Magisterium

could only try to assemble them into something recognizable.

“The thermals in Kevin’s clothes stopped working as soon as we passed the border lights,” Glenn said slowly. “And the agents’ guns didn’t work either.”

“None of your technology works on our side of the border, just as Affinity doesn’t work on your side.”

“Affinity?”

“What you’d call magic.”

“I don’t believe in magic.”

The smallest glimmer of a smile creased Aamon’s lips. “And yet, here I am.”

Glenn churned through theory after theory, trying to construct a rational framework to hang all of this on, but no matter where she went she arrived at the same place — the unthinkable, undeniable reality of Aamon Marta and the words of her father.

Reality is a set of rules … a game of cards …

Glenn ran her fingers over the gray metal on her wrist. Was it possible that he wasn’t mad? That the years her father had spent lying half buried beneath The Project had actually come to something? Had he figured out how to bend the rules? Everything around her, everything she’d seen, said that he had. And yet still the idea seemed stuck at the edge of her mind, there but not there.

“Glenn,” Aamon began. “Maybe it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t believe about me. Michael Sturges and his men nearly killed Kevin for that bracelet. He was ready to kill you. And I swear to you, if Garen Tom learns of it he’ll be just as willing to do the same.”

Glenn looked up from the face of the bracelet. “Why?”

Behind Aamon, the fire hit a pocket of air in one of the logs and it snapped loudly, sending a rain of coppery sparks onto the brick hearth.

“For over a hundred years, the Magisterium and the Colloquium have stayed separate and at peace. The reason that’s been possible is that each side knows that any army that tried to cross over to the other’s territory would be helpless. Your weapons don’t work here. Our Affinity doesn’t work there. But this bracelet changes that. If Sturges possessed the technology that’s inside of it he could fill the sky with drones and take the Magisterium for himself. And if Garen Tom had it, or the Magistra? Then your home would be invaded by legions far stranger and more deadly than me.”

Glenn tensed as Aamon reached out to her, but then she felt the warmth in his fingertips and the gray softness of his coat.

“Believe or don’t,” he said. “But the bracelet has to be

destroyed.”

When Aamon drew his hand away, Glenn lifted the bracelet to catch the fire’s glow. It was beautiful in a way, sleek and simple like all of her father’s work. A wave of sadness came over her as she thought of her father, locked away in some Colloquium prison, his last memory of his daughter a betrayal. How could she take his greatest triumph and wipe it away?

But Aamon was right. Given the option, the Colloquium would do anything to take back the land lost in the Rift. All their technology couldn’t fix the basic problem of overpopulation that came when almost half the world had been swept away.

If destroying it left nothing for Sturges to pursue, then maybe it could get Dad his freedom. Maybe it could get Kevin and me our lives back.

The bracelet’s metal was light for its size, a mottled gray.

Materials were one of her father’s specialties and he used to lecture about them to her at length. Glenn guessed the shell was a mix of carbon fibers woven with titanium or even beryllium.

“Simple tools couldn’t break it,” she said, and then glanced into the fire. “It could be melted down but it would take a fire a thousand times as hot as that.”

“Perhaps …”

“What?”

“Bethany,” Aamon said. “It’s a blacksmithing town past the

mountains. There are forges there that burn like you say.”

“Fine,” Glenn said. “Kevin and I will go back. We’ll get him to a hospital. You can take this.”

She dug her fingers beneath the bracelet and started to pull.

“No!” Aamon’s hand shot out and clamped down on the bracelet before Glenn could strip it off, his claws pressing into her wrist. She felt like her hand had been bound in concrete.

Glenn’s heart pounded as Aamon looked from the bracelet up to her. His expression was strange, frightening in a way she didn’t understand.

“You can’t cross the border here,” he said. “Sturges will be watching. Bethany is farther north. Remote. It will be safer if you cross there. We’ll travel together. Once we arrive, I’ll take you both back across the border, then return with the bracelet and destroy it.”

Aamon let Glenn go and moved away from her, back toward the fire. She drew her wrist to her chest. It was streaked with red and ached from where he held her.

“Glenn,” he said. “I’m sorry I …”

Behind her, Kevin moaned, tossing and turning on his wood

pallet. Glenn took a damp cloth from the clay bowl next to him and wiped the sweat from his face and forehead. She could feel his fever through the thin fabric. His eyes flickered behind his lids.

“Will he be well enough to travel?”

“Kirzal willing.”

Glenn was about to ask what he meant, but then she realized, Of course. They still have gods here.

Glenn lay on her side next to Kevin, her back to Aamon, and drew the blanket over her. She tried to sleep but it was as if a nest of snakes was twisting and turning in her stomach.

Aamon was lying by the fire, eyes closed. She felt his claws on her wrist and remembered as he looked from the bracelet to her face and back again — that strange expression in his eyes that she couldn’t place.

What was it?

As soon as she asked herself the question the answer came to her.

Fear.

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.