“I didn’t say she wasn’t powerful,” Tia said. “Only that she isn’t a High Epic—which is defined as an Epic whose powers prevent them from being killed in conventional ways.”
Mizzy wrote Regalia totally needs to get with the business on her sheet.
“What about Regalia’s prognosticative abilities?” I asked Tia.
“Overblown,” Tia said. “She’s barely class F, despite what she’d have people believe. She can rarely interpret what she sees, and it certainly can’t elevate her to High Epic status by virtue of its protective nature.”
“I’ve theorized about that in my notes,” I said, nodding. “You’re sure it’s true?”
“Very.”
Exel raised his hand. “Um, I’m lost. Anyone else lost? Cuz I’m lost.”
Mizzy wrote Exel needs to pay better attention to his job on the board.
“Regalia,” I explained to him, “has no form of protective powers, not directly. That’s what makes someone a High Epic. Steelheart’s skin was impenetrable; the Clapper warped air around him so anything stabbing or hitting him was teleported to his other side; Firefight reincarnates when killed. Regalia has none of that.”
“Abigail is powerful,” Prof agreed, “but actually quite fragile. If we can find her, we can kill her.”
It was true, and I realized I’d been thinking about Regalia like I had Steelheart. That was wrong. Killing him had been all about his weakness. The “weakness” that would stop Regalia’s powers wasn’t nearly as important as finding out where she was hiding her physical form.
“This, then,” Tia said, taking a sip of her cola, “should probably be the core of our plan. We need to locate Regalia. I’ve told you that the functional range on her abilities is just under five miles. We should be able to use that knowledge to pinpoint where she’s hiding.”
Mizzy obligingly wrote on the board, Step One: find Regalia, then totally explode her. Lots and lots.
“I’ve always wondered,” Val said, regarding Tia, “how do you know so much about her powers? From the lorists?”
“Yes,” Tia answered, completely straight-faced. Sparks. Tia was a good liar.
“You’re sure,” I said, “that there isn’t more?”
Prof glared at me and I stared right back at him. I wasn’t going to outright say things he’d told me in confidence, but this hiding things from the team made me uncomfortable. The rest of the team should at least know that Prof and Regalia had a history together.
“Well,” Tia said, reluctantly. “You should all probably know that Jon and I knew Regalia during the years just after she became an Epic. This was before the Reckoners.”
“What?” Val said, stalking forward. “You didn’t tell me?”
“It wasn’t relevant,” Tia replied.
“Not relevant?” Val demanded. “Sam is dead, Tia!”
“We’ve passed on to you things we’ve thought you could use against her.”
“But—” Val began.
“Stand down, Valentine,” Prof said. “We have kept secrets from you. We will continue to do so if we think it’s for the best.”
Val fumed but crossed her arms, now standing beside my chair. She didn’t say anything, though Mizzy wrote on the board, Step Two: put Val on decaf. I wasn’t certain what that meant.
Val took a deep breath, but she finally sat down.
Mizzy kept writing. Step Three: Mizzy gets a cookie.
“Can I have a cookie too?” Exel asked.
“No,” Prof snapped. “This meeting is going nowhere. Mizzy, write down …” He trailed off, looking at her sheet for the first time since we’d started, and realizing she’d already filled the entire thing up with her comments.
Mizzy blushed.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Prof said to her. “We probably don’t need that anyway.”
Mizzy scurried to a seat, head down.
“Our plan,” Prof said, “needs to be about locating Regalia’s base of operations, then sneaking in to kill her, preferably when she’s asleep and can’t fight back.”
My stomach lurched at that. Shooting someone in the head while they’re sleeping? Didn’t seem very heroic. But I didn’t say anything, and neither did anyone else. At our core we were assassins, and that was that. Was killing them in their sleep really any different from luring them into a trap and killing them there?
“Suggestions?” Prof said.
“You sure that finding her base will work?” I asked. “Steelheart moved around a lot, sleeping in different places each night. I know a lot of Epics who maintain many different residences precisely to stop something like this from happening.”
“Regalia isn’t Steelheart,” Prof said. “She isn’t anywhere near as paranoid as he was—and she likes her comforts. She’ll have picked one place and bunkered down in it, and I doubt she moves from it often.”