“Look for yourself,” Remi says. “But be sneaky about it, you know?”
Ania scoots to the edge of the alcove and leans her head out just a little bit, then jerks back.
“Why are the police crawling all over your apartment building? How could they have IDed us that quickly?”
My stomach drops through the floor. No. No, no, NO, we love that flat. We busted our asses to get reassigned there two years ago, and for us to get run out of there is our worst nightmare. All my gear is there, and Remi’s maz stash, and Jaesin’s cookware that he saved for months to buy at the thrift store. They’ll confiscate everything. They’ll never let us go back. Because if there are cops there, then we were obviously seen leaving the park, so they know we caused the rupture, so they’re out to arrest us, and—
The cops interrupt my spiral by hauling one of the guys from the fourth floor out with his hands cuffed. Benny, I think? He’s cursing his face off, his face gone completely red and splotchy. I can’t catch the specifics, but in between the swearing I hear something about drugs theft. Several plainclothes officers enter the building as soon as he’s gone, carrying large cases of equipment. Obviously settling in for a nice, long session of evidence collection. Just not in our apartment.
I blow out a long breath. “Okay. So maybe they aren’t on to us specifically, but we still can’t go home with the cops crawling all over the place.”
Jaesin nods. “We have to assume we were seen and our faces are going to be painted across every newsfeed and signscreen in town eventually. Where can we go to lie low for a while and figure out what to do next?”
I turn to Ania with a raised eyebrow. “Any chance your parents want some criminal houseguests?”
All the blood drains from her face.
“Oh god, my parents.” She covers her eyes and shakes her head. “If the cops ID us, do you think they’ll tell my parents even though I’m eighteen? They’re gonna kill me, I’m gonna lose my spot at the university—”
A faint buzz sounds, and Ania’s eyes go wide as she focuses on something in her lenses. She pulls her deck from her back pocket and flips the screen around to show us the notification: 1 new message from Mom. She looks about ready to throw up. I take a step back.
“What does it say?” Remi asks.
Ania takes a deep breath, and her throat moves as she subvocalizes the command to open the message on her lenses. She reads it aloud.
“‘Hi, sweetie, please pick up some cassava on your way home. Not sure where you’re at today, but avoid the western routes near the edge of town. Some kind of maz leak over there today, and we’ve had several new cases of spellsickness at the hospital. It’s all over the news, some big hunt going on for four fugitives. Be careful. See you tonight, love you.’”
I firmly block out the bit about spellsickness and focus on the rest. “You think she’s playing it casual to try to get you to come home?”
Ania snorts. “My mom couldn’t be sneaky if she tried. She honestly has no idea. My house might be an option after all.”
“Give me a minute to check the news. We should know what people are saying about all this,” I say, and call up a new search on my lenses. I can feel Remi’s eyes on me, cold and expectant. “Kyrkarta, news only, last three hours . . . Hey, apparently Seph’s Appliances down in the Crater is having a scratch-and-dent sale because of the earthquake, and Councilman Blake got caught with his pants down again. Shocking.”
“Focus, Diz,” Jaesin growls, and I wave him off.
“I’ve got it, I just had to sift through all the crap first. Here. ‘The disaster is thought to have been triggered by an illegal maz-siphoning operation. Kyrkarta City Law has begun a search for four suspects, whose names and faces have not yet been released so as not to compromise the ongoing investigation. Up-to-date information can be found on the Law’s net site, along with a form for submitting your tips. The death toll has not been confirmed at this time, but emergency responders on-site say the number will be in the hundreds. Meanwhile, Maz Management has stepped in to contain the disaster and lend a hand to the community in a gesture reminiscent of the early days of the spellplague, with volunteer efforts . . .’”
Death toll.
My throat closes up, cutting off the last of my words. My memories of the hack play again and again, a constant spiral in the back of my mind. Where did I go wrong? I swear I did everything right, but I must have screwed up somehow, I must have.
Ania doesn’t notice my sudden mental departure. She just sighs in relief. “Okay, so they haven’t named any of us yet. If we can sneak you all in, I should be able to hide you for a while. At least, long enough for us to figure out what to do next. I have my own room in the basement, and my parents rarely come down there anymore.”
“And you’ve never taken your scrub friends home to meet Mommy and Daddy,” I can’t help but add. “So they won’t recognize us even if they do eventually show our faces on the news. Good. We have a plan, then.”
“Whoa, whoa, wait up,” Ania says. “We still have to get you all to my house without being seen, then get you inside. It might be . . . you know . . .”
She hesitates, and all the mixed-up, messed-up, roiling anger and everything inside me comes out in a fearsome glare.
“I’m going to kindly assume you were going to say that it’s not smart for us to walk around showing our faces openly, not that our broke-ass selves will stick out like sunnaz in a shit storm in your neighborhood.”
Ania winces and turns her back to the road to hide the faint glow of her maz as she begins to weave.
“Let’s just use some concealment spells, okay?”
I take the offered spell wordlessly and crumple it over my head, watching the faint purple-black sparks drift to the ground like embers of burning paper.
I wish there was such a thing as a concealment spell for your own thoughts. I have it together for now, but the threads are fraying, the awfulness lying just below the surface, watching. Waiting.
Death toll, they said.
The barest crack in the surface is all it will take.
Ten
WHEN ANIA SAID HER ROOM was in the basement, she should have said “rooms.” And when she said basement, she should have said “luxury apartment suite that happens to be on an underground level and yet still manages to be just as nice as the rest of the house that we weren’t allowed a tour of.” I’ve known her for six years and this is the first time I’ve seen any of it.
The walls are painted a cool, relaxing blue, the same color as the water maz Ania’s family is named for. The bel Wataza family crest is framed on the wall, next to a string-woven tapestry of their home city back on the Small Continent, near where my dad grew up. The room holds two sleek, modern couches in clean white, accented with a brighter, more vivid blue, with end tables sporting carved sculptures and drink coasters. Gauzy curtains hang over the windows, and light fixtures adorn nearly every wall and surface. It’s so bright I never would have guessed it’s mostly underground. The front room is bigger than our entire flat.
I’m not bitter. Really.
“So, what are we not allowed to touch and where are we allowed to sleep?” I sneer, then mentally slap myself. Everyone is stressed. This isn’t the time to harass Ania about her fanciness.