“What a rush,” Will said, cheeks red and eyes bright as he swayed, trying to take it all in. “Like my brain was squeezed through a tube of memories and then blended in time and space. I feel absolutely terrible,” he said cheerfully.
Then he passed out. Two thumps echoed beside him.
Olivia and Neph seemed to be pushing back against fainting on pure determination. I held tighter and felt moisture slipping from my eyes.
“Did you really think we weren't going to come?” Olivia whispered into my hair.
“I don't want you to get hurt, too.”
“I know,” she said softly, pulling away to look into my eyes. “And things are going to get worse. But there's a time for worry and there's a time for action, and we are choosing which we follow.”
A hand descended on my shoulder. I squeezed my eyes together then looked up at Mike. For a moment, everything was still. Like the world had frozen, and only the unending movement of dust in the wind was visible. A space opened in my chest, like someone had shoved a balloon in there and kept blowing, blowing, blowing, until they hit my ribs, pushing everything outward until it felt I might explode with the nothingness that was blooming inside.
“Mike.”
“We are going to find the cure,” he said, expression showing pain, immediate and fresh. “We are going to find the caster. We are going to stop this madness. And we are going to get rid of Stavros.”
Patrick stepped behind him, eyes darkly glittering.
“Yes.” My eyes filled with liquid. “Yes.”
*
After reviving everyone and catching up on many, many fierce hugs, I introduced them to the library.
The Bandits took to the library's denizens exactly as I figured they would—with enthusiasm.
Guard Rock had become the official in charge of maintaining order, and had stabbed more than one book—and more than one mage—trying to sneak information without proper exchange. Things settled into order quickly under his watch.
At the one-hour mark, Asafa, Delia, Lifen, and Kita left to check in at Excelsine, and see what had occurred in their five-minute absence. After a quick discussion, it had been decided to split shifts between abilities and roommates, trying to give each group a member of each ability and pair, just in case something went wrong on either end.
There were still things to be done in the real world in real time, too. At Excelsine, they had been working hard to gather and energize all the resources that we had been collecting—the eyes and ears of the young, intellectual community. And they had started sending branches out to the other universities around the Second Layer—something that Axer had helped facilitate with the combat connections he had forged during the competition.
Contacting and putting those connections into play was a game of delicate balance and timing that we hoped would pay off on the world stage.
Inside, we were plotting a different plan.
“Once she's caught in the fly trap, she won't be able to get out. Stavros will specifically look for and remove triggers that act like the Table One mind job Verisetti laid,” Adrabi said. “Ren's the one who has to be with him to destroy him, but she's useless once she's in his lair. Circular problem.”
“He won’t bring Ren to him whole,” Will said, rubbing his finger in agitation along the table. How to Plan Your Heist hopped over each finger swipe like it was an invisible jump rope. “He can’t afford it.”
“Unless he thinks he’s won,” I murmured. Death Plans peeked hopefully over the side.
“He gets you, he has,” Mike said baldly.
I looked at Axer, then Constantine.
“I don't like the people we might have to trust in this,” Constantine said, throwing his string onto the table.
“Ditto,” Olivia said tightly.
I looked at Olivia and Constantine in sympathy. “I know.”
After a few rounds between Excelsine and the library, the connection was deemed stable. The combat mages came through for a few hours—holding intense conversations with Axer in the corner. The tension between Constantine and the combat mages was not zero.
Lox and Constantine were never going to be friends—they were too alike and different in all the wrong ways. Camille looked like Constantine could drop dead at any moment, and she wouldn't shed a tear. Greene and Constantine, on the other hand, had a tense conversation that seemed to end in mutual accord.
And Ramirez...well, Ramirez watched Constantine with the stare of someone who was plotting multiple endpoints—ways to make his best friend happy and bring Constantine into the fold, and ways to ensure that Constantine's body would never be found.
The Bandits and combat mages started rotating on a per-project basis. It was an elegant solution to visiting and securing the premises at Excelsine, though due to the time scale on the other side, they had to clump around the library's Fourth Floor, and clumping together was always a danger with the Junior Department still active.
“Stavros is going to know,” I said. “About Valeris. That we could find something like this. He'll be able to put the clues together at the first report to reach his ears.”
A ball appeared in Axer's hand. “That's where the art of the con comes in. That's why we make him think we are after one thing”—His hand flipped, and the ball was gone—“when really we are pulling another con.”
Patrick's eyes glittered. “Pull the double bluff. The triple. There's always a way to make someone think you are on their side when you are not.”
Constantine was watching Patrick sharply. Patrick smirked, a veil of mischief gathering back over eyes that continued to cast dark shadows.
Surrounded by dangerous books, dangerous mages, and the dangerous knowledge that we could all put together, we were ready to enact a risky plan.
“It's not going to be easy even in Plan A,” Olivia said grimly, when we all gathered together for an hour inside to discuss the full parameters. “Evidence supports your pentagram theory.” She turned a book so that I could see the page she was tapping. “Though without an Origin Mage's sight, it has always just been one theory in an endless sea of them about Stavros. In a pentagram hide, you must uncover each of the external points to find what is hidden in the middle—and where it is hidden. And in this case, who.”
“Stavros.”
Asafa tapped the page. “The intersections are the doorways to the center. Which means there are corridors between the seal endpoints and the doors.” His fingers slid along the paths. “These are the routes that have to be taken, if part of the pentagram still stands.”
“We finish Verisetti's work,” Mike said. “Destroy the points. Expose him.”
“Exposure will not be easy, even with all points destroyed. There will be a flipside, somewhere, even in the end,” Axer said. “Just like in the Basement—a replication of the interior seal.”