Constantine narrowed his eyes. “Ren’s bounty is the highest.”
“No. The Department is offering bounties on each of you, but they are a pittance compared to the personal one that your father placed on you. Twenty million munits and a lot of political favor to the person who returns you to him intact.”
Constantine's expression closed.
“Ren and Dare are off limits for a return of any kind. But you might get out of this with permanent house arrest. Your father is your greatest weapon.” Will said it earnestly, as he did all things, not noticing or feeling the way Constantine or Axer stiffened.
“How fortunate,” Constantine replied with his own glittering gaze.
“This personal discussion is riveting and all,” Delia said, looking between everyone darkly. “But I know a secure way to get from the Third Layer to the Second only five miles from Crelussa. A water mirror—a natural doorway—part of the underground movement when plans were less...political. My source also mentioned that there is an entry path through the tunnels under the mountain Crelussa sits upon, but that the path is far less silent than what you need. But, one of the tunnels could be a possible exit route.”
No one wanted to touch on how Delia had gotten that information with a ten-foot pole, or why a “source” had scoped out a high-status target in the Second Layer.
“Not that any of this will matter when Ren is caught in the middle of Crelussa Sanitarium,” Delia said darkly. “And the two of you are tortured to get her to do what Stavros wants.”
After Olivia and Constantine, Delia was the least excited about the scheme.
More than one person grimaced.
“We are in this until the end now. And the plan won’t work without her,” Patrick replied. He pointed to the boys. “And they go where she does.”
“Could we bribe someone to do it?” Asafa said, rubbing his chin slowly. “A guard? Set up a device?”
Patrick shook his head. “The princess has to lay the spell. It’s an unfortunate side effect of the whole gambit. She’s got to key the girl’s location into the layer. None of us have that ability. Origin Mage tricks.” He shrugged.
“This is madness,” Delia said bluntly. “They will be caught.”
“Optimism! If it all goes tits up, we’ll just have her flip the whole sanitarium somewhere else!”
“Let’s do that now, then,” Delia said darkly. “I know more than one person who would be thrilled to take that place down.”
“Cutting the ties in that way would break part of the Second Layer’s security system, which would be highly thrilling,” Loudon said cheerfully. “Take the whole grid down, the good and bad. Instant chaos. I’m on board.”
“No,” Olivia said grimly.
Asafa tapped the schematic Dagfinn had pulled up. “The wards are tied together. People keep thinking of Ren as a bulldozer, when they should be thinking of her as a surgeon. Sure, she can take a sledgehammer to it, but there would be dire consequences.”
“Getting back to the plan...” Olivia said pointedly.
“Right.” Patrick clapped his hands. “They have a maximum of four hours in which to be in position—”
“Midnight tomorrow.”
We all looked at Dagfinn, who was listening to simultaneous feeds from around the layer and painting the air with magic as he flipped between them.
“The Department is coordinating something at midnight tomorrow. The head of the press is sending notices, gathering people together to coordinate a statement at that time. The timing...”
“The Department is going to force Rosaria’s ‘expiration’ from her injuries,” I said grimly. “Make a show of it for the press.”
“Or they are roping us in, so they can make a statement of capturing the three of you. It’s a trap,” Olivia said grimly.
“It’s definitely a trap,” Axer said, turning the schematic and setting up additional forces in strategic places. Our “chance meter” in the upper left key decreased slightly. “But it doesn’t matter. We’ll lose our opportunity if we don’t successfully convert either Plan A or B. We can still do both.”
“Or Plan C, where we all leave campus in a bloody burst of glory,” Patrick said, “We can do a Five Man Act—”
“No,” said four voices in concert.
Patrick frowned. “I’ve always wanted to do that one, with the Treacherous Don as a setup. I’d make a great one.”
“Sure, Trick. In fact, let’s just do all three of the nearly impossible trifecta while we’re at it.”
“Nearly imposs—”
“Can you get in with the press?” Will asked us, ignoring Loudon and Patrick as they started arguing in the background.
“No. Not without killing three of them, and I don’t think that’s the kind of count we want added to our tally at the end of this. We can use them as a distraction, though, if we cut it too close.” Axer said absently as he moved magic around. “We’ll need pretty tight communications.”
Olivia turned briskly to Constantine. “We need to activate the device you gave Dagfinn.”
Constantine tightened his lips, but gave a short nod, and walked to where we had stashed our supplies.
Will and Mike were debating signature blockers. “The heaviest magic signature blocker should go to Dare. No one is really questioning whether he can defend the three of them against an assault—pretty much any assault. Blocking his signature is the most important thing—he can field all the magic as they escape. Ren wears the cuff Dare brought since she can’t be caught doing magic there.”
“Hey!”
Mike turned to me. “You are just along to set the locator.”
“No one thinks that I will be able to stop myself?”
“No,” came the chorused reply.
I grudgingly sat back. “What about Constantine? He gets nothing? Why aren’t you worried about him?”
“Leandred never uses magic without reason. He’s not going to freak out and do magic because he experiences emotion. It’s doubtful, anyway.” Patrick shrugged. “Before you showed up, I would have told you he was dead inside. Maybe if you are dead or all of you are dying, he’ll use magic, but at that point, we are past worrying about detection.”
Expression bored, Constantine tossed a small device to Axer, ignoring everyone else. “Key yourself in.”
Axer lifted it, his magic caressing the edges, seeking the spells inside. He said nothing for an extended moment. “You didn’t think you’d be returning to campus again,” he murmured. “When you left for Ravishkan.”
Constantine said nothing.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“You’d have figured it out quickly enough,” he said shortly. “She was going downhill.”
I pointed at myself. “I’m right here.”
Constantine’s bored gaze connected to mine. “You were going downhill. When was the last time you spewed paint?”
“An hour ago. When was the last time you looked like you were wearing a full body gray mud mask?”
“Six hours, at least.”