Page 36

Chapter 36

CSAMM’s Darkest Corners

“ H ow are Sophia and Oaklyn still standing?” I shout as we race back to the lobby, fear turning my voice raw. “We outnumber them, and only one has full magical abilities!”

“Sophia’s power is… concerning,” Natalie replies, her mouth turned down. “But people with brains like hers tend to become powerful witches, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. More importantly, they’re fighting dirty.”

As we burst through the crumbling barricade and back into the lounge, it’s clear what she means. Everything from the stone chimney to the willow tree in the corner is in shambles, smoke rising into the air. I cover my mouth, my eyes burning. Something about the broken, splintered tree, with its beautiful green leaves sprawled across the bookshelves and bean bags, puts a lump in my throat. That the Madsens would destroy so much in the name of getting to magic…

But more people have arrived, and it’s the glimmer of hope we need. Sky, Hayley, Neil, and the other Shadows stand with the others, fists clenched, expressions fierce. My heart lifts to see them all .

I scan the crowd, a chill sweeping over me. “Where are the Madsens? And Sebastian and Millie?”

Natalie shakes her head slowly. The room is a haze, debris obscuring the air like fog.

They’re nowhere to be found.

My stomach churns at the memory of Sebastian’s mangled arm. Please be okay.

Sky shouts orders. “Hayley, take four people down the Alchemy wing. Neil, Chambers…”

Group by group, the Shadows and Alchemists take off down the corridors.

And once again, our team breaks apart. A chill ripples down my spine as the crowd in the lounge dwindles, leaving only Fiona, Agnes, Amir, and Sky. “I don’t like this,” I murmur. CSAMM’s vastness, the maze of halls… It all feels like a giant security problem.

As we approach, Fiona addresses Natalie, her face smeared with dirt and blood. “They scattered. Did you lose Freddie?”

My breath catches, his name already haunting me. The image of his body is right there as if imprinted on my eyelids, his blood splattered across the stone floor, his eyes glassy.

“He’s dead,” Natalie says.

Sky’s mouth falls open.

“It was an act of self-defense,” Natalie adds firmly.

Through the brain fog, I recall her explaining how complex laws prevent members of CSAMM from harming ordinary people. She’s protecting me from their justice system—from the consequences of my actions. I won’t get a thank-you for what I’ve done, nor do I deserve it. I shudder and fold my arms over my stomach as if to hold myself together.

“Well, we’ve lost the others,” Fiona says, her voice tight with frustration. “Sophia raised a cloud of dust, and they vanished behind it. They’ve likely split up in the corridors in search of you-know-what. ”

“Or they’re waiting for the chance to capture Fiona,” Sky says. “They clearly want to question her, and—”

“And what about the other Directors?” Agnes snaps. “Are we not important too?”

Sky rolls her eyes. “They don’t seem to know who else is a Director. So unless you’re willing to volunteer yourself as someone who has the information they’re after, I suggest you shut up.”

I step forward, my heart pounding. Enough beating around the bush. “We should be focusing our efforts. Forming a defensive barrier in front of the bio magic. Fiona, where’s it kept?”

Fiona and Amir stiffen. Sky grimaces.

Agnes’s face turns a blotchy pink, and her eyes narrow to slits. “That is classified !”

“This isn’t the time for secrets,” I argue. “We have to know where it is if we want to protect it!”

Agnes steps closer. “How do we know you don’t want to help them get it? Someone’s been feeding them information, in case you didn’t realiz—”

Abruptly, she’s launched backward, her cry echoing beneath the cavernous ceiling. Roots wrap around her throat, midsection, and limbs, yanking her away from us. She roars and thrashes, but with her hands engulfed, she can’t do magic.

The dust and debris clears, revealing Sophia and Oaklyn. Every inch of their skin is scratched and bruised, Sophia’s hair is tangled and singed, and their clothes are torn and covered in blood. This fight has taken its toll, but they aren’t giving up.

Natalie, Sky, Amir, and Fiona launch attacks, but the Madsens are quick to retaliate, blocking anything from hitting them.

“Tell me you’re lying,” Oaklyn snarls. “Tell me Freddie isn’t dead.”

Fiona looks my way, inviting all eyes to fall onto me. I shiver, my throat too tight to let me speak. If I tell the truth, will they snap and kill Agnes? I’ve already got one person’s blood on my hands today. I can’t handle another.

“He is,” Natalie says, palms up, ready to fight. “And it’s no one’s fault but your own.”

Oaklyn trembles, a glint of tears in her eyes. She turns to her mother, her chest heaving. “We can still save him. The bio magic.”

I don’t know enough about magic to know whether this is true—whether they can bring him back to life. But if they’re mistaken, nobody corrects them.

“We just—need—directions to it,” Sophia says through gritted teeth.

Agnes whimpers, suspended upside down beside Oaklyn, all her earlier bravado evaporating.

“Care to share where you hoard your magic, Miss Director ?” Sophia yells, her eyes wild. “Or would anyone in the audience like to step forward and spare her life?”

“D-don’t kill me,” Agnes squeaks.

“Talk, then,” Oaklyn snaps, and Agnes squeaks as the roots groan and tighten around her.

Fiona swears under her breath.

“Don’t say a thing, Agnes!” Amir shouts—and there’s no mistaking the panic in his tone.

They’re afraid Agnes is going to crack.

Natalie’s eyes reflect the fear rocketing through my chest. If Agnes tells them, will we be able to stop them from getting it? They’ll gain access to mind control, telepathy, shapeshifting, and God knows what else. And while there might be some good people who would only use this power for saving lives, for acts of charity, for world peace… I know with absolute certainty that the Madsens are not those people.

As if reading my thoughts, Oaklyn’s eyes find mine, and her expression is so icy that I shiver.

“You and I,” she says, her voice just loud enough to hear over the din, “are going to have so much fun once I take some bio magic.”

Nausea fills me, my mouth going dry. I don’t want to think of what sort of torture is possible with that power—how she’ll be able to control me, to hurt me, to make me beg for her to stop and wish I’d never killed Freddie. And she’ll probably do the same to Natalie.

We need to stop them from seizing bio magic, no matter what it takes.

“Natalie,” I whisper, “what do we do if Agnes tells them where it is?”

No answer. Her brow is pinched, her breaths heaving. She doesn’t know.

Nobody around me seems willing to admit how close the Madsens are to taking bio magic. Maybe they’re overconfident in their abilities, or maybe they’re underestimating what the Madsens can do. Maybe they just haven’t been attacked by the Madsens like I have—all the kidnapping attempts, the curse delivered to my door, the conversations with Freddie. Could I be the only one who fully comprehends how sinister these people are? The only one who understands how dangerously close they are to getting what they came for?

Call it instinct or intuition, but I feel it deep within me that I need to get to the bio magic first. And though the Directors won’t share where magic is stored, that doesn’t mean I can’t find it on my own.

Trusting my gut, I let my gaze pull like a magnet toward the corridor marked Library . It’s needled me since I arrived, that strange, beckoning call from the depths of the building.

That has to be it.

I clench my fists, a plan forming.

“Natalie,” I whisper, my voice barely a breath. “Distract them.”

Her eyes snap to me, wide with alarm. “Don’t. Whatever you’re about to do—”

“We don’t have a choice. They’re going to find it, and you know it.”

She opens her mouth, but no sound comes out .

Agnes’s pleading drifts through the room, a reminder that we can’t afford to waste another second.

I back up, preparing to break into a run. I give Natalie a look that says, I’m going whether you help me or not .

She swears under her breath and extends a hand, raising a cloud of dust. Shattered brick, wood splinters, and upholstery swirl like a tornado, obscuring my view of the Madsens.

I seize my chance and take off, hurtling toward the Library corridor. My pulse throbs in my ears, adrenaline surging through my veins like fire.

Thumps and crashes rise as a fight breaks out behind me.

Agnes’s desperate voice rises above the rest. “Stop! I’ll talk!”

My stomach clenches with dread. She’s going to crack. We’re out of time.

Footsteps pound at my back, and my heart jolts with fear before a familiar voice calls out.

“Keep going!” Natalie shouts. “I’m coming with.”

Relief floods through me. The fact that she’s following and trusting my plan instead of forcing me to stop is the vote of confidence I need.

As we race deeper into the corridor, the tug inside me grows stronger, urging me onward. Magic shifts around me like enormous lungs expanding and contracting.

At a four-way intersection, I pause and close my eyes, reaching out with my other senses.

Come on. Tell me which way.

Natalie’s heaving breaths are the only sound as she waits for my decision, her steady presence acting as my anchor.

I walk a circle, paying attention to the static-like prickle on my arms and the urgency constricting my chest.

Thunder roars through the hall, shouts growing closer. People are following.

“You can do it,” Natalie says. “Listen to your intuition. ”

I nod, slowing my breath and concentrating on the sensations in my body. The magic is right there, a whisper I can barely hear.

“Left,” I say, the word coming to my lips automatically.

I follow the pull around a curve. More intersections take me right, then straight, then straight again, each decision easier than the last. I’m deeper into the building than ever before, the labyrinth disorienting me until I don’t know which way is out.

Finally, the pull gets so strong that a tremor passes through me.

“It’s here. Right around this corner.”

We arrive at an arched metal door, and I stop, my breath catching. Criss-crossed and swirling designs cover the door from top to bottom, gleaming in the corridor’s dim lamplight. Vines and small purple flowers creep along the wall and surround the frame, threatening to overtake the door. The iron handle serpentines like the letter S, its 45-degree angle suggesting it needs to be twisted upright to disengage the lock.

This is it. This is where bio magic is stored.

Before I can approach it, footsteps echo in the corridor behind Natalie, and we whirl around.

No. Already?

Natalie moves in front of me, her shoulders tensing, her hands up and ready to fight. Her body is a shield, protecting me as resolutely as ever from whatever danger is approaching.

Two people round the corner and stop, breathing hard.

Relief floods through me at the familiar faces.

“Sebastian! Millie!” I cry. “I was worried—”

“Open the door,” Millie says sharply. She steps closer, a wild glint in her eyes. “Did you get access, Natalie?”

Sebastian reaches for her and rests a hand on her shoulder, his expression grim. His arm is mangled and bloody from Wyatt’s attack, and he’s severed his robe at the bottom to make a bandage .

Natalie drops her hands, furrowing her brow at the pair of them. “No. What are you doing here?”

“We were searching the wing and saw you run past,” Sebastian says.

I study the lock. “We came here because the Madsens are about to find this room. We have one last chance to stop them from taking what’s ins—”

“Look, I don’t give a shit what you do and who gets access to it,” Millie snaps. “Just open the door. It’s why you came here, isn’t it?”

Sebastian tightens his grip on her shoulder and addresses me, his brow furrowed. “Do what she says.”

I blink, bewildered. “I don’t—I can’t—”

“What’s going on?” Natalie demands.

“You have the gall to ask me that?” Millie hisses. She swipes a hand over her head and rips off her blonde wig, revealing her bald scalp—the reminder of her chemotherapy treatments. “I’ve suffered for long enough when the cure is right here in the goddamned building. Health and happiness are on the other side of that door, Natalie. Now will you please open it .” Her voice breaks, and she clenches her fists, her eyes reddening as tears threaten to spill.

My eyes prickle. I don’t know what to say. The cure is on the other side of the door—bio magic, the means to restore her health, to mend the bite on Sebastian’s arm, even to stop the searing pain in my ankle. I can’t imagine the suffering Millie has endured, knowing what’s hiding within the walls of this building. And Sebastian, knowing he could fix his wife’s pain if he threw aside his oath and duties in order to break into this room.

Shouts mingle in the distance. A thunder of footsteps drifts closer. The walls rumble with earth magic.

They’re coming.

I clench my fists, and the gauntlet presses against my knuckles—like a message from Natalie’s mother beyond the grave .

“Natalie,” I say, my words sharp. “When bio magic is free—feral—is it hard to capture?”

She hesitates, eyeing me warily. “Nearly impossible. That’s why we have Trackers. They spend their whole lives hunting it down all over the world.”

I nod firmly. “Good.”

The next step in my plan illuminates, as clear and bright as a bolt of lightning.

There are two evils ahead: one in which the Madsens corner us, break into the room, and get what they came for… and the other in which bio magic is set loose, feral once more, where nobody can catch it.

Before Natalie can stop me, I spin and raise my fist, lining up the gauntlet with the serpentine door handle. With a grunt, I smash it as hard as I can, the impact reverberating up my arm.

CRACK!

A fissure appears in the handle, the iron splintering under the force of the blow.

“Katie!” Natalie shouts.

I hit it again. The handle clatters to the floor, the sound echoing.

Millie’s breath hitches. She leans forward as if ready to kick the door open and seize the power that’s been denied to her for so long.

I meet Natalie’s eyes, more certain than I’ve been all day. “They’re not going to give up until they’ve taken what’s in this room. We have to set it loose so they can’t steal it.”

She looks past me at the door, panic crossing her face. “It took over a century to contain all this!”

“Exactly. If it’s feral, they won’t catch it—but if it’s here, it’s easy to take, and you know how this will end.”

Natalie, Sebastian, and Millie exchange a look, their chests heaving as this monumental decision hangs between us.

Natalie says nothing. She has no argument .

My heart skips a beat. I’m doing this, then. I’m going to undo a century of work in order to prevent deadly power from falling into the Madsens’ hands.

“And you’ll give me some before freeing it,” Millie says—a statement, not a question. “Just to heal myself. I swear.”

I look at Natalie, knowing what I want but unsure what this would mean.

“I’m not going to stop you,” she says, her words stilted.

Millie nods, satisfied.

“And we set the rest free?” I ask.

Natalie says nothing, breathing hard, holding my gaze.

“Think of what the power in this room can do in the wrong hands,” I say, stepping closer, begging her to see reason.

Her dark eyes narrow, and she clenches her fists at her sides. “Set it free.”