Page 36 of Junk Magic

“But I don’t,” he seethed. “So, this is your job—your only job—until we get that damned Conclave out of the way! It has to go off without a hitch, do you understand?”

“I—yes, but—”

“I don’t want any buts. You can use Carter on this.”

“But I’m on vacation,” Caleb said, and immediately looked like he wished he hadn’t when the boss rounded on him.

“Rescinded!” Hargroves snapped, and strode out of the room.

Caleb looked at me.

“Well, at least you’re getting paid now,” I said, and saw him scowl.

Chapter Ten

“I was already getting paid,” Caleb growled. I had slung on some spare clothes that a medic brought me from my locker, since mine had gotten the scissor treatment after I was brought in, and we’d started climbing the steps back to the lobby. “That’s what PTO means: paid time off.”

“Well, now you’ll have it for later,” I pointed out.

“Like any of us is ever getting a vacation again!”

I frowned. “You were already insisting on helping out. I don’t know why you’d rather do it for free—”

“Free means I don’t have to write anything down. Free means off the clock and therefore off the record—”

“What do you think might need to be kept off the record?”

“How would I know? With you I never—”

He cut off when a siren started up, but not the kind that indicated a fire. That one was loud, blaring, and intended to get the attention of anyone in the building. This one was different.

This was meant for war mages only, being silent and almost impossible to detect for anyone without a Circle tattoo somewhere on their body. It was designed to alert the Corps to the fact that we had a breach without letting potential bad guys know that we’d been warned. And it did its job well.

My skin tightened painfully, as if I’d just received a massive sunburn all over my body, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. And then felt like it was trying to pull out of my skin when the alarm intensified, all but pulling us up the stairs and causing Caleb to curse. I don’t know why; he shaved off most of his hair anyway.

“Hey, what is that?” Sophie demanded, looking around as if she could feel it, too.

But she didn’t get an answer. I was too busy hitting the wall after being shoved behind Caleb as he tore past.

“Stay there!” he threw back over his shoulder, probably because I was still wobbly and had no business being in a fight right now. Or maybe he wanted me to protect the kids; I didn’t know. And I didn’t have time to find out. Another alarm hit, hard on the heels of the first, but this one . . .

Was new.

Or new to me, since I had only a fraction of my mother’s abilities, with senses heightened barely above those of a normal human. I couldn’t usually hear things a mile off, or name every spice in a dish, or see almost as well at night as in the daytime. But I could suddenly see something, and with perfect clarity: a flash of dark eyes flickering wildly across my vision, like those of a hunted animal.

The image was as clear as if I was staring right at it, and was quickly joined by a smell. It was strong, almost overpowering, and not the usual mustiness of the stairway. I breathed in the stench of stark panic, heard pounding blood and rapid breaths, and felt skin prickling fear and indecision, along with the impression of a wild fluttering in my throat that made it all but impossible to swallow. It was terror given tangible form, but it wasn’t mine.

My heart rate was more or less normal; my breathing unbothered. But someone was coming out of their skin—literally. And I experienced it right alongside them.

For the first time in my life, I knew the agonizing crack of reforming bones, the waterfall of a thick, magical pelt spreading over my body, the incredibly strange sensation of a new face pushing its way out of mine. The sensations were so overwhelming that, for a second, I just stood there, gasping and trying to grab a snout I didn’t have. Because the changes weren’t happening to me.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Sophie was shaking me, and one of the boys—I didn’t see who—was whistling between his teeth.

“Told you—mages be cray, yo.”

And then I was moving, as another blast of distress flooded down the stairs, almost strong enough to knock me over. My new students pounded after me, all those feet making the stairwell echo loudly in my ears, even though most of them were wearing sneakers. Something about that, about them running headlong into danger, pulled me out of the fog and I rounded on them.

“No. Stay.”

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