Magisterium

12

2 Despite the warmth of the fire, a chill moved through Glenn.

Aamon was afraid of removing the bracelet from her wrist. It seemed ludicrous. What could make someone like Aamon Marta afraid?

Glenn placed her hand on the warm metal. If what her father said was true, it was the only thing that separated her from the reality of the Magisterium. The Magisterium changed Hopkins into Aamon, Glenn thought. Maybe Aamon knows what it would do to me.

Glenn opened her eyes as the first rays of sunlight came in through the window. Aamon was gone. In his place sat a tray filled with a plate of bread and cheese and a pot of tea.

Kevin still slept beneath the pile of blankets. His green Mohawk was flattened against his skull, and his usually brown skin had a waxy gray cast to it. Glenn moved closer and pulled aside the blankets. He was shirtless underneath, and he smelled of old sweat. There was no blood or swelling around his wound and Glenn was surprised to see that the edges of the puncture were already knitting together.

“Knew you wouldn’t be able to resist a peek.”

Startled, Glenn looked up and found Kevin’s puffy eyes half open, a wry smile playing across his lips.

“Kapoor?!”

“In the fle-”

Glenn scooped him up in her arms.

“Ow!”

“Oh! Sorry!” Glenn eased him down and leaned over him. There was a hot rush in her chest. Her throat ached.

“It’s okay, Morgan,” he said. “I’m okay.”

Kevin’s hand rested on her back with a reassuring weight. Their faces were mere inches from each other. His eyes, warm and gleaming, settled on her.

“You must be hungry,” Glenn said, pulling the tray between them.

“It looks like there’s tea. I could — ”

“Thanks,” Kevin said. He grunted as he sat up, bracing himself against the wall. The blanket fell away and exposed his thin chest.

Glenn handed him a sandwich and then busied herself with the tea things on the tray.

“How does it feel?” she asked. “Your …”

“Gunshot wound?” Kevin asked brightly. He dropped his

sandwich and pulled down the blanket to inspect the train track of stitches that curled upward from his waist to his rib cage. “It’s okay, I guess. That old guy — what’s his name? Decker? He came this morning and wiped some of that smelly crap off me. Guess that’s what made me all not dead and stuff.”

Glenn handed him a mug of tea and he took a deep drink.

“Thanks. So where are we, anyway?”

“Other side of the border,” she said. “A town called Haymarket.

It’s part of something they call the Magisterium.”

Kevin craned his neck around to survey the inside of the house.

In the light of morning it seemed warm and friendly, all pale wood and stone. He turned back to Glenn with a grin. “Well, Morgan, this certainly is one nicely appointed wasteland.”

Glenn ignored him. “Kevin, look, I’m really — ”

“Forget it.”

“Forget it? You were shot!”

“Exactly. And how many sixteen-year-olds can say they’ve been shot while fleeing Authority agents? In some ways this is the most awesome thing that’s ever happened to me. I should be thanking you for this experience!”

“Well, the experience is over.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re going back. Today.”

“Wait. What? I’m going back? What are you gonna do?”

“Aamon and I are going to take the bracelet and destroy it.”

“Destroy it? We’re destroying it? Why?”

Glenn couldn’t imagine where to begin. “It’s dangerous,” she said. “We have to make sure Sturges doesn’t get his hands on it.”

“Okay, fine. But I’m going with you.”

“No. Absolutely not. You’re in no condition — ”

“Look,” Kevin said. “If I go back now, what’s going to happen?

Authority is going to be after me just like they’d be after you. And you know me, I’m a wimp. I’ll crack under questioning in a second. I won’t be able to help myself.” Kevin tore the blankets off and reached to the floor for his shirt. “Ah! That hurts!”

He winced in pain and went pale. He started to tip forward, but Glenn’s palm found his bare chest and steadied him. His skin was hot.

She could feel his heart fluttering deep inside him. Kevin stayed still for a moment, took a deep breath, then opened his eyes.

“I’m not — I won’t leave you alone with this,” he said, laying his hand over hers. “There’s no way. No. Freaking. Way.”

Glenn drew her hand away and stepped back. It was useless to fight him. If she wanted Kevin to go home, she would have to knock him out, drag him there, and tie him to the nearest tree. Kevin grinned at her silence, but he kept it small, like he didn’t want to rub her nose in his victory too much.

Kevin turned with a grunt toward the window next to him. Glenn could dimly see people moving around outside and trees swaying over the tops of the walls and guardhouses. Kevin studied it all for a moment, then looked to her with a devilish cock of his eyebrow.

“Okay, then!” he said. “Who’s ready to do a little exploring?”

Kevin moved through the village’s dirt roads with a wincing gait, his hand clamped over his wounded side. Glenn followed close behind, ready to catch him, sure he was going to collapse at any moment.

As they walked through the village, what struck Glenn the most was the smell of the place. Each shack along the road had a small chimney that billowed gray smoke and filled the air with the warm and woodsy scent of burning wood and leaves. All of it was mixed in with the heavy stink coming from pens that held chickens and pigs and a few runty-looking horses.

The shacks were framed in the town wall. Soldiers stalked the wall’s length, glowering down at the villagers as they moved through the streets gathering up metal scythes, hoes, and long wooden forks before heading out toward the main gate. The soldiers were in gray wool with pieces of dirty armor over their chests, arms, and legs. The villagers wore plain wool in grays and browns that looked barely thick enough to keep the cold out. Their shoulders were broad, but their stomachs were flat, sunken even. Glenn saw hollow eyes and jutting cheekbones and she wondered if any of them got enough to eat.

Whenever she or Kevin passed by, they immediately lowered

their eyes and hurried away. Conversations broke off the instant they approached but people followed Glenn’s and Kevin’s movements out of the corner of their eyes. Are they afraid of us? Glenn wondered. The thought was so absurd she almost laughed.

“So,” Kevin said when she caught up to him again, keeping his voice admirably low. For him, anyway. “Wanna tell me about our pointy-eared friend?”

“You saw him?”

“He’s kind of hard to miss, Morgan,” Kevin said. “And by the way, cat demon guy? Ideally he’s something I would have liked to have been introduced to a bit more gradually. Anyway, we chatted a bit before you woke up this morning.”

“You chatted? About what?”

“The usual. The weather. Stock prices.” Glenn cut him a look and he grinned. “He asked if I was okay. When I regained the power of speech, I said I was. He said he had to go take care of something and then he’d be back. Oh! He also said we shouldn’t leave the house under any circumstance.” He turned to Glenn and shrugged. “Oops. Hey, look, chickens!”

Kevin veered toward a small area fenced in with a circle of closely set sticks. A trio of kids stood at the edge, giggling and throwing corn to a flock of chickens. They shrieked and ran when the birds approached, flaring their wings and squawking.

Kevin hung his arms over the fence and watched the kids running around in the bright early sunlight. The show was short-lived, though.

An old woman emerged from a shack, and as soon as she saw Glenn and Kevin, she looked up toward the guardhouse soldiers and then rushed the kids inside. Her door fell shut with a bang. Nailed to the center of it was one of the black and silver feathers.

“Nice,” Kevin said and turned to Glenn. “So, what’s going on here, Morgan? I know I act all cool and devil-may-care and stuff, but I’m more than a little freaked.”

Another group of villagers emerged from a shack and were

coming their way. Glenn pushed away from the fence and set off down a different road, with Kevin trailing behind.

“The … person who saved us is Aamon Marta.”

“Why’d he help us?”

The explanation — who Aamon really was, who he said he was

— sat there, poised, but Glenn couldn’t give it voice. Kevin would think she was insane.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He was just …”

“What? Out to get groceries? Walking the dog?” Glenn ignored him and he shifted tack, tapping the edge of the bracelet. “So, they’re all after this thing, huh? What’s it do, anyway?”

Glenn pulled the bracelet underneath her sleeve. She guessed he had some right to know what he had been shot for, so she told him as best she could about her father’s theory.

“Huh. A reality bubble,” Kevin said with his usual nonchalance.

“Good name for a band. Reality Bubble. So I guess your dad really is some kind of genius, huh?”

Glenn paused, the sadness tugging at her again.

“What did he make it for?”

In the thousand things she’d had to deal with since the previous night, this was the one thing that had been crowded out. Maybe the one thing she wanted crowded out. Dad said he made it to rescue Mom. To bring her back. Glenn had thought it was a deranged knightin-shining-armor fantasy, but now that it seemed like so much else was true, could that be real too? Aamon had said outsiders weren’t welcome in the Magisterium. Could her mother have crossed over for some reason and been imprisoned by someone like this Garen Tom, or the Magistra Aamon kept referring to? And if she was … what was Glenn supposed to do about that?

“Hello? Earth to Morgan?”

“What?” Glenn said quickly, snapping herself out of it and

continuing down the road without a destination in mind. “Nothing. It was a project. Theoretical. That’s all.”

Kevin eyed her carefully, but after a moment’s consideration, he let it go. He took off again, pausing to kick at a pebble and sending it careening into an open building that had racks of herbs drying outside of it.

“You know,” he said. “I think you need to give me some credit here.”

“For what?”

“Well, for starters, for my being so magnanimous when I was right about everything. The Rift wasn’t some big boom that made this place into a wasteland. It made medieval villages and people with tails.

I won’t even mention how you called me an idiot the other day.”

“I never — ”

“You suggested. You intimated.”

“Look, just because — ”

“You’re not about to say that all of this proves nothing.”

“Well …”

“Oh. Come. On!”

Glenn hunted for the right words. The desire to not hand such an easy victory to Kevin and his Rifter friends was overwhelming.

“Obviously, there’s more to the Rift than we’ve been told.”

“Really? You think?”

“But we’ve only been here a day. Less than a day! I’m not ready to start believing in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.”

“How about a giant talking cat man? Who, by the way, looks an awful lot like — ”

“Enough!”

“Ha! It’s true, isn’t it?” Kevin stabbed one finger at her nose. He was practically dancing beside her. “I knew it! Aamon is totally Hopkins! That is so awesome! It’s that white patch on his neck. It completely gives it away.” A sudden look of horror came into Kevin’s eyes. “Oh no, your mom and dad never …”

He made a little snip-snip gesture with two fingers.

“No,” Glenn said. “Dad wanted to take him to the vet, but Mom would never let him.” And now I guess that makes sense….

“Well, that’s one lucky cat. He may have nine lives but only two

— Hey, look!”

Kevin pointed down the road to where Aamon had appeared from behind a set of buildings. He moved toward the far end of the village to a thick stand of trees enclosed by the outer wall. Aamon stopped at the edge of the woods, then turned around to scan the empty plaza. Glenn shoved Kevin behind a nearby building. After a pause, she peeked around the corner. Once Aamon had ensured he was alone, he slipped into the woods and disappeared. Glenn looked back at Kevin.

“We so have to find out what he’s up to,” he said.

Most of the villagers had gone through the gates by now, so the square behind them was quiet. Glenn peered into the woods ahead but couldn’t make anything out.

“Okay, but we have to be careful. A qui-”

But Kevin was already hobbling past her, his hand grasping at his injured side.

“Kevin!”

Glenn cursed Kevin in her head but had to admit she was also curious to see what Aamon was up to. They crossed the plaza, circling around to the far side of the stand of trees.

The woods were deeper and thicker than Glenn would have

guessed, enough so that it looked to be a grim sort of twilight within it.

There was no sign of Aamon. Glenn’s heart began to thrum in her chest.

Stupid, she told herself. It was broad daylight. Nothing was going to happen. And she had no reason to be afraid of Aamon. Right?

Glenn stepped away from the edge of the plaza and into the forest.

Kevin zipped up his leather jacket as quietly as he could and stuffed his hands in the pockets. He was pale and sweaty despite the cold. This was a terrible idea, Glenn thought. He needs rest. We can’t — Dry twigs and pine needles crunched out ahead of them. Glenn froze as a flash of gray passed from tree to tree and then vanished.

Aamon. They were close. Before she could say anything, Kevin took the lead and walked them right to the edge of what seemed to be the heart of the small woods: a thick circle of broad trees overgrown with vines, fallen leaves, and thick splashes of white and green moss. Glenn and Kevin knelt down behind two trees and peered inside.

In the center of the forest were the ruins of a large stone building.

Judging from the partial walls that remained, Glenn guessed it had been at least three or four times the size of the smaller village shacks. A meeting hall? A church? Large irregular stones and remnants of the plaster that once held them together lay in heaps, tossed with pine needles and vines. Underneath the growth of moss, many of the stones were cracked and blackened as if they had been in a fire. Whatever had been inside the building was blocked by one surviving wall that stood in the way of Glenn and Kevin’s view.

Aamon stood at the edge of the destruction, looking down at it all.

His great shoulders were slumped, his head low. Kevin shifted his gaze to Glenn, waiting for her cue. When Aamon stepped onto the blackened ground and behind the wall, she made her move.

They eased deeper into the woods, choosing their steps carefully to make as little sound as possible, drifting to their left so they could see around the remaining wall. All of the rubble seemed to radiate from one central point, what had been the center of the ruined building.

There sat a high stone table that was cracked in two and charred. It was surrounded by wooden pews set in a circle, some of which were little more than ash and black timbers.

Aamon kicked away pieces of the crumbled pews, making a path to the table. When a pile of debris got in his way, he reached into it with a growl and threw the charred wood over the wall and out into the forest. It echoed as it crashed through the woods. A flight of birds squalled and fled. Aamon dropped to his knees before the table. Glenn moved forward to get a better look, but Kevin held her back. She turned, uncertain, then held up one finger and he grudgingly let go. Glenn continued on and hid behind a closer tree.

On the base of the stone table, partially gouged away and

darkened, a perfect circle, divided across the middle by a thick line, had been carved into the stone. Aamon traced the circle with one clawed finger before laying his palm flat against the stone and closing his eyes.

“Forgive me.”

He sat for a moment longer, his head down, whispering unheard words beneath his breath in a quiet rhythmic chant.

Praying, Glenn thought.

When he was done, Aamon turned his head to the side and

sniffed the air.

“I told you both to stay in the house,” he announced, his voice shockingly loud in the hush of the forest.

“It’s my fault,” Kevin said, striding out into the middle of the clearing. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to, uh …”

Aamon’s green eyes pierced the space between him and Kevin, immediately cutting off his halting babble. Glenn stepped out of the trees to stand by Kevin’s side.

“It was both of us.”

Aamon regarded them for a moment, then turned back to the altar.