Chapter 19: The Bitter Betrayal
The backhand caught Fatima across the cheekbone with a sound like a wet branch snapping.
Her head whipped sideways. Blood sprayed from her split lip in an arc that caught the fluorescent light and hung there for a fraction of a second before splattering against the concrete. She didn't cry out. Didn't even flinch. Just turned her head back slowly, deliberately, and spat a mouthful of crimson onto the floor between Maryam's boots.
"You think this makes you powerful?" Fatima's voice was quiet, almost conversational, but the Arabic cut through the hum of the factory like a blade. "You think betraying your family fills the hole inside you?"
Maryam's hand moved before she could stop it.
Another backhand. Harder this time. Fatima's lip split wider, and blood dribbled down her chin, but she was laughing. Actually laughing. A low, wet chuckle that made the hairs on the back of Maryam's neck stand up.
"Enough."
Eddie Murphy stepped through the door.
He was shorter than Maryam had expected—shorter than his file photo suggested, anyway. A compact man with thinning brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses that sat slightly askew on his nose. He wore a charcoal gray suit that probably cost more than Maryam's entire wardrobe, and his shoes were polished to a mirror shine. Everything about him screamed accountant. Everything about his eyes screamed something else entirely.
"That's enough," he repeated. "We need them alive."
Maryam lowered her hand.
The knuckles of her right hand were already swelling. The skin had split over her middle knuckle, and she could feel the hot pulse of blood beneath it. She wiped her hand on her jeans and tried not to look at her father.
Hank was still on his knees.
Zip ties bound his wrists behind his back—the plastic digging into his skin hard enough to leave marks. His nose was broken. She'd done that herself, a calculated blow that had felt like punching a side of beef. He'd grunted and gone down, and she'd told herself it was necessary.
His eyes found hers.
They were sad. Not angry. Not betrayed. Just sad. The way he'd looked at her when she was twelve and had accidentally broken his favorite baseball trophy. The way he'd looked at her when she'd told him she was moving to Miami.
Something flickered behind Maryam's eyes.
Doubt. Love. The desperate desire to run to him, to cut the zip ties, to apologize.
She turned away.
"I want to interrogate them personally," she said.
Eddie raised an eyebrow.
"You've already interrogated them. That's what I just watched."
"That was a warm-up." Maryam's voice was flat, emotionless. "I want to know what they know about the Williamsons. About their connections to the Green Moon. About the infiltration of our Miami operations."
Eddie studied her.
He had the kind of eyes that made you feel like he could see through your skull and read the thoughts crawling around inside. Maryam forced herself to meet them without flinching.
"Fine," he said. "But they're transported to the living mountain by nightfall. You can have them until then."
"Understood."
Eddie nodded.
He gestured to the two Consortium operatives standing near the door—both wearing the modified pi symbol on their lapels, both carrying weapons that hummed with the low thrum of anti-magic tech.
"Take them to holding. Keep them separated."
"Wait."
Eddie paused.
"I want them together," Maryam said. "Psychological pressure. They'll be more likely to talk if they're worried about each other."
Eddie considered this.
"Fine. But if they escape—"
"They won't."
She said it with the kind of confidence that came from years of practice. Years of pretending. Years of being the ordinary daughter, the tomboy, the screwup who couldn't do magic and couldn't do meditation and couldn't do anything right except swing a bat and watch football with her dad.
Eddie nodded again.
Then he was gone, and Maryam was alone with her parents.
---
The holding room was small.
Bare concrete walls. A single fluorescent light that buzzed and flickered. A metal table bolted to the floor. Two chairs. No windows.
Maryam had them brought in together. She'd cut the zip ties herself—carefully, with a knife that she held steady despite the tremor in her hands—and she'd pointed to the chairs and told them to sit.
They sat.
Hank flexed his fingers. His wrists were raw and red, and he rotated them slowly, working out the stiffness. Fatima dabbed at her split lip with the back of her hand, examining the blood with a kind of clinical detachment.
"You hit hard," Fatima said.
"Mom—"
"Fati."
Maryam flinched.
"Mom," she repeated. "I'm—"
"You're doing what needs to be done." Fatima's voice was gentle. Forgiving. "I know."
Maryam looked at the door.
The one-way mirror. Eddie was behind it—she was almost certain of it. He'd said he would give her space to work, but he'd never said anything about stepping out of the building.
"You're bleeding," Maryam said.
"I've had worse."
"I did that."
"You did."
Maryam's hands were shaking.
She shoved them into her pockets. Her right knuckle was throbbing, the skin tight and hot, and she could feel the blood drying into a sticky crust. She wanted to hug her mother. She wanted to bury her face in her mother's shoulder and cry the way she had when she was a little girl, when a scraped knee or a bad grade or a lost game had felt like the end of the world.
Instead, she pulled out a chair and sat down.
"Tell me about the Williamsons."
Fatima laughed.
It was the same low, wet chuckle from before—bloody and breathless and completely unafraid. "Really? That's how you want to do this?"
"It's how I have to do this."
"If Eddie's watching—"
"He is."
"Then we should make it convincing."
Fatima straightened in her chair.
She lifted her chin, and suddenly she wasn't Fatima Powers, the mother who made pancakes on Sunday mornings and cheered too loudly at soccer games. She was Fatima Abaza, the deadliest motherfucker in Chicago, the woman who had faced down Consortium interrogators and walked away without a scratch.
"You want to know about the Williamsons?" she said. "Mike and Casey are the two most boring people I've ever met. They don't have any powers. They're not particularly smart. They're not particularly brave. They're just... them."
"Then why are they important?"
"Because they're kind." Fatima's voice softened. "Because they love each other. Because they've been married for over twenty years and they still hold hands when they walk down the street. Because they've spent their entire lives surrounded by magic and chaos and danger, and they've never once complained."
Maryam swallowed.
"They sound like saints."
"They're not. They're just people. But they're the kind of people who make you want to be better."
Maryam looked at her father.
Hank hadn't said a word since he'd been brought in. He was sitting in his chair, his big hands resting on his knees, his eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance. He looked tired. Worn. Like a man who had been carrying a weight for too long and was finally starting to buckle.
"Dad—"
"Mar."
The nickname hit her like a punch to the gut.
He hadn't called her that in years. Not since she'd moved to Miami. Not since she'd started wearing the baseball cap everywhere and pretending she didn't care about anything. It was the name he'd called her when she was a little girl, when he'd taught her to throw a curveball in the backyard, when they'd sat on the couch together and watched the Bears lose another game.
"Dad," she said again.
"I know."
"You don't know."
"I do." He looked at her then. Really looked at her. His eyes were the same warm brown she'd inherited, the same eyes that had crinkled with laughter at every bad joke and every terrible turnover. "You're my daughter. I've known you since before you were born. I know when you're lying."
Maryam's throat tightened.
"I'm not—"
"You are." Hank's voice was gentle. "You've been lying since the moment you walked into that room. You're not a traitor. You're not a Consortium operative. You're a girl who's scared and angry and trying to do the right thing in a situation where there is no right thing."
"I hit you."
"You did."
"I broke your nose."
"You did."
"I backhanded Mom so hard she bled."
"You did." Hank nodded slowly. "And I'm proud of you."
Maryam stared at him.
"You're proud of me?"
"You did what needed to be done. You sold the performance. You made them believe you." Hank leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "That's not easy. That's not something most people could do. You're stronger than you think you are, Mar. Stronger than any of us realized."
Maryam's eyes were burning.
She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to run out of the room and find Eddie and tell him the truth and accept whatever punishment he decided to dole out.
Instead, she took a deep breath.
"We don't have much time," she said. "Eddie's going to send you to the living mountain tonight. I need to know everything you know about the prison."
Fatima and Hank exchanged a look.
Then Fatima spoke.
"The prison is called the living mountain because it's not a building. It's a creature. An old one. Something that predates the Consortium by thousands of years." She leaned forward. "The Consortium didn't build it. They found it. They discovered a mountain that was alive—that had been alive for millennia—and they figured out how to use it as a prison."
"How?"
"By feeding it."
Maryam frowned.
"Feeding it what?"
"Magic." Fatima's voice was grim. "The mountain sustains itself on magical energy. The Consortium discovered that if they imprisoned magic users inside it, the mountain would absorb their power and grow stronger. It's been growing for centuries. It's the size of a small country now."
"And the Shine?"
Fatima's expression flickered.
"What do you know about the Shine?"
"Only what Eddie's told me. There's something in the prison. Something dangerous. It's protected by a light—the Shine—that appears to people in their dreams."
"The Shine isn't a protection." Fatima's voice dropped to a whisper. "It's a lure."
"What?"
"The Shine is bait. It appears to prisoners and guards and anyone who spends too long in the mountain's shadow. It calls to them. Tempts them. Makes them want to step through." Fatima paused. "No one who's dreamed of the Shine has ever stepped through. But no one knows why. No one knows what happens if you do."
"Have you dreamed of it?"
"I've dreamed of it every night since I first learned about it."
Maryam felt a chill run down her spine.
"What does it look like?"
"Bright. Warm. Like the sun, but softer." Fatima's eyes were distant. "It feels like coming home. Like everything you've ever wanted is waiting for you on the other side."
"That sounds nice."
"It's not." Fatima's voice was sharp. "It's a trap. Whatever's behind the Shine, whatever the Consortium is protecting—it's not good. André Durand spent years trying to figure it out. He knew more about the mountain than anyone, and even he didn't know what was behind the Shine."
"Who's André Durand?"
"The heretic. An old wizard who refused to join any Order. He was captured by the Consortium years ago, and then—" Fatima stopped. "Actually, I don't know what happened to him. He might still be in the mountain. He might be dead."
Maryam filed the information away.
The door opened.
Amanda MacInteyre stepped in.
She was wearing the same charcoal gray uniform as the other Consortium operatives, but unlike them, she looked uncomfortable. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and her blue eyes kept darting between Maryam and the prisoners like she was trying to figure out which one she was supposed to be watching.
"Eddie wants to see you," Amanda said.
Maryam stood.
"Watch them."
"Me?"
"You. Cody can help."
Amanda's expression flickered—something that might have been fear, or maybe doubt—but she nodded.
"I'll watch them."
Maryam walked to the door.
She stopped.
Turned.
Looked at her parents one last time.
Her father was sitting in his chair, his hands folded in his lap, his eyes closed. Her mother was watching her, her split lip still bleeding, her expression unreadable.
"I'm proud of you."
Fatima didn't say it out loud this time. Just mouthed the words, slow and deliberate, so there would be no mistaking them.
Maryam's jaw tightened.
She turned and walked out the door.
---
Eddie was waiting in the hallway.
He was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, his glasses reflecting the fluorescent light. He looked calm. Relaxed. Like a man who had everything under control.
"The prisoners are cooperating?"
"For now."
"Good." Eddie pushed off the wall. "We're moving them tonight. The transport will leave at eight. I want you, MacInteyre, and Murphy on the escort detail."
"I thought Cody wasn't cleared for field work."
"He's not. But the living mountain is a special case." Eddie's smile was thin. "The mountain has a way of... testing people. I want to see how he reacts."
Maryam's stomach twisted.
"You're testing his loyalty."
"I'm testing his usefulness." Eddie's voice was cold. "Cody Murphy claims he wants to honor his father's legacy. But claims are cheap. I want to see if he's willing to get his hands dirty."
"And if he's not?"
Eddie shrugged.
"Then he's useless. And we deal with useless people accordingly."
Maryam forced herself to nod.
"Understood."
"Good." Eddie turned to walk away. Then he stopped. "Oh, and Powers?"
"Yeah?"
"Your parents. They're not going to survive the mountain." He said it like he was commenting on the weather. "The longer they're inside, the more the mountain will drain them. By the time we're done with them, there won't be enough left to fill a thimble."
Maryam's hands clenched into fists.
But her voice was steady when she spoke.
"I know."
Eddie smiled.
"Good."
He walked away.
Maryam stood in the hallway, her heart pounding, her knuckles throbbing, and she thought about the mountain. About the Shine. About her parents locked in a cell, waiting to be fed to a creature that had been eating magic for thousands of years.
She thought about Kim.
Then she pulled out her phone and typed a message to the number she'd memorized and never saved.
They're moving us tonight. The mountain. Be ready.
Jenny's reply came seconds later.
We're ready. Be careful.
Maryam tucked her phone back into her pocket.
Then she went to find Amanda and Cody, and together they would take her parents to hell.
---
The transport van was black and unmarked.
Hank and Fatima were loaded into the back—hands zip-tied again, ankles bound with chains, gagged with strips of cloth that smelled like industrial cleaner. They didn't struggle. Didn't fight. They just looked at each other, and there was something in that look, something that passed between them, that made Maryam's chest ache.
She climbed into the passenger seat.
Cody drove.
Amanda sat in the back with the prisoners, her weapon—a small pistol that fired bullets coated in anti-magic compound—resting on her knee.
They pulled out of the factory loading dock at exactly eight o'clock.
The drive was long.
The mountain was two hours away, deep in the Everglades, accessed by a road that didn't appear on any map. They passed through a checkpoint at the edge of the swamp—two Consortium operatives in camouflage gear who waved them through after checking their credentials—and then they were driving through darkness, the headlights cutting through the cypress trees and the hanging moss, the air thick with the smell of damp earth and decaying vegetation.
Maryam watched the road.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from Jenny.
Kim's ritual is working. The others are comfortable. No signs of distress.
Maryam exhaled.
Then she felt the shard pulse in her chest.
Wait—not a shard. She didn't have a shard. That was the Williamsons. That was their thing, their connection, their bond.
But there was something there. Something warm. Something that felt like a hand on her shoulder. Something that felt like her mother's love, or her father's pride, or her sister's determination.
She looked in the rearview mirror.
Her parents were sitting in the back of the van, bound and gagged. They couldn't see her. Couldn't speak to her. Couldn't do anything except wait.
But they were there.
They were with her.
And that was enough.
The mountain appeared on the horizon.
It rose from the swamp like a wall—a massive, dark shape that blotted out the stars. It was larger than any mountain should have been. Larger than any geological formation Maryam had ever seen. It didn't look natural. It looked like something that had been carved, shaped, sculpted by hands that weren't human.
She felt it the moment they got close.
A weight in the air. A pressure in her chest. A whisper at the edge of her thoughts that said come in, come closer, come home.
The Shine.
She could see it in her mind's eye—a warm golden light, soft and welcoming, promising everything she'd ever wanted. It was beautiful. It was terrible. It was calling to her, and she knew, with a certainty that went deeper than logic, that if she stepped through, she would never come back.
But she wasn't going to step through.
She was going to walk into the mountain, deliver her parents, and then find a way to get them out.
Even if it killed her.
Cody pulled the van to a stop at the base of a road that wound upward into the darkness. A gate blocked the path—thick iron bars, electrified, with a guardhouse tucked into the rock face beside it.
Two guards emerged.
They checked Cody's credentials. They checked Amanda's. They checked Maryam's.
Then they opened the gate and waved them through.
The van began to climb.
Maryam looked out the window, and she saw the mountain—really saw it—for the first time. It was black against the night sky, but there were lights embedded in its surface. Windows. Doors. Structures built into the rock like barnacles on a whale's back.
The living mountain.
She reached into her pocket and found the sheet she'd made for her Louisville Slugger.
It was a simple sheet of paper—just a page from a notebook, covered in her handwriting. It listed everything she knew about the bat: its weight, its balance, the way it felt in her hands. It listed every swing she'd practiced, every game she'd played, every home run she'd hit.
It wasn't magic.
It wasn't even close to magic.
But it was hers.
And she knew, somehow, that she was going to need it.
The van stopped.
The doors opened.
Maryam climbed out, and the mountain opened its mouth and swallowed her whole.
The mountain's entrance was a mouth.
Not a metaphor. Not a poetic approximation. An actual opening in the rock face that resembled nothing so much as a throat—slick with moisture, ringed with something that might have been teeth or might have been stalactites, and warm. Impossibly warm. The air that poured out of it smelled like copper and old blood and the sweet rot of things that had been digesting for centuries.
Maryam's boots squelched on the ground.
She looked down. The floor of the entrance tunnel was carpeted with something soft and organic, something that gave under her weight like moss but pulsed like flesh. The walls curved inward, narrowing and widening in rhythms that reminded her of breathing.
Cody made a sound beside her.
She glanced at him. His face was pale—paler than she'd ever seen it—and his hands were shaking. He was holding his Consortium-issue pistol like it was a lifeline, his knuckles white, his breathing shallow.
"You okay?"
"Yeah." His voice cracked. "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just—"
"The mountain."
"The mountain."
Amanda stepped between them, her chin lifted, her expression carefully blank. She was doing better than Cody—or pretending to—but Maryam could see the way her eyes kept darting to the walls, tracking the subtle movements of the flesh-like stone.
"We should keep moving," Amanda said. "The guards said the intake center is half a mile in."
Half a mile.
Maryam looked at her parents.
They were being marched ahead of her by two Consortium operatives—both wearing full-face masks, both carrying rifles that hummed with anti-magic tech. Hank and Fatima walked with their heads up, their steps steady, their gags still in place. They didn't look afraid.
They looked like they were waiting.
The tunnel began to slope downward.
The temperature rose. Maryam could feel sweat beading on her forehead, trickling down her spine, soaking into the collar of her Consortium uniform. The air grew thicker, heavier, until every breath felt like swallowing something solid.
And then they reached the intake center.
It was a cavern.
A massive, cathedral-like space carved into the heart of the mountain, lit by torches that burned with a sickly green flame. Prisoners were being processed at stations along the walls—stripped, searched, catalogued like livestock. Their cries echoed off the ceiling, bouncing and multiplying until they became a single, continuous wail of despair.
Maryam's stomach turned.
She forced herself to keep walking.
The guards led them to a desk at the far end of the cavern, where a woman in Consortium gray sat behind a terminal. She was thin, angular, with close-cropped hair and eyes that had long since stopped seeing prisoners as people.
"Transfer order?"
Maryam handed over the paperwork.
The woman scanned it. Frowned. Scanned it again.
"These are the Powers."
"Yes."
"The ones from Chicago?"
"Yes."
The woman looked up.
Her eyes flicked to Hank and Fatima, then back to Maryam. There was something in her expression—something calculating, something cold.
"We've been expecting them."
Maryam's hand drifted toward her bat.
"Expecting them?"
"The Murphy cell sent word ahead." The woman's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "They said you'd be bringing them in personally. Said you wanted to be the one to process them."
"I do."
"Why?"
Maryam met her gaze.
"Because they're my parents."
The woman's expression didn't change. If anything, it sharpened.
"I know who they are. I know who you are. I know your sister is the one who killed half our operatives in Chicago." She leaned back in her chair. "So tell me, Maryam Powers. Why should I trust you?"
Maryam didn't flinch.
"Because I brought them in. Because I broke my father's nose and split my mother's lip. Because I've spent the last three days pretending to be something I'm not, and I'm tired of it."
She stepped closer to the desk.
She placed her hands flat on the surface.
"You want to know why I'm here? I'm here because I'm tired of being the ordinary one. I'm tired of being the daughter who couldn't do magic, who couldn't meditate, who couldn't do anything except swing a bat and watch football with her dad. I'm tired of watching Kim get everything—the power, the attention, the pride—while I get nothing."
Her voice cracked.
It wasn't entirely an act.
"So yes. I brought them in. I wanted to see the look on their faces when they realized their screwup daughter was the one who finally beat them."
The woman studied her for a long moment.
Then she nodded.
"Processing will take two hours. You can wait in the observation room."
She gestured to a door on the far wall.
Maryam straightened.
She turned to look at her parents one last time.
Hank was watching her. His eyes were wet, but not with fear. Something else. Something that looked almost like hope.
Fatima was smiling behind her gag.
Maryam turned away.
She walked to the observation room, and she didn't look back.
---
The observation room was small.
A table. Two chairs. A window that looked out onto the processing floor. The glass was thick and slightly green, and it distorted everything behind it, turning the prisoners into blurred shapes, the guards into faceless silhouettes.
Maryam sat.
Cody sat across from her.
Amanda stood by the window, her arms crossed, her eyes fixed on the processing floor. She hadn't said anything since they'd entered the mountain. Neither had Cody. The silence was heavy, oppressive, broken only by the distant sounds of the prison—screams, shouts, the low hum of machinery that never stopped.
"So," Cody said finally. "That was..."
"Intense?"
"Yeah."
Maryam shrugged.
"I told you. I've been waiting years for this."
"I know. I just didn't realize how much you meant it."
Something in his voice made her look up.
He was staring at her. Not with suspicion. With something else. Something that looked almost like respect.
"You hit your dad pretty hard."
"I did."
"And your mom—"
"I know what I did."
"Right." Cody leaned back in his chair. "It's just... I don't know if I could do that. Hit my parents, I mean. Even if it was fake."
"Your parents disowned you."
"Yeah."
"So why would you care?"
Cody didn't answer.
He looked at the window. At the blurry shapes of prisoners being processed. At the guards who moved among them like wolves among sheep.
"I don't know," he said finally. "I guess I still love them. Even after everything."
Maryam didn't respond.
She understood. That was the problem. She understood exactly what he meant—the complicated tangle of love and hate and guilt that came with being someone's child. She'd spent years feeling it. Years trying to untangle it. Years pretending it wasn't there.
And now here she was, sitting in a Consortium prison, waiting to watch her parents be dragged into the dark.
"You okay?"
Cody's voice was softer now.
She looked at him.
"I don't know," she said. "I don't know if I've ever been okay."
---
The door opened.
A Consortium operative stepped in—one of the masked ones, the ones who looked like faceless drones. He carried a tablet and a look of grim efficiency.
"Processing complete," he said. "The prisoners are ready for transport to the deep cells."
Maryam stood.
"Take me to them."
---
The deep cells were lower.
So much lower.
The tunnel spiraled down for what felt like miles, the walls growing tighter and darker with every step. The green torchlight gave way to something else—a faint, pulsing glow that seemed to come from the stone itself. It reminded Maryam of the Shine, that warm golden light that had been haunting her thoughts since her mother had described it.
But this wasn't warm.
This was cold.
This was the glow of something ancient and hungry, something that had been waiting in the dark for a very long time.
They reached a cell.
The operative stopped.
"You have ten minutes," he said. "Then they go in."
Maryam nodded.
She stepped inside.
Her parents were on the floor—still bound, still gagged, but alive. Hank was slumped against the wall, his eyes closed, his breathing slow and steady. Fatima was sitting upright, her head tilted back, her gaze fixed on the ceiling.
They both looked at her when she entered.
Maryam closed the door behind her.
She pulled out a knife.
Hank's eyes widened. Fatima's expression flickered.
But Maryam didn't attack them.
She cut the zip ties.
She pulled the gags from their mouths.
She knelt in front of them, and she started to shake.
"Mom," she whispered. "Dad."
"Mar."
Hank reached for her.
She fell into his arms.
The tears came then—hot and fast and completely uncontrollable. She sobbed into her father's shoulder, her body shaking, her hands clutching at his shirt like she was afraid he would disappear if she let go.
"I'm sorry," she gasped. "I'm so sorry, I didn't want to—I had to—Eddie was watching, and I couldn't—"
"Shh." Hank's hand stroked her hair. "We know. We know, baby girl."
"I hit you."
"You had to."
"I broke your nose."
"It'll heal."
"I made you bleed."
"I've bled before." Hank pulled back, just enough to look at her face. His eyes were soft, warm—the same eyes that had watched her grow up, that had cheered her on at every game, that had never once looked at her with anything but love. "You were brave, Mar. You were so fucking brave."
"I didn't feel brave."
"That's what brave feels like."
Fatima reached out and took her hand.
Her split lip was still bleeding. Her cheek was bruised. Her eyes were tired. But she was smiling.
"I told you," she said. "I'm proud of you."
Maryam laughed.
It was a wet, broken sound, more sob than laugh, but it was real.
"I don't know what I'm doing," she admitted. "I don't know how to get you out."
"You don't have to get us out."
"What?"
Fatima squeezed her hand.
"We're not the mission," she said. "The prison is. You need to find out what's in the Shine. You need to figure out what the Consortium is protecting. That's why we're here."
"But—"
"No buts." Fatima's voice was firm. "We're old, Mar. We've had our time. You're young. You're strong. And you're exactly where you need to be."
Maryam shook her head.
"I can't leave you here."
"You don't have a choice."
"There's always a choice—"
"Maryam."
Hank's voice cut through hers.
She looked at him.
"We love you," he said. "All of you. You, Kim, everyone. And we knew what we were signing up for when we agreed to this plan. We knew the risks."
"I didn't."
"You did. You just didn't want to admit it."
Maryam's jaw tightened.
She wanted to argue. Wanted to scream. Wanted to tell them that the plan was stupid, that the risks were too high, that she would rather die than leave them in this place.
But she couldn't.
Because they were right.
She took a breath.
"Ten minutes," she said. "I have ten minutes before they come for you."
Fatima nodded.
"Then we should make them count."
---
Cody was waiting outside the cell.
He looked up when Maryam emerged, his expression flickering between relief and concern. Amanda was beside him, her hand resting on her pistol, her eyes scanning the corridor for threats.
"Everything okay?"
"No," Maryam said. "But it will be."
She pulled out her phone.
No signal—of course—but she didn't need one. She typed a message, saved it as a draft, and then tucked the phone back into her pocket. Jenny would find a way to relay it. Jenny always found a way.
They walked back to the intake center in silence.
The mountain pulsed around them.
The Shine called to her.
And Maryam let it.
---
Miles away, the jet touched down.
Mandy was first off, her boots hitting the tarmac with a solid thunk that matched the pounding of her heart. Behind her came Ben and Jess, then Yukio and Mai, then the others—Rick, Stacy, Jan with Godfrey tucked under her arm, Brigid, Letta, Nikita, and Shiv bringing up the rear with her cane clicking against the ground.
The upstate New York facility loomed ahead.
It was a squat, ugly building—concrete and steel and razor wire, the kind of place that had been designed by someone who hated architecture and everyone who lived in it. The Golden Wand insignia had been painted over with the Consortium's pi symbol, but the old lines were still visible underneath, ghostlike and faint.
"Charming," Jan said.
"Reminds me of the void," Shiv agreed. "Except the void had better lighting."
Mandy pulled out her tablet.
She'd been running scans of the facility for the last hour—thermal imaging, spatial mapping, everything she could pull from the satellite feeds she'd hacked two days ago. The building was heavily defended. Guards at every entrance. Anti-magic fields pulsing at regular intervals. Motion sensors, heat sensors, pressure plates.
But there were gaps.
There were always gaps.
"Okay," she said. "Here's the plan."
She turned to face the group.
"We go in through the basement. There's a service tunnel that runs under the main building—old Wand infrastructure, probably used for emergency evacuations. It's not on the current schematics, which means the Consortium either doesn't know about it or hasn't bothered to secure it."
"And if they have?" Rick asked.
"Then we improvise."
"Great."
"Jess, you're with me. We'll take point and disable the security systems. Ben, you're on rear guard. Rick, Stacy—you're our eyes. If anything moves, I want to know about it."
"What about me?" Mai asked.
"You and your mom are our escape route. If things go sideways, we need someone who can get us out fast."
Mai nodded.
"What about me, dear?"
Mandy turned to Shiv.
The older woman was leaning on her cane, her green eyes sharp, her expression unreadable. Beside her, Jan was already starting to glow—the soft gold of Green Moon magic flickering around her fingers like heat lightning.
"You and Jan hang back with Brigid and the others," Mandy said. "If we need heavy magic, we'll call."
"And if we don't need heavy magic?"
"Then you get to wait in the cold."
Shiv's lips curved.
"I've waited in worse places."
Mandy turned to the facility.
She took a breath.
"Let's go."
---
The service tunnel was dark.
Not the kind of dark that came from a lack of light—the kind of dark that came from something else. Something that pressed against your eyes, that made you feel like you were being watched by things you couldn't see.
Mandy moved forward anyway.
Her tablet was her only light—a faint blue glow that illuminated the concrete walls and the rusted pipes and the support beams that had been old when her parents were children. The air smelled like mold and old grease and something else. Something sharp. Something chemical.
"Anti-magic residue," Jess murmured beside her. "They've been pumping the tunnels full of it."
"Will it affect us?"
"Only if we try to use magic. We should be fine."
"Good."
They kept moving.
The tunnel branched after a hundred yards—one path leading left, toward the main building, the other leading right, toward something Mandy's scans hadn't been able to identify. She paused, her fingers hovering over the tablet.
"Left or right?"
"Left," Jess said. "Right is a dead end."
"How do you know?"
"Wand training. Old facilities always have false tunnels. They're meant to trap intruders."
Mandy nodded.
They took the left path.
The tunnel sloped upward.
Mandy could hear voices now—distant, muffled, echoing through the concrete. Guards, probably. Or prisoners. Or both. She couldn't tell. She didn't want to guess.
They reached a door.
Steel. Reinforced. Locked.
Mandy pulled out her toolkit.
She'd been picking locks since she was twelve—her father had taught her, back when she was too young to understand why he knew how. She'd practiced on everything from filing cabinets to the neighbor's shed, and she'd gotten good. Really good.
This lock took her forty seconds.
The door swung open.
And they stepped into the facility proper.
---
The hallway was white.
Sterile. Clinical. The kind of hallway that looked like it had been designed by people who wanted to make sure you never forgot you were in a prison. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Security cameras tracked every movement. The air smelled like bleach and despair.
"Where's the vault?" Rick asked.
"Lower levels," Mandy said. "According to the old Wand schematics, it was in the basement. Sub-basement, actually. Twelve levels down."
"And the Shine?"
"No idea. That's what we're here to find out."
They moved through the facility carefully, sticking to the shadows, avoiding the cameras that Jess disabled with quick, efficient blasts of Wand magic. The anti-magic residue in the air made her nose bleed, but she didn't stop. Didn't complain. Just wiped the blood away and kept going.
They passed a cell block.
The prisoners inside looked at them through the bars—hollow-eyed, thin, broken. Some of them reached for the group as they passed, their fingers clutching at empty air, their mouths forming words that never came.
Mandy kept walking.
She couldn't help them. Not yet. First, they needed to find the vault. First, they needed to figure out what the Consortium was hiding.
First, they needed to survive.
The elevators were locked down.
So they took the stairs.
Twelve levels.
Twelve flights of stairs.
By the time they reached the bottom, Mandy's legs were burning and her lungs were screaming and she was pretty sure she'd pulled something in her back. But she didn't stop. Didn't rest. Just pushed through the pain and kept going.
The sub-basement was different from the rest of the facility.
It was clean.
Not the sterile clean of the upper levels—the real kind. The kind that came from people who cared about what they were doing. The walls were reinforced with something that shimmered in the light, something that made Mandy's teeth ache and her skin crawl.
"Magical shielding," Jess said. "High-grade. This is where they keep the important stuff."
"The vault?"
"Has to be."
They found it at the end of a long corridor.
A door.
Not steel this time—something else. Something older. Something that looked like it had been carved from a single piece of obsidian, black and smooth and impossibly reflective.
Mandy approached it slowly.
The door was covered in symbols—not words, not pictures, just shapes. Patterns. Things that moved when she looked at them and stopped when she looked away.
"The Shine," she whispered.
"What?"
"The symbols. They're moving like the Shine moves. Like light."
Jess stepped closer.
"Can you read them?"
"No. But I know someone who might."
She pulled out her phone.
No signal. Of course. But she didn't need a signal. She typed a message to Calista—short, simple, direct.
Found the vault. Symbols are weird. Sending picture.
She took a photo.
She attached it.
She hit send.
And then she waited.
---
Back in Chicago, Calista was on her back.
Mike was between her legs.
Casey was beside her, her fingers tracing lazy circles on Calista's stomach. Katrina was behind Mike, her hands on his shoulders, her dark hair falling around her face.
The shard was pulsing.
Calista could feel Mandy—not physically, not yet, but close. Close enough that her chest ached with the connection. She could feel the message coming, the image forming in her mind, the symbols that Mandy had found.
But the message was fuzzy.
Unclear.
The best way to clarify it was to strengthen the connection.
The best way to strengthen the connection was pleasure.
"You're sure about this?" Mike asked.
"For the hundredth time, yes." Calista's voice was breathless. "I need you to fuck me. It's the only way."
Mike looked at Casey.
Casey shrugged.
"You heard her."
Mike looked at Katrina.
Katrina smiled.
"You heard her."
Mike sighed.
Then he pushed inside her.
Calista gasped.
The shard flared.
The connection snapped into focus—crystal clear, sharper than it had ever been. She could see the symbols now. Could read them. Could understand what they meant.
And what they meant was bad.
"Mike—"
He was moving inside her, slow and deep, his hands gripping her hips. "What is it?"
"The vault—" She gasped as he hit something deep. "The vault is empty."
He stopped.
"What?"
"Empty." She was panting. "The door is there, but the vault behind it—it's gone. Whatever was in there, it's not there anymore."
Casey leaned over her.
"What do you mean, gone?"
"I mean gone. Vanished. The Shine—the Shine took it. Or it took the Shine. I can't tell." Calista closed her eyes, trying to focus through the haze of pleasure. "The message is—it's not clear. The symbols are old. Older than the Wand facility. Older than the Consortium."
"How old?"
"Thousands of years. Maybe more." She opened her eyes. "Whatever was in that vault, it was there before the Wands ever found it. And now it's not."
Mike pulled out.
Calista whined—an actual, honest-to-god whine—and then immediately felt embarrassed.
"Sorry."
"Don't be." Mike was already reaching for his phone. "I need to tell Mandy."
"She already knows. She's the one who found the door."
"Right." He put the phone down. "Right."
Casey stood up.
"So what do we do?"
Calista closed her eyes.
She could still feel Mandy—the connection was still there, still open. She could feel the fear. The uncertainty. The determination.
"We keep going," she said. "We figure out what the Shine is. We figure out what it's protecting. And we don't let the Consortium get there first."
Mike nodded.
Then he looked down at her.
"You're still—" He gestured vaguely. "You know. Wound up."
Calista felt her face flush.
"Kind of."
"Want me to finish?"
She looked at Casey.
Casey was already pulling off her shirt.
"I think," she said, "that's an excellent idea."
Katrina was already on her knees beside the bed, her hands reaching for Calista's legs, her mouth already open.
Calista lay back.
The shard was pulsing.
The connection was humming.
And somewhere, deep in the mountain, Maryam was walking into the dark.