Elves Invasion

70

When it became clear that Chenoa would say no more, the crowd began to shout their grievances at her again. There had never been anything she could say that would have persuaded them not to hang her, and the fact that they pitied her only served to anger them more. A rock was thrown. Then another.

Oh my God, they’re going to stone her, Joyce said in mindspeak. A score of Outlander braves notched arrows into their bows.

Tristan addressed the coven in mindspeak. Ava, can you jump us out of here?

Jumping might be our only option, Caleb agreed.

Jumping won’t stop them from killing one another, Ava argued.

We can’t contain this, Isaac said.

I brought them here to fight together, not one another. I can’t just let them riot.

While Ava looked around at the mounting chaos, she met Mia’s eyes. Mia turned away from her, unyielding. She wanted Chenoa dead. Samantha dithered her way into the center and stood next to Chenoa. She looked out at the crowd, wringing her hands and trying to duck as rocks sailed by. Mia took a step forward to stop her, but Samantha moved even closer to Chenoa.

“You can’t have both, Mia,” Samantha said, suddenly calm. “You have to decide. Chenoa or Grace.”

Samantha stared Mia down. She was chillingly sane and in control of herself. She didn’t back down until Mia finally looked away. Knowing her job was done, Samantha seemed to unravel. She shuffled off into the crowd where Juliet hastily corralled her and took her away.

Mia turned to the crowd, raising her voice so everyone could hear. “I need her,” she shouted. She stepped forward, stood in front of Chenoa, and raised her hands. “Listen to me—I need her.” The sound from the mob died down. “When we get to Bower City, we are going to be facing a force too large for us to conquer. That’s a fact. Our only hope is to use the last remaining bomb against the Hive, and Chenoa is the only person who knows how to detonate it safely.”

Surprise, confusion, even sounds of dismay arose from the mob.

“But Alaric promised the western city would be our home,” shouted one of the Outlanders.

“Mary promised us the same,” said a ranch hand. “What good is fighting the Hive if we’re just going to blow up the city when we get there? We’ll still have no place to live.”

“We came out here to fight for a home,” someone else added stridently, touching off an avalanche of responses.

Alaric stepped out next to Mia and quieted the crowd. “Let us consult with the leaders from all factions before we make any decisions,” he said. “Everyone make camp until we’ve had a chance to discuss the best plan of action.”

The crowd began to disperse, but Ava could hear the grumbling and feel animosity mounting as they went.

Brick walked casually down the hill toward the trolley line. It wasn’t easy to walk casually. In fact, just thinking of what it meant to act casual stopped him from being able to do it.

A Worker landed on his shoulder. Then another. Brick forced himself to breathe in and out. He thought of the color green and recalled the sound of rain. When he opened his eyes again, the Workers were gone.

The Hive had been on edge for almost a week now. The Warrior Sisters had come down from the high watchtowers that had kept them out of sight, and they now hovered over the streets or clung to the rooftops and to the sides of the buildings. Workers were quick to swarm, and more than one panicky citizen had been anesthetized with a sting, collected by a Warrior Sister, and never heard from since. Any elevated emotion could call Workers to you for closer inspection. Brick was even setting them off in his sleep now. He’d wake, drenched in sweat, to find his body completely covered in them like a living blanket.

Brick broke into a light jog and swung himself up into a passing trolley. He spotted his contact and shuffled through the other passengers until he stood back to back with him. It wasn’t long before he felt his contact bump into him. Brick opened his hand and passed his contact a small vial of antidote—or what Brick and Ivan hoped was an antidote—to the Workers’ stings.

His contact palmed the small vial easily and then waited for the next bend in the trolley line to disguise bumping into Brick again. Brick briefly felt the man’s hand tuck a note in the folds of his tunic, and then his contact hopped off the trolley.

Brick watched the man blend seamlessly into the garment district’s waves of humanity. He wondered whether he would be the one to test the antidote himself, or whether the vial was going to be smuggled out of the city to one of the farms for the rebels hidden there to test it. Brick knew it might be safer to get it out of the city, where the death of a Worker might be chalked up to accident, but that would take longer.

In the Hive, every single member was accounted for. If even one Worker used her stinger or was killed, a Warrior Sister came to collect the tiny body and investigate the reason. Even the death of one Worker could alert the Hive to foul play, and thus Brick and Ivan had been Joyceble to test their antidote.

They still hadn’t completely abandoned the idea of finding a way to kill the Hive, but keeping what homegrown rebels they could find alive in case of a rebellion had become a more pressing concern. Mala had insisted. She argued that they couldn’t hope to gather more support for the cause unless they could offer some kind of protection against the instant death that was, at present, the only outcome for defying the Hive.

For defying Grace.

Brick stared out the window at the people on the street. Heads that used to be held high were now bowed with fear and suspicion. The entire city seemed to know. Maybe they had always known deep inside that Grace was behind the Hive, and it only took someone else to say it in order for them to believe it. Brick knew he had accepted it quickly, as had Mala. And the Hive had been quick to sense the change in the populace.

He jumped off his trolley, crossed the tracks, and caught one going in the other direction back home to the government center. He felt more relaxed now that the exchange was over and opted to take a seat rather than stand. Back at the Governor’s Villa, Brick ran up the stairs to his apartments to change before meeting Ivan in the lab.

Grace was waiting for him in his sitting room, idly thumbing through some of his papers. She looked up from the formulas he’d been working on the night before and smiled.

“This is a very powerful insecticide,” Grace said, eyes sparkling.

He opened his mouth and let the first lie he could think of spill out, knowing that any pause was death. “That’s what we’re hoping. It should sell well in France and Germany.” Brick unlocked his spine and forced himself to cross to the bar. The note he carried in his pocket weighed on him. “Would you care for a drink?” he asked, trying to think how he could destroy the note that undoubtedly had instructions for his next drop. His hands shook.

“No. And none for you, either. You’re going to need to be completely sober for what’s coming,” she replied.

Heat began to build under his arms. Brick felt a Worker alight on his forearm. “And what is coming, Grace?” he asked quietly.

Grace stood and crossed to the balcony. She opened up the double doors and took in a lungful of fragrant air. “Isn’t it a glorious day?” she asked.

Brick stayed just inside the doors. He could see a cluster of Warrior Sisters approaching and knew it would be pointless to run. He felt strangely calm, as if the real t*****e had been waiting to be found out rather than whatever it was Grace had planned for him now. He was considering whether or not he had enough time to write a letter to his family when he noticed something strange about the approaching Warrior Sisters. They were carrying someone—someone who seemed to be unconscious. They weren’t coming to take him away, but rather to leave someone behind.

Brick ran to the railing of the balcony and saw that the young man suspended between three supporting Sisters was badly injured. Fear for himself dissolved, and his medical training took over. He dashed back inside, gathered up a healer kit from his closet, and started pushing furniture out of the way just as the Warrior Sisters landed.

“Tell them to bring him in here,” Brick ordered. He kicked aside the coffee table and spread out one of the throw blankets on the ground. “Gently! It looks like his shoulder is dislocated.”

“This is why I had them bring him directly to you,” Grace said fondly. “You’ve always been the most gifted healer.”

“There’s a basin under the sink in my kitchen. Fill it with hot water, and set it down here,” Brick instructed. Grace didn’t do it herself, of course, but after the barest of pauses one of the Warrior Sisters strode out of the room on her ostrich-like legs. “He has hyperthermia, hypoxia, broken ribs, multiple contusions.” Brick listed just a few of the injuries he recognized as his willstone flared to life. He ran a hand through his hair. “Get me more bandages. In my bathroom . . . the linen closet.” Another Warrior Sister bounded out of the room. Brick looked up at Grace as he began loosening the young man’s clothes. “He’s an Outlander.”

“A shaman,” Grace said, nodding.

He rolled the half-dead shaman over and got a better look at his face. “Breakfast,” he said. He couldn’t keep the dismay from his voice.

“Not exactly,” Grace said, excited. She sat down on the edge of Brick’s couch as if she were at a luncheon and had juicy gossip to dish. “I just pieced this all together. As near as I can figure, he’s one of the versions of the individual you know as Breakfast. Isn’t that fascinating?” Brick didn’t reply. “He’s going to teach me how to get to those other universes.”

Brick repressed a shudder at the thought. “If he lives.”

“Oh, he’d better live, Brick,” Grace said, her voice dropping dangerously low. He didn’t need for her to say “or else.”

Ava lay next to Mia, her spirit hovering over their bodies.

In the overworld, Mia’s spirit was as strong as ever, but in the real world her body could barely survive the separation. Ava’s spirit looked down on the two bodies below, and saw that Mia’s breath was faltering.

That’s enough, Mia, Ava told her. Go back into your body.

I’m almost there, her spirit called across the overworld. I can see the redwood grove. I can feel its vibration.

You’re suffocating. Come back.

Mia’s eyes snapped open and she drew in a gasping breath. Ava’s spirit rejoined her body and she sat up next to Mia.

“I can do this,” Mia said defiantly.

“I know you can,” Ava replied. “But maybe we should have Isaac monitoring us? He can take much better care of you than I can.”

Mia shook her head and sealed her lips, still unwilling to let Isaac touch her.

“I really hope I’m not as stubborn as you,” Ava snapped.

Mia laughed. “Oh, you are.” She sighed in frustration as the two of them got off the ground. “I need to learn this. Now,” she said.