CHAPTER 22
I wasn’t out for long. I came to while still being dragged. Dimly I could see Adjutant ahead of me, leading the way—he’d summoned assistance somehow, because I was being dragged by two faceless Eagles. I still couldn’t move. Every bump and jostle made my nerves scream in protest. My vision was dazzled—everything was surrounded in violet rainbows, like I was staring at the world through refractive crystals. My skin tingled.
I tried to speak and it came out as an inarticulate moan. Adjutant looked over his shoulder at me. I felt the Eagles’ grip falter, and Adjutant said sharply, “She’s still overloaded. She can’t do anything, so stop acting like children.”
Eventually we reached a small room, big enough only for a table and a chair. The room had no windows and only the one door. Suddenly I was reminded of the Machine in the Institute, a room containing only a chair, ringed with darkness.
The Eagles dropped me into the chair, but my muscles still weren’t responding to commands from my brain, and I slid out of the chair and onto the ground. I didn’t even feel pain when I hit, too dazed and dazzled to do so.
“Thank you,” came Adjutant’s voice somewhere above me. “You may go.”
The Eagles withdrew, shutting the door behind them. I half-expected it to be made of iron and clang shut with awful finality, but instead it was just a regular door. But then again, they knew iron wouldn’t stop me. And they knew what would.
With a muffled groan of effort I rolled over enough that I could see Adjutant looking down at me, his face thoughtful. In one hand he was still holding the device that had incapacitated me, tossing it up and down idly.
“What an interesting specimen,” he said quietly. “Prometheus will be fascinated.”
“What—” I croaked, my mouth cramping as I tried to force it to speak despite the odd convulsion my muscles were locked into. “What’d you—”
Adjutant raised an eyebrow. “This?” He held up the device and examined it. It was small, curved, designed to fit into the palm of his hand—a smaller sibling of the devices Prometheus’s enforcers carried. “The Eagles affectionately refer to the process as being ‘zapped.’ The talon overloads the systems with magic. It works against the normals, but it’s particularly effective against Renewables. I’m told it’s exceedingly painful.”
Overloaded with magic? My teeth ground together, muscles still locked down tight. The magic was overcoming my brain’s ability to send signals to my body. The realization was enough that I could begin to fight it, carefully pushing the magic down away from my mind. My vision began to clear a little. I found myself better able to speak.
“Why—me? Haven’t done anything.”
Adjutant tossed the device onto the table with a metallic clang. “Perhaps not,” he agreed. “But you were about to, back there in the corridor, were you not?”
He’d seen me vaporize iron with a single thought, prepared to attack. I swallowed convulsively, finally getting my throat to listen to what I wanted it to do.
“You acted when I mentioned examination.” Adjutant stooped into a crouch, bringing his face closer to mine. “It seems you don’t like the idea of being a subject.”
There was no malice in his expression, no hint that he derived any pleasure from my pain and confusion. There was only detached interest, the regard of someone making observations about some new and interesting phenomenon.
He stretched out his hand and took mine. “If you concentrate, I think you’ll find you can move a little. Unless you prefer the floor?”
I let him pull me up and settle me back into the chair. Both the chair and the table were made of some lightweight, silvery metal. The chair was frigid to the touch but soon began to warm to my body heat.
“Tell me,” said Adjutant, taking up a position on the opposite side of the table. “Have you been held somewhere as a subject before?”
I stared at him, jaw clenched. It was still an effort to speak—and even if it wasn’t, I wasn’t going to answer his questions.
“Never mind,” he replied. He tapped his fingers against the table. “Your body language is all the answer I need.”
My eyes flicked from his drumming fingers to the device lying on the table between us. Could I make my arm, cramped and slow as it was, move quickly enough to grab it before he could stop me?
“We have no plans to mistreat you, young lady,” said Adjutant, leaning back far enough that I’d be able to beat him to the device even if I fumbled with the task. “If you’ll only just answer a few questions and meet with Prometheus, you’ll see that what we’re doing here is important, and that we need your help.”
I didn’t waste any more time. I flung my arm forward, struggling to make it work the way I wanted. My hand fell short of the device and I wrenched it forward again, eyes watering with effort. My clumsy fingers scrabbled against it for a moment before closing around it, drawing it back to myself.
I dragged my eyes up to find Adjutant unmoving, watching me, one corner of his mouth lifted in a small smile.
“These smaller versions are only good for one discharge,” he said calmly. “Then they need to be recharged again. Don’t worry. I have others fully charged and ready.” He patted his pocket gently.
My fist was still wrapped around the device, its metal edges digging into my skin. After working so hard to get my hand to cooperate, I couldn’t get it to uncurl again.
“What is your name?” asked Adjutant.
I swallowed. “Margaret.” I said the first name that popped into my mind—the name of one of my classmates back in the city where I was born.
“And your place of origin?”
“All over the place,” I replied promptly, surprising myself with how easily the lies came. “My parents were Travelers. They were killed by Empty Ones a few years ago.”
“How tragic,” said Adjutant. “And what is the boy’s connection with you?”
“I met him in the ruins above right before the Eagles found us. I’d never met him before that night, I don’t even know his name.”
“Hmm.” Though the Adjutant made no physical notes, I could almost see him mentally filing away my answers, trying to build a picture of who I was. I had no idea if he believed anything I was saying, but I was surprising myself with how easily the lies came. “Were your parents Renewables as well?”
“Yes.”
“And the boy?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Can’t you tell for sure?”
“I don’t have the Sight as strong as others do.”
“I see. And how long have you been able to magic iron?”
The question caught me off guard, coming so quickly after the others. I had no ready answer for this one, hadn’t rehearsed it beforehand in the planning stages of this operation.
But when I opened my mouth, some instinct took over. “I didn’t know I could,” I said, widening my eyes, letting fear and confusion into my expression. “That was the first time. I just got so angry.”
Adjutant paused, watching me. “I see,” he repeated. “I’ll leave you now for a little while. The door will be guarded by Eagles, all of whom will be armed.” He retrieved the device from my now-lax fist and slipped it into his pocket. “I’ll return soon enough, but in the meantime, please consider your story again and think about whether it’s the one you wish to present to Prometheus himself.”
Even after Adjutant left, it took me a long time to recover from being “zapped,” as he called it. Though the worst of the muscle cramps had passed, I was still seeing strange halos around everything, and my skin buzzed. The sensation was hauntingly familiar, but it wasn’t until I closed my eyes against the violet double images that I realized why.
The last time I’d felt like this was when I’d stripped all the magic from the Renewables in the Iron Wood.
