed from behind me. He stood just to the side of the elevator, staring at the vehicles arranged in neat rows throughout the room.
He wrapped his arms around me and lifted me into the air, jumping up and down like an excited little boy. “I get to drive one!”
“Really?”
“Yes! Yesterday they stuck me down here all day on emergency transport duty—in case any non-Breather needed to get somewhere in a hurry. No one did.” He scowled. “But today, someone else gets that dull job, and I get to drive.”
Rey beamed at me. He was practically glowing, and as usual, his cheer was infectious. I laughed as he lifted me in the air once more and then set me down on my feet.
“I tried to get assigned to your transport,” he whispered, “but Elder Breather thinks I’m too close to you and Loken already.” His gaze swept beyond me to Krin’s svelte form, all legs and cheekbones, climbing into the transport closer to us.
I shoved him away and laughed. “You just want to ride with Krin.”
“Have you talked to her about me yet?”
“You mean since I saw you thirty minutes ago? No, not yet.”
“Well, what’s the holdup?” he shouted over his shoulder as he made his way to the transport next to ours.
I climbed into the vehicle where my team was assigned. Loken climbed in next to me. The driver’s door opened, and a lanky brown-haired boy folded himself into the front seat.
“I’m Yashor.” He turned and waved at us. His fair skin had a smooth, red-cheeked complexion that suggested he was young, but perhaps a year or two older than me. “I’ll be your driver today. The trip will be relatively short, about fifteen minutes.”
Rey’s transport rose several inches into the air and floated to the far side of the room. A feeling of weightlessness came over me for an instant, and then our vehicle followed his. Additional vehicles lifted from the floor behind us.
When Rey’s transport reached the wall, a piece of ceiling opened up twenty feet above, leaving a hole just larger than the vehicle. Rey’s vehicle shot upward and through the ceiling.
Our transport floated forward into the space Rey’s had just occupied. We shot upward, and my stomach felt as though it had dropped into my shoes.
And then we were above the ground and gliding north at an unreasonable speed. It was like running with Rey except, this time, I was enclosed along with six other people. I squeezed my eyes shut and relaxed my head against the headrest.
“Feeling sick?” whispered Krin from my left.
I nodded.
After a pause, she added, “My eyes are closed, so if you were making a gesture or something to answer me, I didn’t see it.”
I released the breath I’d been holding. “I’m good, I think. My eyes are closed too.”
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” said Elis’s voice.
“There’s really no reason for you to feel ill,” Mauryn offered. “Yashor, our kind vehicle operator, is repositioning the air all around us. The pressure on your body is drastically reduced. In fact, if you close your eyes, it feels like you’re not moving at all.”
“I think I can tell when I’m going to be sick,” Elis said, his voice tight.
“Mauryn,” I said, “remember when you told me to stop you when you get carried away?”
A soft chuckle and then, “Sorry. I’m done now.”
I wondered what Jin was up to since, besides Loken, he was the only team member who hadn’t spoken since we entered the vehicle. I opened one eyelid just a crack to peer at him. Jin’s eyes remained open but pinned on the floor. Poor guy.
If he was lucky, if we were all lucky, we’d catch up with these escaped Mages and put them back where they belonged—in a cage or in the afterlife.