Page 25 of A Lost Light

And a great test of our new toy. Couldn't get a better test than throwing the government's top magic users at it and seeing how it held up.

I glanced around the room. I felt like I should say something. Maybe kiss them all one last time because we were probably going to get ourselves imprisoned or killed. But instead I just nodded once, firmly, as if I absolutely believed we were just going to stroll into the SA and take what we wanted, then stroll back out.

Hasumi's turquoise gaze met mine, and they gave me a faint smile. They knew exactly how I felt right now, thanks to their ability to read emotions. I shrugged, then shook my head when a cool, comforting wash of confidence stole over me, grounding me. The water weaver winked.

“Okay,” I said, glancing around at everyone else. “Ready to go fuck some shit up?” Even if I was terrified, there was one good thing to be said for what we were about to do—a whole bunch of people at the SA were about to have averybad day.

I got nods all around, and Zhong squeezed my shoulder with one big hand. I ripped open an unstable portal for Bella that would spit her out at the meeting place she and Junaid had arranged with a few of the other rebels so they could cause their distraction.

Once she stepped through, I closed that portal and took the artifacts that Dyre and Niamh handed to me. Pulling up my magic, I activated the doughnut spell. Everyone stood inside the circle of amplification. Then I tore open a new portal directly into the SA building.

Normally that would be impossible, thanks to the SA's fierce wards and security measures. But during a previous visit, Jackie had let me glimpse her working the wards on their main portal. And Bella told me our friend on the inside had done some tinkering to the portal since then. With the amplifier activated and the power boost I got from being bonded to all of these powerful beings… it was a piece of cake to crash the SA's own portal and step right on through.

There were a couple of guards and a clerk in the portal room to track who came and went, and to make sure no unauthorized personnel entered or exited the building. One of the guards was actually on the ball. He was a witch, but he moved like he might have some mixed blood, whipping a spell at us before I would have even had time tothinkabout countering.

Unfortunately for him, we were inside our doughnut of destruction. His spell fizzled out in the null zone, and he and his two companions were struck by Dyre's rapidly cast counterspell a second later, knocking them all unconscious.

Well… so far, so good.

My heart was beating so fast and loud I could hardly hear over the noise. I was not cut out for these kinds of life-or-death situations. “Cool,” I breathed into the silence in the room.

The poor guards hadn't even had a chance to sound the alarm. Though I was sure we had probably triggered wards that would alert someone to our presence and send them scurrying our way any second now. “Let's go take a tour of SA headquarters,” I said brightly, ignoring my clenching gut and sweaty palms.

Dyre led the way, since he and I were the ones who had spent the most time here, while we were playing at being SA contractors. I walked behind him, holding my hands above the floating artifacts, maintaining the fusion spell, while the others flanked me. Luckily the area of affect had a good radius, so wehad plenty of room to spread out enough to get our entire posse through the door and down the halls.

Sure enough, when we stepped out into the hall, there was a distant ringing, and a little light mounted up near the ceiling was strobing with flashes of red and blue. They knew someone had just blasted through their warded portal. Footsteps pounded down the hallway, and the ominous green glow that grew at the juncture of this hallway and the next said that the SA was about to throw everything they had at us.

“Why the hell did I agree to this again?” I muttered under my breath.

“Because you have a stupidly squishy heart, and you think every single sob story is your personal responsibility,” Aahil answered from my right.

He wasn't wrong. I sighed. “It's been nice knowing you guys.”

Zhong's big hand touched my lower back in support. Hasumi sent us all a wave of bolstering emotions. Niamh just laughed, in that unhinged sort of way that told me she was really looking forward to hunting something, and thought all my worrying was nonsense.

“We'll be fine,” Dyre said, his deep voice cool and even, unruffled as always. “Have a little faith in your monstrous minions, Lovell.”

I snorted. Yeah. The SA probably still thought I was controlling all these powerful creatures like a bunch of puppets for some nefarious purpose. Little did they fucking know. I barely had control ofmyselfon a good day. Good luck to anyone who tried to control these whack jobs.

But all my levity faded as the first burst of high-level magic raced down the hallway. The magic signature said it was a killing spell. And it was headed right for us.

The SA wasn't going to attempt to capture us. They wanted us dead.

Chapter 14

Andy

The glowing green ball of death hit the edge of the null field and sizzled out in a shower of sickly sparks. I let out shaky breath and kept walking down the hall. Yep, this was fine. We were good. All good. I ignored the voice inside that was screaming in dread.

There was an elevator and a stairwell at the end of the next hallway that would lead down to where the interrogation rooms were. Bella had informed us that the holding cells were nearby. Apparently, she had traded a favor with my good old friend Jackie the field mage. Jackie, it seemed, was attempting to sort out who was clean and who was dirty inside the organization,anddoing her best give the rebels a fighting chance.

It warmed the cockles of my heart to know that the uptight little SA agentmightnot have to die when this all went down. Although… shedidseem to suspect the SA was going to turn against me back when we helped them defeat the O'Leary coven and she hadn’t done anything to help us. She said she didn’t speak up because she thought the SA had decided against the plan to capture me and my people and force us to work for them,or turn us into public enemies when that failed… but there was still a part of me that was suspicious of her.

A few more spells rocketed down the hallway, only to sizzle out when they got near us. Someone got the smart idea to use mundane weapons, but we had already thought of that, after a previous run-in with the assholes left Aahil with a gunshot wound.

A pair of agents in full body armor stepped out from the juncture of the hallways and opened fire. The bullets made it past the null field that surrounded us, since they weren't magical. But they pinged harmlessly off the bubble of protection Hasumi had erected around us.

A wash of heat flared up beside me as Aahil called on his element. The two armed agents scrambled away from the gout of flame that burst out in front of us. They sought cover around the corner, but the long stream of jinn flame followed them, surging down the hall we were in and turning to blaze down the next hallway as if it had a mind of its own.

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