Page 46 of The Tribes of Magic (Paragons #3)

BLACKOUT

A s soon as I returned to Metamorph training, I got the sense Rhett and his buddies were up to something, and sure enough, they collectively tackled me on the first exercise.

I woke up in my bed a few hours later with no idea of how I’d gotten there.

All I knew was I’d missed most of the day’s training.

I jumped out of bed, heading for the door, steeling myself to give those bullies a piece of my mind. I threw open the door and found Kato on my doorstep.

“You look upset,” he said.

“That’s because I am upset.”

He came inside. We sat together on the sofa, and I told him what had happened in training today.

When I was done, all he said was, “You’re certainly popular.”

I blinked in surprise. Sarcasm wasn’t something I heard often from Kato. Maybe it was the surprise that cooled my anger. Or maybe it was the realization that he was teasing me. Kato didn’t tease anyone. I decided I liked that new flavor on him.

So I returned the teasing in kind—along with a big smile. “It’s pretty awesome to see my influence is rubbing off on you.”

“Oh, yes,” he said drily. “Awesome.”

Conner spontaneously popped up in my living room. “Sorry to interrupt…this. Do you want me to come back later?” He watched me struggle to stand back up, which included lots of huffing and puffing. “Or do you need someone to give you mouth-to-mouth?” His eyes lit up with mischief.

I threw a pillow at his head. My aim was so bad, he had to lunge to catch it.

“Are you all right?” Kato asked me.

“Much better than I was before. I wonder who brought me back here after I backed out.”

“Jareth brought you to Killjoy, who healed your injuries, then called me. I brought you home.”

“Thanks.” I smiled at Kato.

He returned the smile. “No problem.”

Conner sat down next to me on the sofa. “You really should take more care when training with Metamorphs, Red.”

“They’re not Metamorphs yet.”

“Which means they can only get stronger.”

I sighed and let him tell me how to deal with aggressive opponents, particularly groups of aggressive opponents who tried to gang up on me.

“Well, this is fun, but we really should be getting down to business,” Conner said.

“Business?”

“The reason Kato and I are here.”

“Which is?”

“The General.”

I looked at Kato. “Did you find anything in your search of the Castle’s Records Room?”

“Nothing to link any specific Knight to the missing Apprentices. Honestly, I don’t think there’s anything to find. No Knight would do such a heinous thing.”

“But maybe one of the Apprentices did.” Conner looked at me. “The spy saw you with the Paragons’ spellbook. Both Knights and Apprentices had breakfast at the Castle that day.”

“Yes.”

“It has to be someone close to you.”

I didn’t like where this was going. “You think one of my friends is spying on me for the General?”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

“Which is?”

“Ask them. In my capacity as Scary Rebel Leader, I volunteer to kidnap all of your friends and frighten the truth out of them.”

Kato humphed. “She was looking for serious suggestions, Conner.”

“I was being serious.”

“I don’t want to frighten my friends,” I said. “What if they’re innocent?”

“Then they have nothing to fear.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Conner, but the Rebels don’t exactly have the gentlest touch when it comes to interrogating suspects. Just last week, your buddies kidnapped me and tried to set me on fire.”

“They were acting like idiots. I wouldn’t do that.”

“Act like an idiot?” Kato asked, amused.

“Hurt anyone. I’ll be careful, Red. I promise.”

“I believe that you don’t want to hurt anyone, but what if during the questioning, they get scared, try to escape, and get hurt?”

“There’s another problem with kidnapping Apprentices,” Kato told him.

“Think about how suspicious the General got of Savannah after you kidnapped her. If all of her friends were kidnapped by the Rebels too, the General would be sure Savannah is involved with the Rebellion. And then he’d lock her up. Do you want that to happen to her?”

Conner’s chest deflated, and all the humor went out of his eyes. “You know I don’t. Ok, fine, do you have a better suggestion?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What if she slips them a truth potion? Then we can question them without scaring them.”

“You want me to drug my friends?” I shook my head. “No, absolutely not. I can’t do that.”

“One of your friends might be betraying you,” Conner pointed out. “You are well within your rights to figure out who it is.”

“And what about all my true friends I’d be hurting in the process?”

“Drinking a truth potion doesn’t hurt. And the effects are temporary. After an hour or so, it will pass right out of their systems.”

“The truth does hurt, Conner. What happens after the questioning? I’ll have to admit to them that I didn’t trust them enough, so I slipped them magical herbs to test their loyalty!”

“You make things much harder on yourself than necessary.”

“The right path is often the hard one.”

“Remind me never to let you plan any battle strategies.”

I grinned at Conner. “You really should include me in your battlefield discussions. Your enemies will never know what hit them.”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t,” he laughed. “People often underestimate you.”

“Rhett certainly did,” Kato said.

“A big, hulking Apprentice being knocked on his butt by our little firecracker girl?” Conner snickered. “I wish I could have been there to see that.”

“Yes,” Kato agreed.

“It was pretty epic. Though I could have done without his revenge.” I rubbed my head.

“Full-throttle Metamorphs are easy to handle if you know how,” Conner told me. “They’re like dogs. Or wolves. There’s a lot of posturing and sorting out the alpha. This Rhett Wilson fellow sounds like an alpha wannabe. Just knock him down to show him who’s boss, and he’ll not bother you anymore.”

“I can’t believe you’re suggesting that I walk up to him out of the blue and punch him.”

Conner gave me a long, dramatic eye roll. “Of course I’m not suggesting that . You need to make the knock-down look like you were only defending yourself.”

“How?”

Conner considered my question. “He’s not a nice person. Provoke him. When he attacks you, which he totally will, then you knock him down. No one could blame you for that.”

“That could work,” Kato agreed.

Those comments scored them both a horrified look.

“I am not going to solve my problems with violence.”

Conner glanced at Kato. “Uh, she does realize she’s training to be a Knight, right?”

“Knights are chivalrous, heroic, and merciful,” I said.

“It’s easy to be chivalrous, heroic, and merciful when you carry around a big, fat sword,” Conner purred.

“I don’t carry around a sword.”

“It’s a figure of speech, Red. Your magic is your sword.” He waved his hand at Kato. “Back me up here.”

“Just nod and smile, Seven, and he’ll eventually stop talking,” Kato told me. “That’s what I do.”

I snorted.

Conner pretended to shoot Kato the evil eye. And Kato pretended to be offended.

“Ok, how about we put all discussions of punching people on hold and return to the matter at hand?”

“The General.” Conner’s good mood popped like a balloon. “And the General’s evil schemes. Come on, we know he’s involved in the kidnappings. He’s in charge of the Castle. He has access to all information on every Apprentice. He knows what they can do, where they’ll be, when they’ll be there…”

Kato frowned. “We cannot prove the General is not responsible for the missing Apprentices. But we can’t disprove it either.”

“Sure we can.”

Kato and I both looked at Conner.

“The proof is there,” he told us. “All we have to do is search the General’s office in the Black Obelisk.”

“That’s easier said than done, Conner,” Kato said. “The Black Obelisk is very well guarded.”

“Usually, that’s true, yes. But not tonight.”

“Tonight?” I frowned. “What’s tonight?”

“The highly-anticipated performance of Portia and the Circus of Dreams . For this night only, the General is sure to be away from his office for hours, and he’ll have a good number of his soldiers with him too. The Black Obelisk’s going to be as vulnerable as it gets. That’s when we make our move.”

“You want to break into the Black Obelisk and search the General’s office?” Kato tried to keep his tone level, but he was clearly shocked.

“Yes, I want to break into the Black Obelisk and search the General’s office,” Conner confirmed. “But only if you come with me.”

Kato sat on one of the sofa arms. “You’re insane.”

“Well, yeah. Obviously. But I’m also right. This is our best—maybe our only —chance of looking through all the General’s secret files. The General and many of his soldiers will be out. The Black Obelisk will be vulnerable.”

“The Black Obelisk will be under lockdown.”

Conner waved Kato’s concerns away. “We can handle a few automated defenses.”

“There are a lot more than just a few defenses. The Alchemists have spent the whole week upgrading the Black Obelisk’s defenses, which was your idea, by the way.”

“But as a Knight Commander, I’m sure you know how to deactivate those defenses.”

“No chance. The General doesn’t trust the Knights that much. He let us install the defenses, but then he changed all the codes.”

“If you can’t turn off the defenses, maybe we can overpower them?”

Kato gave him a wry smile. “Only if you want to spend a few hours bombarding the Black Obelisk with magic. Do you think the Watchers will notice?”

“The General really does ruin everything.” Conner frowned.

But I had an idea. “If we can’t turn off the defenses and we can’t overpower them, maybe we can go around them.”

They both looked at me.

“What do you suggest?” Kato asked.

“I had a good look at the Alchemists’ defensive upgrades, and besides the front gate and the front door, they all appeared to be inside the building itself.”

“There’s also an anti-invisibility, anti-teleportation field around the whole Black Obelisk. The Alchemists installed that today.”

“But there aren’t any defenses on the outside of the building itself?” I asked Kato.

“No.”

“So that’s our way in.”

Conner laughed. “I’m all for crazy plans, Red, but if we can’t teleport in and we can’t make ourselves invisible, we might have a problem getting to the General’s office.

I mean, unless you’re suggesting we get someone to airdrop us onto the building and we climb over to the General’s office and enter it from the outside. ”

“That is exactly what I’m suggesting.”

“That’s an insane plan.” Conner laughed again. “I’m in.”

We looked at Kato.

“You’re right, Conner,” he said. “It is an insane plan.”

“But it will work.”

“It’s dangerous, and it will be tricky finding something suitable to airdrop us onto the building. Not to mention what will happen if anyone sees us.”

“But it will work.”

Kato sighed. “Yes, Conner. I think it will work.”

“Then it’s settled.” Conner headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Kato asked.

Conner glanced back at us. “To arrange transport.”