Page 11 of Mud

“—then we can come to an agreement. We might even return you to your people and they can carry out your sentence and?—”

“No! No-no-no, I will not go back!I will not?—”

“We’ll find these things you stole sooner or later. It’s completely up to you, Miss Tritoness.”

She kept on screaming. She kept on slamming those hands on the tabletop, but she didn’t even try to use her magic on me again, so terrified of going back to the sea. I knew it was going to be a long time before I got her to admit to anything, but it was okay. I was distracted.

And for the next three hours, the thought of Taland Tivoux didn’t even cross my mind.

“You cracked her.”

Cassie had a smile on her face that didn’t quite reach her eyes when I found her in the cafeteria.

“Not yet, but I’m close,” I said, sitting next to her. It was almost five in the morning, and plenty of agents were getting coffee to resist the call of sleep. It seemed to be strongest at dawn for most of us when we were working third shift.

I wasn’t, not technically tonight, but still.

“That bitch is crazy. Did she spell you?”

“She tried,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “Succeeded for a second there, but not again. She definitely organized those heists. I’m close,” I promised her, and I was. I got her name, at least—her true siren name. It wasOlantha,and she claimed it meant the spot where the sky meets the sea, but I didn’t believe her. Not until she told me the whole truth about who she was and which sea she really came from.

“Good, good,” said Cassie, nodding way too many times. “She couldn’t have come at a worse time, what withthe Iris Roe starting in a few days. We’re already understaffed in Monitoring.”

I held back a flinch. “Yes, I heard it’s this year.”

Iridians were very proud mages. They were very dedicated in whatever they chose to concern themselves with that year or decade or century.Thiscentury, the one thing they were most proud of was the City of Games, located right here in Maryland, just outside of Baltimore. They’d built it from the ground up some eighty years ago to scratch their itch for entertainment, but soon the City of Games had evolved into a fucking monster. It was like a year-round carnival that never slept, and magical Ferris wheels and rollercoasters were not the only thing you found there. Iridians—and other creatures who could afford to pay—could play all kinds of games with incredible rewards. It was like a magical casino, and the Iris Roe was one of the biggest games ever created, played once every four years. Only Iridians were allowed to play because it was a game of magic, and so many of them died every single time it happened, yet even more players joined the next. Why? Because the prize was not only the actual colors of a rainbow that Iridians collected from the best rainbows throughout the preparation years, but also five million dollars in cash.

“It is, and last time two agents lost their lives in there, and nobody can even tell youhow. Top secret information. EvenIcan’t access that stuff—not to mention orcs and elves and Muds. Eleven Muds died inpreparations—and who took responsibility? Nobody.”

My gut turned with disgust. Two agents and eleven Muds had actually died during the last game alone, and nobody even knew about it? I’d have remembered those numbers if they’d made them public. Back then I was barely sixteen, but I’d have remembered.

And I got Muds. They were basically mages with their colors all messed up in a way that it gave off amuddy brownsignal and couldn’t be accessed or used the way magic should be. Iridians considered Muds lower than any other creature, magical or not—but their own agents?

“That’s right, it still shocks me, too,” Cassie said,tsk-king and shaking her head. She then took a big sip of her coffee. “Want some?”

The news about all those deaths was definitely shocking, but the way she kept talking about the game, and the way she averted her eyes away from my face so quickly…

Cassie was hiding something from me, and she’d managed to distract me, too.

My heart fell all the way to my heels when I remembered… “What is it, Cassie? Have you found something?”

Taland—the reason why I was in the Headquarters at this hour. The text—which I knew wasn’t a hoax, but I’d hoped it would be so, so badly…

Cassie squeezed her eyes shut for a second. “I did, yes. Tivoux is really on the loose.”

It was like a brand-new hole opened up underneath me and was pulling me in slowly.

My eyes closed and I willed myself to keep my emotions in check. Madeline was not here right now, but the world could still do terrible things to you if it saw your fear.

“Are you sure?” I asked—what a stupid fucking question.

“I am,” Cassie whispered, still avoiding my eyes as she drank her coffee. “He broke out today at one in the morning.”

“How?” He was in the Tomb. The fucking Tomb—an unbreakable fortress that only two people had been able to escape from since it first opened. Never in the past decade, though. They assured me that it wasn’t possible.

“Nobody knows yet, but he had help from both inside and outside. I’m sorry, Rora,” Cassie said.

I shook my head again and again. “I just…I don’t get it. How does one break out of the Tomb? What was he doing before he broke out? Where were the cameras?”

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