Page 122 of The Tribes of Magic
“It’s a figure of speech, Red. Your magic is your sword.” He waved his hand at Kato. “Back me up here.”
“Just nod and smile, Seven, and he’ll eventually stop talking,” Kato told me. “That’s what I do.”
I snorted.
Conner pretended to shoot Kato the evil eye. And Kato pretended to be offended.
“Ok, how about we put all discussions of punching people on hold and return to the matter at hand?”
“The General.” Conner’s good mood popped like a balloon. “And the General’s evil schemes. Come on, we know he’s involved in the kidnappings. He’s in charge of the Castle. He has access to all information on every Apprentice. He knows what they can do, where they’ll be, when they’ll be there…”
Kato frowned. “We cannot prove the General is not responsible for the missing Apprentices. But we can’t disprove it either.”
“Sure we can.”
Kato and I both looked at Conner.
“The proof is there,” he told us. “All we have to do is search the General’s office in the Black Obelisk.”
“That’s easier said than done, Conner,” Kato said. “The Black Obelisk is very well guarded.”
“Usually, that’s true, yes. But not tonight.”
“Tonight?” I frowned. “What’s tonight?”
“The highly-anticipated performance ofPortia and the Circus of Dreams. For this night only, the General is sure to be away from his office for hours, and he’ll have a good number of his soldiers with him too. The Black Obelisk’s going to be as vulnerable as it gets. That’s when we make our move.”
“You want to break into the Black Obelisk and search the General’s office?” Kato tried to keep his tone level, but he was clearly shocked.
“Yes, I want to break into the Black Obelisk and search the General’s office,” Conner confirmed. “But only if you come with me.”
Kato sat on one of the sofa arms. “You’re insane.”
“Well, yeah. Obviously. But I’m also right. This is our best—maybe ouronly—chance of looking through all the General’ssecret files. The General and many of his soldiers will be out. The Black Obelisk will be vulnerable.”
“The Black Obelisk will be under lockdown.”
Conner waved Kato’s concerns away. “We can handle a few automated defenses.”
“There are a lot more than just a few defenses. The Alchemists have spent the whole week upgrading the Black Obelisk’s defenses, which wasyouridea, by the way.”
“But as a Knight Commander, I’m sure you know how to deactivate those defenses.”
“No chance. The General doesn’t trust the Knights that much. He let us install the defenses, but then he changed all the codes.”
“If you can’t turn off the defenses, maybe we can overpower them?”
Kato gave him a wry smile. “Only if you want to spend a few hours bombarding the Black Obelisk with magic. Do you think the Watchers will notice?”
“The General really does ruin everything.” Conner frowned.
But I had an idea. “If we can’t turn off the defenses and we can’t overpower them, maybe we can go around them.”
They both looked at me.
“What do you suggest?” Kato asked.
“I had a good look at the Alchemists’ defensive upgrades, and besides the front gate and the front door, they all appeared to be inside the building itself.”
