“Shut up, Mother!” Heath explodes at her, and she goes silent as his voice echoes through the still-smoking forest, scaring up birds.
He steps forward, reaching for my arm. His tone softening, he says, “Wisty, listen to me—”
“No!” I shake my head furiously, backing away from him. I’m not sure what to do—whether I should run or rain fire—but right now, the thought of Heath’s touch is unbearable. “Don’t come near me,” I warn, narrowing my eyes and waving a threatening finger.
“Okay.” He holds his hands out in surrender, palms up. “I know it’s hard to see it this way right now, Wisty, but this little… piece of information… it doesn’t matter.”
I gape at him, finally starting to form clear thoughts.
“Of course it matters!” I retort.
The One was the most evil beast to walk the earth. I thought I destroyed everything he stood for, but somehow, Heath is his flesh and blood. How can it not matter when my whole world has been flipped upside down?
“Look, nothing’s changed. I’m still me. Everything we had—it was real.”
I stare at him—at the thick, dark hair, the broad shoulders, the lips that I still want to touch. Still Heath. But, even though I don’t see it, still The One’s son, somehow. I let him get close, and closer. I let him kiss me. I asked him to.
I shake my head defiantly, trying to put that out of my head. “I could never love someone who came from something so… so evil.”
“I know you did, though,” he insists. “I know you felt this—”
“Everything I felt was a lie!” I shriek. “Because you lied to me the entire time! How could you not tell me that? HOW?”
“I wanted to tell you, Wisty! There were so many times I almost did. But I knew you’d hate me for it. Just like this. Hate me for something I didn’t do.” His face crumples into a grimace, and he sinks to his knees and grabs my hand, begging. “Please don’t hate me. Please.”
“Don’t,” I sneer, yanking them back. “Don’t come near me.”
Whit walks toward us through the smoking trees with Janine in his arms.
I look up at him miserably, humiliation written on my face. He’s the last person I want to see me like this, but also the only one who could possibly understand. It’s all I can do not to run to him.
“What’s going on?” Whit asks, narrowing his eyes protectively when he sees the state I’m in.
“I’m fine.” I step away from the boy I thought I loved, fighting back the tears. “Let’s go.”
“You’re safer here, Wisty,” Heath insists, and reaches for my hand as I pass him. “I can protect you.”
“Don’t touch me!” I snap, wrenching my fingers away.
“Izbella—” Whit starts. How does he know her?
“Go,” she urges. “The old Snow Leopard is sharpening his claws, and soon blood will flow into your City instead of water.”
Then the woman in white places a hand on Heath’s sagging shoulder, and they both vanish into thin air.
Chapter 63
Whit
THE SOUND OF our feet crunching in the snow is the only noise I hear for hours as Wisty and I carry Janine in the rough pelts.
This journey has definitely taken its toll, and my emotions are raw, a tangle of defeat and relief. I can only imagine what my sister is feeling.
Is she hurting? Is she heartbroken?
I want to ask her. To listen hard and tell her it’s going to be okay. To get angry if she needs me to. To hug her close.
It’s what I’d normally do without hesitation, what I’ve always done.
But her face is a stony mask behind me, and the awkwardness left over from our last fight still lingers, so we haven’t said a single word. I listen to my feet snapping the branches instead.
It’s going to be okay, I keep thinking as we pass the warning signs from the way up and count down the miles. We’re on our way home, and Janine is going to recover.
What about Wisty and me, though? Will we ever be okay again?
The silence weighs on me more as the day drags on, making the stretcher seem heavier, the Mountain steeper, and the air colder on my bare skin.
Finally, when we’re almost on level ground and can see the jagged outlines of City buildings poking up on the horizon, we stop to adjust our grip on the pelts, and I can’t hold it in any longer.
“Wist—” I start.
“You don’t have to say it, Whit.”
Her composed face crumples before I can say anything, and the words tumble out with the tears.
“I never should’ve trusted Heath and I shouldn’t have let you go up this awful Mountain without me and if something had happened to you I’d probably have thrown myself off a cliff.” She shoves me angrily. “So you don’t have to say it, okay? I know I messed up and you were right about everything and I was wrong!” Her lip quivers, and she looks up at me with anguished eyes. “Okay?!”
I blink at her for a second, and then I wrap my sister in a fierce hug. Like I should’ve done from the beginning.
“No,” I say when it finally seems okay to pull back. “Not okay. I was wrong. I should never have left you behind, and everything blew up in my face. If you hadn’t shown up when you did to bail me out…” I look at Janine’s sleeping face and have to fight back the tears. “We both would’ve been done for.”
“I was kind of a mess after you left, too,” Wisty admits. “Without you to boss me around I basically just broke windows and set fires.” She smiles sheepishly.
Janine squints up at us. “You’d think you’d have figured out by now that you really sort of need each other,” she points out sagely.
I nod. “I’ll remind Wisty that next time she’s being bullheaded and annoyingly independent.”
Wisty rolls her eyes. “And I’ll remind Whit when he thinks his way is the only way to do everything.”
Both of us laugh and hug again.
“Is that… Byron?” Wisty asks, looking over my shoulder. I turn and sure enough, it’s him—a one-man welcoming party.
“I came to warn you,” Byron shouts as he stumbles up the path. He collapses at our feet, heaving. Byron is not a runner.
After a dramatic coughing fit, he manages to tell us that the Council passed some sort of decree that all magic makers would be deported.
But that doesn’t make any sense.
“Already?!” Wisty gasps. She looks at me apologetically. “Bloom built a ghetto. It’s why I came to get you. I thought we had time….”
“It actually happened as soon as you left,” Byron says. “They rounded everyone up.”
“We have to tell our parents.” My mind is buzzing with alarm and confusion.
Byron looks at me like I’m an idiot. “They were the first to be loaded onto the bus. You’re not listening to me. You have to go into hiding, right now, before the Sweepers find out you’re here.”
I stare at him, the things he’s saying finally sinking in: magicians, persecuted; our parents, captured.
I meet Wisty’s eyes, and they’re just as scared as mine, but they’re determined, too. I nod.
Together. That’s how we work from here on out.
Byron promises to get Janine safely to the Resistance hideout as Wisty and I investigate the situation in the ghetto.
“Come on, big brother. I know the way.” Wisty squeezes my hand.
We’re going to need each other more than ever.
Chapter 64
Whit
I SMELL THE GHETTO before I see it.
The people huddle around the unfinished cells, cooking in the hot sun, packed so tight they can hardly move. They remind me of those kids in the Mountain camp: afraid and vulnerable. Like trapped animals.
Something in me dies when I spot my parents crammed inside that awful place, and I run toward them.
“Don’t touch it!” my mom and Wisty scream together, just before I hurl myself against the fence.
I skid to a stop in the sand,
my hands held up.
“It’s electrified,” my sister explains. “Or something.”
Though it’s just at the edge of the desert, the sun is intense, and I’m already sweating. Even Mrs. Highsmith looks wilted in the heat, and I notice my dad’s shoulders are bright red.
“They just left you out here in the sun all day?” I ask angrily.
Dad brushes the sand off his sticky legs and shrugs. “We can go inside the barracks, but it doesn’t really matter. They came equipped with skylights!” He tries to smile, and his lip cracks open.
“I can’t believe they didn’t even finish building them,” Wisty says, marveling at the roofless structures. “I never thought they would move this fast.”
“It was on the news,” my mom says. “Some sort of Council decree, a mandatory relocation, but we never expected them to come that same night.”
An older woman I don’t know bobs her snowy white head. “The siren went off just before dawn. They confiscated everything we own and herded us onto the buses, snapping sticks at our legs.”
“The buses were the worst,” adds Mrs. Highsmith, who typically travels by teleporting. “All the swaying and the sobbing. I’ll never get the smell of vomit out of my clothes.”
My mom looks away. I know she’d never tell us these details—she wouldn’t want us to know the pain she suffered. But from the way her mouth twitches as the women talk, I know what they say is true.
Seeing she’s upset, Dad weaves his hand in hers. “They said it was for our protection, that it was just temporary.” He sighs. “But when we got off the bus… we couldn’t leave.”
We were elected to the Council. We swore to protect the community. We can’t even protect our own parents. I’m shaking with fury and despair.
“I’m so sorry I failed you,” I say, trying to keep the anguish out of my voice. But I can’t help it, and I break down, hanging my head.
“Don’t say that, son,” Dad pleads through the fence. “Don’t ever say that. This isn’t your fault. Bloom did this, and he alone is responsible.”
“Alone?” Mrs. Highsmith cuts in. “Perhaps. Yet there are the rumors….” She arches her eyebrows suggestively.
“What do you mean?” I ask, and my parents exchange a look.
“What is it?” Wisty echoes.
“Well, there’s a barrier on the whole place—not just the fence,” Dad says, gesturing behind him. “None of our magic works in here.”
I scan the ghetto again, taking in all the huddled bodies, all of them magicians. That’s a lot of power, all stopped up.
“Do you think it’s because they closed the portals?” I ask, shocked that Bloom’s stupid theory might actually be valid. Wisty scoffs.
But Mom shakes her head. “It’s more than that. The network of magicians has been suggesting Bloom couldn’t have done this alone, that he must have someone working with him.”
“Someone powerful!” Mrs. Highsmith adds, her eyes flashing.
This has gone too far.
“We have to go to Bloom,” I say, and Wisty agrees.
“We’ll squeeze him like the worm he is,” she promises our parents. “And we’ll get you out of here, no matter what it takes.”
Chapter 65
Whit
WE STORM INTO the chamber, and the doors bang against the wall on their hinges.
“Let them go!” I roar.
“If it isn’t the Allgoods.” Bloom’s voice echoes around us. “We were actually just talking about you. Though I admit, we’d stopped expecting you at our little get-togethers.”
Feeling like an ant in the middle of the chamber floor, I stare up at this ridiculous man, perched atop a chair that is now so high it almost brushes the domed ceiling. I don’t have time for his taunts, not when my parents’ lives hang in the balance.
“Release the magicians,” I repeat in a threatening voice.
“I assure you,” Bloom matches my tone, “the magic makers are only being held for their own protection.”
“Their protection?” I scoff.
Bloom nods, readjusting his toupee and leaning forward. “Relations between the magicians and the, eh, normal members of our society have gotten a little, well, strained.”
“Yeah, because of you!” Wisty yells. “Because of the propaganda you’re spewing.” She points her finger up at him, and though there’s no spark, Bloom still flinches, and I smirk.
Gotta appreciate the small things in life.
“Look, we’ve just come from the Mountain,” I say, trying another approach, since Bloom was so hot on war at the last meeting I attended. “You were right—the Wizard King is getting ready to attack. Don’t you think the City needs to band together, not segregate and imprison half of the community?”
Bloom and the other old men share a meaningful look.
“Yes, the magicians will be an integral part of the war effort,” Bloom says cryptically.
Wisty rolls her eyes and I sigh. It’s obvious we’re not going to get anything from Bloom. Have we ever? We’ll have to dig deeper to flush out whoever’s helping him, or figure out a way to break through the barrier.
As I storm across the chamber toward the door, I notice for the first time that the feel in the room is seriously different. I look around, and see that only half the Council seats are filled….
And they’re only filled with adults.
“What’s going on?” I demand. “Where are all the kids?” The goose bumps rise on my neck as I imagine what Bloom might’ve done to them. “They were elected by the people! You can’t just rearrange the Council however you want!”
Never mind that that’s exactly what he did when he kicked us out of it.
“Oh, this isn’t the Council,” Bloom says smoothly. “This is merely a smaller part of it that deals with specific operations. We’re the Inner Circle, if you will.”
“And what ‘specific operations’ would those be?” I ask coolly.
“We find that children are ill-suited to some of the more hardened aspects of government. It takes a more mature character to address certain situations.”
“Like when you rounded up the community of magicians like dogs and carted them off to be tortured?” Wisty spits.
“Traitors in our midst do call for a strong stomach,” Bloom says, and for a second I think my sister is actually going to fry him. I don’t think I’d have the willpower to stop her, either.
Fortunately for the General, the massive screen rolling out from the ceiling has caught both of our attentions.
“While we’re on the subject of traitors…” Bloom says as a projector clicks on. “The Council was reviewing a short film.” He looks down at us with a worrying smile and steeples his fingers under his wobbly chin.
“Would you like to see it?”
Chapter 66
Wisty
HEATH IS ON the screen, and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
Whit squeezes my shoulder, and I let out a long slow breath.
It’s fine. I’m fine.
And then it starts.
The camera follows him in profile as he roams the City at night, and it’s almost like I’m walking with him through those winding streets after a party, the excitement palpable.
But it’s not me he’s walking toward, not this time—it’s a huge man in a dark cloak with a gruesome smile, and a message changes hands.
There are countless scenes like this one. The messages, the cloaks, the alley. Heath.
The men are bigger, sometimes, or hairier, but I learn to recognize them each time.
Because in the next scene, I watch those same thugs kidnapping children, throwing their small bodies into trucks and carting them up the Mountain.
I’m fine, I think. I’m fine, but my throat tightens.
Heath was my boyfriend then.
In between wooing me on the dance floor and tumbling through my window, he was prowling the streets with dark plans.
While he was creating flowers for m
e and stealing tender kisses, he was also taking children for the Wizard King.
And the whole time, while I was falling in love with him, my boyfriend was The One’s son.
How didn’t I see any of that?
I feel my brother’s eyes on me, studying my face with concern, and I know what he would say:
I didn’t see it because I didn’t want to see it.
When the lights go up, Bloom looks at me with smug expectation, but if he thinks I’m going to lose it in front of these feeble old goons, he’s wrong.
“This isn’t news. We already knew Heath was a traitor,” I say coldly. I look each Inner Circle representative directly in the eye. “I hope you’ve caught this criminal and put him behind bars, where he belongs.”
“Alas, this particular traitor still eludes us,” Bloom says with a pout.
I suppress a small smile. I know I should hate him now, really hate him, but part of me is pleased Heath is too smart for them.
“But the sad truth is that our fair City is teeming with malicious individuals,” Bloom continues ominously. “Fortunately, some of this man’s collaborators have presented themselves to us!” he reveals with dark delight.
The screen clicks on again, and I watch it with rapt attention. I’m afraid to look, but I need to see, need to know how bad he really is.
What else was he planning that I didn’t know about? What other horrible people could Heath be working with?
The reel starts, and my face stares back at me—my freckles, my features, my pores—giant on the screen.
It’s like a slap, and I actually lurch backward, stumbling.
“What is this?” I demand angrily. “I’m not a traitor!”
“No?” Bloom raises an eyebrow, and juts his chin back to the screen. “Watch.”
I do watch, and it’s torture.
It shows the cable I cut, and the van I smashed.
It shows the man on his knees pleading for his life.
I see my hands touching those things, my lips speaking those words. My red hair, brighter than flame.
But I can barely recognize myself in these scenes, and I feel tears spilling down my cheeks.
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