Conjured

I nodded. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Zach was nodding too. I wished there were a way to warn Zach … but he knew who Lou was, didn’t he? He’d mentioned that a bald man had interrogated him. We walked into the elevator.

My finger hovered over the numbers. With Lou here, I couldn’t push five. Instead, I pushed three. We’d have to lose him in the offices—and hope we didn’t see the real Malcolm and Aunt Nicki.

As the elevator lurched upward, the tinny music played. It sounded like the carousel.

“This time, we contain her,” Lou said. “No more of your touchy-feely nonsense. She stays on the hospital floor under guard. She is not to be treated like a refugee. Or even a pet. Do you understand me, Agent Harrington? I blame you for this.”

Zach cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.” He tried to pitch his voice lower. It came out close to a growl. Lou looked at him sharply.

The door slid open. For an instant, I thought we could stay in the elevator. But Lou slapped his hand on the elevator door to hold it open. We had to walk out.

“We’ve alerted the airport terminals, bus terminals, and train stations—the usual cover story.” Lou aimed a fingers at me. “Gallo, bring in that Zachary boy. I want to know what he knows. I knew we should have kept him here. Remind me never to listen to you two bleeding hearts again.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He frowned at me, and for an instant, I thought he knew. But he pivoted and strode toward the lobby. We trailed after him. He halted at the receptionist’s desk and leaned over the desk to speak to her. I couldn’t hear what he said. She handed him a locked aluminum briefcase.

Maybe we should run now, while he’s distracted … Before I could move, Lou turned and shoved the briefcase at me. Automatically, I took it. “Um, what do you want me to do with this?” I asked before I thought. I then froze. Aunt Nicki might have known the answer.

Lou smiled at me. It was an unsettling expression on his face. His cheeks and eyes crinkled like a crunched paper bag. “I want you to do your job, Gallo, before I fire your ass.”

I looked at the briefcase. It had a combination lock.

He took the briefcase back and set it on the receptionist’s desk, and then he turned the numbers on the combination lock. The lock snapped open. He raised the lid. Inside was the Magician’s box. Instinctively, I shrank back. He lifted it out and then held it out toward me, his palm flat, not touching the clasp. “You might want this, when you find her. We’ve tested it—magic doesn’t penetrate it. It will keep her from turning you into shrubbery.”

Hands shaking, I took it. The metal felt chilled, as if the box had been recently stored in a freezer. I didn’t trust myself to speak. I shoved the box into my front pocket. It bulged, and I felt the corners press against my thigh.

Ahead, I heard voices. Malcolm’s office door swung open. We had to leave now. Smiling weakly at Lou, I pivoted and strode back toward the elevators. Zach walked fast beside me. My heart was beating so loudly that I was certain Lou could hear it.

“Gallo! Harrington!” Lou called after us.

From his office, Malcolm called, “Sir?”

I looked over my shoulder to see Malcolm, the real Malcolm, step into the hallway. I broke into a run as I heard him say, “What the hell—”

An alarm began to sound, and a red light flashed and spun in rhythm with the sirens. I looked back again. Oddly, Lou wasn’t chasing us. He merely watched from the hallway. With one hand, he blocked Malcolm from chasing us as well. I caught a glimpse of Malcolm’s expression: Fear, I thought. Of me? For me? But others were running toward us, and there was no time to puzzle it out.

Zach stabbed the elevator button.

It didn’t open.

Shoving the stairwell door open, I pulled Zach with me. The door slammed behind us and then was pulled open again an instant later. An agent burst into the stairwell.

Zach grabbed me and planted his lips on mine, inhaling my magic with my breath. As the agent lunged for my arm, Zach shot into the air with his arms tight around my waist. We rocketed up the open center of the stairwell. Below us, several agents pounded up the stairs, but we were faster.

At the top, at level five, I yanked the door handle—locked. Zach breathed in more magic, and we slid through the metal door. We turned left, then right … At the end of the hall, the two guards in front of the steel door shouted and drew their guns.

The guns dissolved into water and collapsed on the floor in droplets.

Turning to me, Zach swiftly inhaled magic again, and I felt myself shrink, plummeting toward the floor. The world skewed—the carpet fibers were as thick and high as underbrush in a forest, and the ceiling was impossibly high. I swiveled my head and saw a beetle, monstrously huge … He’d turned us into beetles. Clever boy, I thought. But what about the box? Looking around, I didn’t see it, and Zach was on the move.

Scurrying after him, I wove through the carpet.

Footsteps shook the floor. Looking like mountains in motion, the guards scoured the hallway. A boot landed near me, and I jerked back. The foot lifted, and the carpet fibers were mashed where he’d stepped. I darted forward as fast as my many legs could move.

Up ahead, I saw Zach squeeze beneath the door. I hurried after him, flattened, and slid on my smooth, slick stomach. At the end of the next hall was another door, but this one was flush to the floor. We’d never fit under it.

Zach bumped his head against mine. His legs clicked on the tile floor. And then I felt my body expand like a balloon. Soon I was human again—myself, not Aunt Nicki—and Zach was himself again too. My clothes were restored. I felt my pocket—the box was still there. The box and my clothes must have transformed with me, melding into my exoskeleton. He kissed me again and inhaled deeply. “Extra magic,” he said. “Just in case.”

This door had a palm reader but no guards. We ran through it. The next door required a combination code. We ran through it as well. The fourth door was guarded.

The guards already had their guns drawn.

“Shoot the male,” one instructed. “Don’t hit the female.”

Before I could react, before I could think, the other guard squeezed the trigger. Zach jerked backward, his hand torn out of mine. The sound echoed and continued to echo, reverberating through the hall and through my bones. And then the bullet clattered to the floor at Zach’s feet. “Bulletproof,” Zach said as he lunged toward me and brushed his lips against mine. An instant later, the guards’ jackets caught fire.

Startled, they dropped their guns. One began pounding the fire on his chest. The other shed his jacket as quickly as possible and stomped on the flames.

We ran forward and through the door into the silver room.

Chapter Twenty

Silver walls. Silver ceiling. Spotless white floor.

I still had no memory of this place, other than from my failed attempt to remember it before. But I’d had visions with silver mirrors and silver walls.

“Dead end,” Zach said. “Knew it was a trap. It was too easy.”

“They shot you.” I never, ever wanted to see that again.

“Lou should have stopped us before we even left the third floor. But he didn’t.”

Grabbing his hand, I walked straight toward one of the silver walls. In a vision, I’d walked through a silver wall into a meadow. The Storyteller had been there, knitting a red ribbon on the steps of the wagon. There, I thought, I want to go there. Behind us, the door burst open and slammed against the wall. Two armed agents ran into the room. But they were too late. Reaching the