Whisper seemed to enjoy the look of surprise that appeared on Faye’s face. “Oh, close your mouth before you catch a bug. Do you think that those villainous conspirators came to trouble you on a whim? No? I believe Isaiah’s granddaughter’s death was what pushed him to such drastic measures to destroy the Imperium. Yet, by betraying the Society, he dishonored the name of all those who had followed him as well. As General Pershing was your leader here, Isaiah was ours.”
“He was a traitor,” Faye insisted.
“To some, and to others, a hero.”
“And to you?” Faye liked Whisper, so dreaded the answer.
“There is no doubt to me that Isaiah was a traitor, but sometimes a trust must be betrayed to serve the greater good. Such distinctions can be difficult. However, it was no accident that Ian volunteered to join the American knights. Maybe he is seeking to atone for deeds done on his behalf… I do not know.”
George was leaning back in his chair, appearing deep in thought. “And why did you volunteer?”
“Me?” Whisper’s smile was mischievous. “I go where the excitement is.”
Chapter 10
I don’t believe I ever saw an Oklahoman who wouldn’t fight at the drop of a hat-and frequently drop the hat himself.
Ada, Oklahoma
The wind was just as brutal as she remembered. The old house shook and rattled with every gust. The window panes flexed so much that the glass creaked like it was threatening to pop. The windows had been caulked shut to keep the dust out, and there were towels stuffed in the bottoms of the doors. The view out the window was a brown mass of blowing dust, interspaced with occasional soft blurs from a handful of lights, but around nine o’clock at night the power had gone out. After that, the dust provided its own sort of shadowed light, almost like it was infused with visible energy. Before he’d gone to bed, George had pointed out that there was static electricity in the dust, and had said that there was lots of it.
Power outages were a common enough occurrence, so the old lady that ran the boardinghouse had appeared and left them several candles and some matches so they could find their way to their room when they decided to retire for the evening. Whisper waited for her to leave, then simply lit the candles by thinking about it.
The winds continued to grow in intensity as Faye and Whisper sat in the dining room and watched the fury unfold.
“How can anyone live like this?” Whisper had finally asked.
“Most can’t. The ones that are still here…” Faye thought of the teacher and those kids playing stickball. “Just tough I guess. Like human cactuses. Only more windproof. So, what’s the word? Francis uses it for his fast blimps. Aerodynamic… So they’re like aerodynamic cactuses.”
“You have a strange way of looking at things, Faye.”
“Thanks.”
Whisper gathered up one of the candles. “I am going to bed. I do not know if I will be able to sleep, since the way this place is shaking, I’m worried it will fall down at any moment.”
“Naw. This house is sturdy. All the flimsy places fell down a long time ago. You can get used to anything if you’re tough enough.”
“Have you ever heard of the principle of erosion?”
“Nope.”
Whisper chuckled. “Goodnight, Faye.”
Once Faye was sure she was alone, she snuck into the kitchen and got a box of table salt and a small glass of water. Using her Power, she took a look at the world around her. Faye called that particular trick her head map. With it she was able to get a basic view of everything in safe Traveling range. It didn’t cover nearly as much area as it had last year. If she concentrated on one particular spot, she could instantly tell if there were any small things that could harm her if her body were to suddenly appear there. Her head map told her that Traveling anywhere out in the wind would be extremely dangerous. There were just too many things flying around, most were small enough that her passing would just shove them out of the way, but some of them were bigger and could get stuck in her. She knew from one particular incident involving a crunchy beetle fused into her heel that she never wanted to do that again.
But she wasn’t checking her head map in order to Travel. It was also a handy tool for seeing where everyone else was when you wanted some privacy. The old lady was in her bed. All the other Grimnoir were in their own rooms. So she was safe.
She wasn’t tired yet, and she was dying to talk to somebody she knew she could trust. The person she really wanted to see was Francis. He was good and honest, and she really liked him, and she knew that he liked her back. They had gone out on a few dates, even kissed, which had been super nice, but that was about it, because Faye was certainly not the type of girl that Francis had associated with before. At first she’d been worried that Francis would be embarrassed to be seen with her, since he was so very famous and rich, and she was just a nobody, and everywhere they went in public, people would take their picture, but Francis didn’t care one whit about what folks thought about him. He did whatever he put his mind to, and Faye loved that. She missed his easy smile, his sense of humor, even the awkward way he tried to protect her though she was way tougher than he was. Basically, she missed him.
Plus she felt she should check in, just because she knew otherwise Francis might go and do something stupid on his own.
Faye made a circle of salt on the table and started to draw the communication spell from memory. This time she imagined that she was a little girl again, drawing pretty designs in the dirt floor of the McCullum shack, and when she thought of it that way, the strange geometries of the Power suddenly seemed to make a lot more sense. She used her Power, just a tiny bit, and thought hard about Francis to awaken the design. If it worked like it was supposed to, his ring would burn and get his attention. Remarkably, she managed to complete the spell on her very first try. The circle floated into the air and filled the room with white light.
There was a thump from the roof. It was pretty loud. Probably a flying branch or something. She would’ve checked her head map again, but didn’t know if that would mess up the communication spell or not, and she didn’t want to go through the effort of making another one.
It took a couple of minutes for Francis to get on. The background was his office in New York, which was good news because that meant that at least he had stayed put like he was supposed to. The circle spun around, showing windows full of New York lights, until the image filled with Francis’ head. “Faye!”
“Hi. You got your face fixed.”
“About as good as possible, but it wasn’t particularly nice to start with.”
Faye disagreed, but she’d feel foolish saying so. “Well, I think you look nice.”
She could have sworn that Francis blushed. “Did you do this spell yourself?”
“I did.”
“Very clear. This is your best one yet. You’re quite the talented wizard.” Now it was Faye’s turn to blush. “So where are you? Wait, that’s probably a secret.”
“On account of them maybe coming to arrest you, yeah.” Faye grinned.
“Don’t worry, I’m cooking up something. Next time I meet the OCI, I’ll be ready. You don’t pick a fight with a Stuyvesant and expect to win.”
“You picked a fight with a Stuyvesant and won,” she pointed out.
“That’s different. I…” There was a brief sound from behind her, like old canvas whipping in the wind. Francis’ eyes widened in fear. “Behind you!”
Faye turned to see what Francis was looking at. She was surprised to find that there was a man in a black
