Distantly, the bells over the door jingled. I groaned and took another huge bite. Rare were the days when I got five minutes to eat my lunch in peace.
But the newcomer was a pleasant surprise. “Victor!” I exclaimed, hurrying forward to hug him. “It’s been a while.”
“I’ve been busy with training,” Victor said. That much was clear. Victor was a big young man who easily passed for much older than his eighteen years, but when we’d first met, he’d been on the heavy side, not quite fat, but not muscular. Now he’d slimmed down a little, replacing fat with muscle, and looked like Denzel Washington’s younger, fitter, and even more attractive brother.
“You want lunch? There’s lots of ravioli.”
“I’m good, thanks. Ate before I came.”
“Well, come on back anyway. Or—is this business?” Victor, a genetic sport like me, was a precognitive, and sometimes his talent guided him in my direction.
“I’m not sure. I got cleaned up after my workout, ate lunch, and then, instead of going back to work, I saw myself here.” He laughed. “It still feels weird that everyone at Campbell Security knows what I can do, and all I have to do is say I gotta go, and I’m gone.”
“That’s because they know you won’t abuse the privilege.” I took my seat at the break room table as Victor greeted Judy. “So—you saw yourself here? No idea why?”
“None. Hey, I heard about what happened in Georgia. Was the lady a friend of yours? I’m real sorry.”
“Thanks. She was.” A pang of sorrow shot through me, and once again I considered the possibility of talking to a therapist. But I was well-adjusted, so did I really need to? “Tell me what’s up with your team. Malcolm said you’ve been moving around a lot, getting used to different fighting styles.”
Victor beamed. “They think I’m about ready to head my own team. Has to be with some experienced fighters, because I’m not great with knives yet, but…it’s an honor.”
“I’m so excited for you!”
“That’s fast,” Judy said. “You must be making better progress than you think.”
“It’s a little weird, not being a magus,” Victor said. “Some people expect things of me because I’m naturally immune to being drained, and they forget I can’t use magic. But it’s all good. Everyone’s been cool about it.”
My phone rang. “It’s Lucia,” I said. “Hang around for a bit, will you? I want to hear more about what you’ve been doing.” I excused myself and crossed the hall to the office before answering.
“What questions do you have?” Lucia said in her usual abrupt way.
“We want to know what Ms. Suzuhara discovered about the destruction of Berryton,” I said. “We had some ideas—”
“What ideas?”
I hesitated, considered the unlikelihood of Lucia letting me control the conversation, and said, “We thought it was possible the invaders had destroyed the Fountain indirectly, not by trying to overcome its wards. Like how the Well was corrupted by the body of its custodian. Maybe that would warp the wards enough to break their protection.”
Lucia let out a short sigh. “You’re all very smart,” she said. “That’s more or less what happened. They used the Mercy’s aegis-suppression field to render all the magi vulnerable. Then Lakin was killed in a way—I won’t give you the details—”
“Thanks.”
“But her death was used to corrupt the Fountain, which warped its protections and allowed the intelligent invaders to drain the node. Then, once the magic was gone, they broke the Fountain so it wouldn’t be able to regenerate its magic.”
I shuddered, picturing the intelligent invaders I’d met smashing the Fountain’s basin, which I’d never seen. In my imagination, it was a scallop-edged fountain with water shooting out of a fish’s mouth, and that was probably totally wrong. “So how do we defend against it?”
“I don’t know.” Lucia sounded more grim than usual. “We’re working on it. Until then, I’m posting bodyguards for you and suggesting the other named Neutralities do the same for their custodians.”
I hated the idea, but it made sense. “We don’t have to shut down, do we?”
“That’s the final resort. The stronger the wards, the harder it is to warp them, and an impenetrable ward is unbreakable by any force we know, including intelligent invaders. But if we have to shut down the named Neutralities, that’s the same as if the invaders destroy them, at least so far as us getting any use out of them goes. Hang on.” Her voice became muffled, as if she’d covered the receiver and was talking to someone else. When she came back, she said, “Any other questions?”
“I…don’t think so. No, wait. Do you know how many intelligent invaders came through in Montana? Because I was wondering if they hadn’t tried this before because there weren’t enough of them.”
There was a pause. “Don’t go spreading this around,” Lucia said, her voice almost too low to hear. “We don’t know how many of the intelligent ones made it through before the Wardens shut down the node in Montana, but it wasn’t a high number. They didn’t do this through brute force. Suzuhara says the pattern of the attack is anomalous. She’s still looking into it, but her preliminary assessment is that the invaders used new tactics—a strategy of attack unlike any we’ve seen before.”
I felt a chill pass through me, even though I didn’t understand the import of her words. “Why would they do that? Other than that it let them destroy a named Neutrality.”
“We have no idea. But whatever came through in Montana, it has a different plan in mind. And that can’t be good for the Wardens.”
“No. Is that why you want to keep it secret? You don’t want to spread panic?” Between Lucia and the Board, I felt crammed to the gills with secrets I couldn’t share.
“Got it in one, Davies. But it’s not a secret that will last. Suzuhara’s investigation will be finished in a day or so, and that’s when we’ll release our information, along with an assessment of how much danger we’re all in. Gives people something to focus on that isn’t hiding inside a warded fortress.”
“I can’t not tell—”
“I’m used to your insane need to share everything with Campbell. Makes me glad I’m not married.” Lucia chuckled to let me know it was a joke. “He’s more tight-lipped than I am, so no worries on that front. And…let the other custodians know. They’re almost certainly in the most danger, and they need to know what to watch out for. Like I said, another day, maybe two, and we’ll have a plan of attack.”
“All right.” I didn’t feel nearly so certain as Lucia sounded, but then her Neutrality wasn’t in danger, so far as we knew. “I was going to ask Madeleine about the wards on the store, whether there was anything we could do to protect them against being warped.”
“Just so you don’t tell her why you have that theory, you’re fine,” Lucia said. “I’ll call you if anything changes.” She hung up.