The Madness Project (The Madness Method)

by Bralick, J. Leigh

  Anuk must have noticed his expression too, because he frowned and said, “Fairly savvy, that.”

  “My father was in politics,” I said blandly.

  “In Istia?” Derrin asked.

  I nodded. “Look, that’s not important. Focus. What would Kantian be doing? He’s got to know that he can’t wage a war against the King with a handful of skitters. No offense to you lot. I think Kantian’s the one who wanted the Bricks turned out and dependent on the Hole, not Rivano. And I think he might even go so far as to get the mages feeling threatened, so that they’ll side with him. He’s even gone so far as to talk to someone at the Science Ministry. But he has no idea what powers he’s messing with.” I smiled, a cold, spiteful kind of thing. “He’s utterly out of his league.”

  “So what are you going to do about him?” Anuk asked.

  I got to my feet, letting out my breath in a silent laugh. “Stars, I don’t give a damn about Kantian. Let him play his game. He’s not important.”

  “But Hayli—”

  “I think Hayli stumbled on something bigger than Kantian. This business with the Science Ministry…that’s got me more worried than some petty crook. What are they planning? I need more information. I’m going to see what a friend of mine knows. See if he’s heard any rumors about the Clan or the city mages.”

  “What friend?” Derrin asked.

  Coins swallowed and met my gaze.

  “His name is Dreyden Kor,” I said.

  “Dreyden! You daft idiot, you’ve been talking to Dreyden?” Derrin cried, staring at me aghast.

  I smiled. “I think I probably know more about him than you do.”

  “You’re new here. You can’t possibly know. He’s…”

  “A double agent?” I asked. “Two-faced? Playing both sides? Yeah. I knew that.”

  His jaw dropped. “You knew that and you still thought him a trustworthy source of information?”

  I held Coins’s gaze briefly, willing him to keep his mouth shut. It must have worked, because he didn’t so much as swallow.

  “I have my reasons,” I told Derrin. “But listen. You should try to find out what you can from your own sources. Anuk and Jig, can you two sound out the other kids here, see how many of them are really loyal to Kantian? Coins, maybe you should go to the Bricks. Find out if they’re willing to stand with Rivano against him.” I took a few steps backwards, pointing at the lot of them. “Because there is a war coming. Believe me. Folks just need to be sure they’re on the right side.”

  I didn’t wait to see their agreement. Derrin would see to it that they did their jobs. I had my own to do.

  Chapter 8 — Hayli

  I wandered the streets a while, feeling strangely alone—more alone than I’d felt since the day my nanny had left me to fend for myself. I’d never had much to hold on to, but all of a sudden I found myself without even that little scrap of something, and I was just floundering in the dark. Some little corner of my heart wondered if Shade would try to come after me, the way I’d gone after him. But I couldn’t get my hopes up. Even if he cared, everything was falling apart in the city, and if I knew aught about him, I knew he’d want to be right in the middle of it all. He wouldn’t have time to hunt for me.

  When I’d got tired of being stranded in the rain, I made my way toward the only other place I knew about…the only other place someone like me might get a decent welcome. Still, standing there in the cold dark, staring up at the Bricks’ building, my stomach squirmed and my heart turned tail on me, until I’d almost made up my mind to run away. Just before I could escape, though, the door crept open and Zip’s shaggy head poked out.

  “You’re Shade’s friend,” he whispered.

  “Yeah,” I said, rubbing my hands on my arms. “Name’s Hayli.”

  He pulled his head back inside a minute, then slipped out to stand on the step. “Where is he? Is he jake? Haven’t seen him about in ages.”

  “He’s jake. Y’know, he’s, um…he’s back at the Hole. He’s been…busy. Wanted me to check up on you lot, though. Everything a’right here?”

  “It’s a’right,” Zip said, scuffing his toe. “Why haven’t you got a shirt on, Hayli? You look frozen.”

  I plucked at the threadbare remains of my undershirt and shrugged. “Look, honest? I’m kind of on my own right now. Someone fed Kantian some kind of lie about me, and…they turned me out. Got nowhere to gan.”

  “Well…” Zip chewed his lip a bit, then waved me forward. “Suppose you could stay the night. Think someone here might give you a shirt, too.”

  He ducked back into the building, holding the door for me to follow.

  “Say, why div’n Bugs come with those other kids today?” Zip asked. My heart froze. “Thought he would. I wanted to tell him, I’ve about had a fill of this lot. You think they’d still let me come to the Hole? I mean, I know you’re not…that is…”

  I swallowed, hard, and jerked my gaze away from him to stare around the dark interior of the building. “Suppose you could. But Bugs…”

  I couldn’t say it. Couldn’t. I burned with regret—the others would probably bury him that night, and I wouldn’t be there to say goodbye.

  “What’s wrong? What happened to Bugs?”

  I turned my head away. I wanted to speak, but my eyes burned and my throat burned and I couldn’t open my mouth without falling apart. A minute and I felt a small hand in mine, holding tight. He didn’t say a word, just held my hand like a lifeline.

  I let him lead me into the old building and down into the basement. Hardly any folks were there. A handful of adults, some far too old to be sleeping on concrete floors, and a swarm of skitters from my age to even younger than the youngest Hole rats.

  “Weren’t there more of you once?” I asked. “Thought Shade said you used to be all crammed in here.”

  “Folks left, after Durb kicked,” he said, shrugging. “Some of us stuck about. Coolie’s gone completely nutter so the Twins run the joint now.”

  I scanned the cluster of folks, trying not to feel too fitsy about how they were all staring at me.

  “Why div’n Rivano take you in?” Zip asked. “You’re a mage like Shade, right?”

  I shrugged. “Thought it would be better for everyone if I just left, I guess.”

  A little girl was goggling at me through wisps of white-blonde hair, her dark eyes huge in the dim light. She couldn’t have been more than seven, thin as a wraith and shaking like a reed.

  “You’re Hayli?” she whispered suddenly, clutching her arms over her chest. “Bugs’s friend?”

  I went and crouched down in front of her. “That’s right.”

  “Tell him I’m sorry, will you? I div’n mean to hurt him. There was fire and it came out of me hands and I div’n mean it and I dan’ na know how it happened.”

  I held my breath. I’d heard Bugs tell Shade about the Bricks’ Flint who had burned him. Somehow I’d never expected it to be a child even younger than him. She must have just come into her powers, the poor thing.

  “Come on Hayli,” Zip said. “You can sleep over here. There’s a lamp and it’s sort of warm.”

  I smiled at the little girl and went to my spot, huddling over my knees on the cold stone floor. Zip brought me a worn-out old shirt and waistcoat two sizes too big for me, but they felt so good and warm that I stopped shaking long enough to sleep.

  Some hours later I jolted awake, heart hammering. Through my sleep-fuddled senses, I could’ve sworn I’d heard something bang upstairs. I stared about, hoping to see everyone still asleep, hoping to realize I’d just been dreaming, but everyone was awake. And not two seconds later, we heard the crash again, echoing through the whole empty building. Someone gasped. The rest of us held our breath.

  “Someone’s trying to break down the door,” a man whispered.

  Half a dozen people tried to get him to hush.

  “Coppers?” a girl squeaked. “We’re not doing nothing wrong!”

  “Quiet!”


  For endless moments no one spoke or even twitched. It didn’t matter. We heard the door at the top of the stairs slam open, then a dozen pairs of boots came marching down toward us. Someone screamed when the men appeared. They weren’t city coppers. They weren’t Cavnish troops, either. These men were different. They wore leather armor like street thugs, with goggles and helmets and heavy boots. And the weapons they carried weren’t any as I’d ever seen. They looked a bit like a gun, but the air hummed like they carried something besides bullets.

  “All right, listen up,” the man in the front said, taking a step toward us. “We have information that you are harboring Jixies.”

  People murmured, and some woman sobbed in terror.

  “Send them forward, and we’ll be on our way.”

  Silence. He waited about five seconds, staring at all of us, scanning each of our faces.

  “No?” he asked.

  He held the strange weapon up by his shoulder, then reached to his holster with his left hand and drew a plain revolver. And before anyone could even flinch, he aimed and fired. A middle-aged man reeled back, crimson washing the front of his shirt. The woman beside him screamed and grabbed him, and half a dozen folks started weeping in terror. I looked at the little girl, shaking, wide-eyed, petrified with fear.

  I’m not a mage, cried the old, terrified voice in the back of my thoughts. I’m not a mage, I’m not a mage…

  Yes I am.

  I got to my feet, ignoring Zip’s panicked hand on my arm.

  “I’m the mage,” I said. “I’m the only one here. Take me and let the rest of these folks be.”

  “Hm,” the man said, and leveled his strange device right at my heart.

  His finger twitched. A blaze of light zapped between us, and suddenly I was on the ground, arms limp, legs frozen. I could breathe, but pain raced up and down every nerve in my body.

  “She told the truth,” the man said. “Interesting.” He snapped his fingers. “Looks like that little girl got it too. Good to see the device works as promised. Cuff them both and send the rest for processing. Second unit, proceed to the next.”

  Someone tried to rush at the group of men, but he never made it past the place where I lay paralyzed. I could only watch as he crashed to the ground beside me, the sound of a gunshot still ringing in my ears.

  Chapter 9 — Tarik

  The night wind sang with urgency. As soon as I stepped out of the Hole, I felt the energy buzzing around me, a waiting, an expectation, breathless and wide-eyed. If I closed my eyes, I could almost hear the voices…murmuring…building and building…

  “Shade!”

  I lurched a step and spun around. Derrin stood close behind me, anxious and uncertain.

  “What?” I snapped.

  I pressed a hand to my head and staggered a step back. It almost felt like being under the heel of Branigan’s cheap drug, but with all the pain of clarity and none of the forgetting. I could feel the world spinning and the draw of the stars behind the clouds, and nothing made sense.

  “You look like hell,” Derrin said. “Do you need me to come with you?”

  “You couldn’t if you wanted to,” I said, smiling faintly. “Sorry, Derrin, but I don’t think even your talents could get you where I’m going.”

  “You might be surprised.”

  I shook my head. “This is something I’ve got to do on my own. But listen. Listen!” I held up a hand, pointing at the night. “The wind is crying, and there’s blood in the streets.”

  “Shade? What’s gotten into you?”

  I just stared at him, trying to gather my thoughts, when nothing around me made sense.

  “You’ve got to pull yourself together,” Derrin said. “Please. We need you. These kids need you. You may not like it, but you’re a leader to them. You’ve got to keep them going or they’ll give up.”

  “Why me?” I whispered. “Am I their shattered king?” I doubled over my knees with a gasp of pain. “Oh, God. I can’t even tell what’s real anymore.”

  My tongue scraped the roof of my mouth. If only I could forget…forget…

  “Snap out of it, Shade! I know what you’re thinking, and you’re better than that. You hear me? You’re better than that!”

  “So you think,” I muttered. I straightened up. “All right, see? All better. It was just a voice.” I winced; that didn’t make sense either. “Something’s coming, Derrin. Can you feel it? It will fall apart if we don’t raise them up.”

  “What will fall apart? Raise who up? Stars, you really are going mad. She was right.”

  “Of course she was right. Find her, Derrin. Please? I can’t stay. But get them out of here, because something is coming and none of them are safe. Watch out for Kantian. His hands run red and his heart is yellow.”

  “We know he’s a traitor.”

  “Then why are you waiting? Get them out of here!” I spun away, striding for the gate, but I paused to call over my shoulder, “Tell Rivano. It isn’t safe.”

  I’d gotten halfway across the enclosure when I noticed Bobs crouching like a grotesque on the guard post, waving his chubby arms frantically at me.

  “Shade!” he called. “Gotta tell you something!”

  I jogged toward him. “What’s wrong?”

  “That kid who showed up earlier, remember him? The one who brought you that note about the sea wall? Well, he was just here, just a second ago and I asked him what he wanted and he said you needed to come back and I asked what that meant and he said he div’n na but that he just needed to tell you that. What did he mean, Shade? Are you in trouble? Where do you need to gan, Shade? What’s gannin’ on?”

  I took a deep breath for him and held up a hand. “Come back? That’s all he said?”

  “Eee, that’s right. Come back but I dan’ na where except maybe you should gan back the same place you went last time?”

  “Last time?” I echoed.

  “Yeah, after you got the note, you left that evening, so I thought for sure you must’ve ganned off somewhere to find whoever gave you the note, div’n you?”

  His round cheeks puffed, letting his breath out. He was a smart kid, that one. I’d thought for sure he wouldn’t know what I was up to, but apparently he figured it out. Sometimes keeping secrets was just too hard.

  “Thanks, Bobs,” I said. “That gives me a good ken.”

  “Sure thing.”

  I turned and glanced over my shoulder, a sudden bitter ache pulling at my heart. For just a moment I thought I’d heard Bugs hollering after me, begging me to let him come along. But they had taken him down to the Clan, to be under the mages’ protection until we had time to bury him.

  I closed my eyes. I could see him in my thoughts, wide-eyed and grinning like a mad thing, calling, “What’re you ganna do, Shade? You ganna gan find Hayli?”

  And I knew it was just my imagination, but I closed my eyes and told him, “I’m sorry, Bugs…I’m so, so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”

  I couldn’t even get my mind to make up a reply to that, for Bugs. There was a space in my thoughts where there could have been forgiveness, but instead it only held silence.

  I sighed and headed toward the place where I’d met Zagger, hoping that I’d interpreted the kid’s message correctly. But Zagger wasn’t there to meet me. Kor was. He lounged against the wall, hat slouched low over his eyes, but as soon as he heard my footsteps he snapped up and spun toward me.

  “Shade, thank the stars,” he said, grabbing my arm. “Was afraid you wouldn’t figure it out.”

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked.

  “Shut up and listen to me. You’ve got to get to the palace. See if you can’t reason with the King. He’s ordered a full-scale crackdown on the mages. All of us are in danger.”

  “Kor,” I said, drawing back. “All of us?”

  He hesitated, his eyes searching mine. Finally he sighed and said, “He knows about me. He knows I was the mole.”

  I gritted my teeth, but figured it was po
intless to ask him how Trabin had found out. And he didn’t even ask if I had done it. His trust shamed me.

  “You know he won’t listen to me,” I said. “He’d sooner disown me than change his mind.”

  “Well, you’ve got to do something. Look, I brought you your clothes. Please.”

  “What kind of crackdown?”

  Someone strode past from the shadows, and Kor and I both turned our heads a little aside, but the man didn’t even glance our way.

  “Ostensibly, he’s going to round them up and ship them off…somewhere.”

  “Ostensibly.”

  He nodded.

  “And you think the rest of Brinmark will stand for this?” I asked.

  “You think they’ll stand up to defend us? The Herald has been feeding the hatred and suspicion for months now. Hell, that’s been building for a century now. And then they played up how a mage was behind the assassination attempt, and…a mage was behind the riot that led to the deaths of twenty civilians and four policemen.”

  I ground my teeth.

  “And of course there’s all the old superstitions about the Clan…” Kor went on. “Let’s just say the public is primed to let the mages meet whatever fate the King decides.”

  “And of course he thinks that no one will argue with him,” I said. “He believes he can decide who is human and who isn’t, who has the right to live, and who doesn’t.”

  “So someone has to argue with him. That has to be you, Tarik. You’ve got to be our voice.”

  “What about you?” I asked. “What will you do?”

  “I’m going to try to warn as many of the mages as I can find.”

  I nodded. “I think Kantian sold the Clan out to the scientists,” I said. “He’s apparently been talking to Dr. Kippler. Kippler will have passed on the information to Trabin, and if I know Trabin at all, he’ll think that this is all the justification he needs to take action. He got what he wanted. He has no reason to wait for my report, now.” I sighed and dragged my hands over my head. “And I know Kantian will be expecting the mages to fight against the Ministry, and so suddenly find themselves allied with him. ”