“You have something of mine,” Julia continued, when I failed to respond to her initial invitation to speak.

“That makes two of us,” I replied. “How did you find us? It’s barely been an hour.”

She shrugged languidly, managing to make even the casual action look graceful. “You underestimate my network. Even if I’m distracted, enjoying my leisure time, to think that you might try to have me tailed by such a guileless twit is more insult than the theft, if I’m being honest.”

She paced to where Tyler and Roman stood frozen, her hand stroking Roman’s face like a normal person would pet a dog.

“Such a simple, foolish effort. I barely even gave him any commands. I told him to return to whoever put him up to this and keep me posted on any information that was relevant to me. He left and notified me as soon as you explained the manifesto to him.”

“Don’t touch him,” I snarled.

The smile slid off of Julia’s face like water, leaving her stone-faced so quickly that I felt a chill run through me. The conversation I’d had with Heinrich was still fresh in my mind. She seemed like she was my age, a teenager on the cusp of adulthood. In her culture, however, she was already an adult, a trained wizard set to task. There was no longer anything in her expression that even vaguely reminded me of a high-school student.

“I’m going to give you a series of commands,” she said. “If, at any point, you fail to comply, or I feel like you’re up to something, I’ll have your friend slit your brother’s throat. Nod if you understand.”

I grit my teeth, but nodded all the same.

“Kneel on the ground, and don’t rise unless instructed.”

I slowly complied, wincing as my injured knee came into contact with the ground. I shifted my weight as best I could to keep pressure off of it, but the position was uncomfortable all the same. At the very least, we were learning more about Julia’s magic. She had to give explicit instructions. By the way she’d phrased the command, if she’d simply ordered me to kneel I could have risen and resumed acting once I’d finished putting my knees on the ground. She had to be specific to have continuous control.

“You there, tall and handsome,” Julia said, pointing at Jay. “Come here and await further instructions. You’ll be my new toy, I’m thinking.”

Jay rose and walked to where Julia stood, then took his place by her side when she indicated a spot. She leaned in and whispered something to him, too quiet for me to hear, before turning back to me.

“There were three of you ringleaders. Where’s the Eastern girl?”

Eastern? That was an oddly archaic way to describe Marika. I was curious, but it hardly seemed the time to ask about geopolitical phrasing.

“Inside,” I answered.

“Well, tell her to come out here.”

I shrugged, doing my best to affect nonchalance. I got the feeling showing any weakness here would cause the situation to destabilize even further than it already had. “I don’t exactly have mind control, you know. She doesn’t listen to me, anyway.”

Julia narrowed her eyes at me, then gestured to Xander.

“Go get the girl,” she said. “No need to be gentle. Search for the manifesto while you’re in there, but don’t make a thing of it. They’ll bring it to us without the need to expend much effort.”

Xander kept his eyes on me as he passed me on the way inside. There wasn’t much to be gathered from his gaze, but it was elating to think that he was still wary of me from the incident in the library. When I looked back, Julia was talking to Augustus, finishing with a jerk of her head in my direction.

“Don’t move while Augustus checks you for weapons,” Julia said. As soon as she was finished speaking, Augustus stalked over to me. I couldn’t keep the scorn off my face as he stopped squarely in front of me.

He scoffed, a sneer twisting his face. “This won’t even be fun. Aren’t any curves on you. Of course Xander gets to paw the bouncy one.”

I saw the reaction in Jay, across the clearing. The muscles in his arms tensed, and his weight shifted forward, like he was getting ready to run at Augustus. Julia noticed, putting a hand on his arm and leaning in to whisper in his ear again. When she pulled away, Jay turned and took the knife from Roman before taking over his position, the blade held to Tyler’s throat.

I suppressed a shudder of revulsion as Augustus ran his hands over me. My clothing was pretty thick, insulated winter gear with a jacket on top and heavy, fleece-lined pants, but it still made my stomach turn as Augustus gripped my butt, and pretended like he was spending extra effort to look for weapons I was hiding around my chest.

“You know,” I said through grit teeth, “the manifesto said that the nemesis needed top-notch acting abilities, to so effectively play the role of a vulgar cretin. The role was made for you, wasn’t it?”

I flinched as he swiped his hands once more over my chest before stepping back.

“She’s clear,” Augustus said. “Carrying literally nothing.”

Julia frowned. “I must say, I honestly expected you to try and pull something. A little disappointing.”

“I’m sorry I’m not a better hostage,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Well I’m sorry I’m such a psychotic bitch!”

I blinked. In my earpiece, I could hear Marika cackling.

“Okay, that’s not what she said. Had you guessed? You probably guessed.”

I resisted the urge to sigh. Maybe I should have put Jay in the panic room. We’d have been missing a little bit of manpower for what came next, but at least I wouldn’t have to put up with Marika’s inability to take things seriously.

“She actually said, ‘You have twenty seconds to produce the manifesto, or your boyfriend here is going to open the boy up. Twenty seconds after that, the girl goes.’ Ugh, can you believe this tramp?”

I nodded slowly, turning to walk past where Augustus was still watching me, a crude smile on his face.

“I mean, she actually thinks you and Jay might be- Oops, hold on. She said to wait.”

I jerked to a halt, glancing over my shoulder at Julia. Hopefully, the slight delay between when she said things and when I heeded her wasn’t too obvious.

Julia’s mouth was moving, but her words didn’t penetrate past the wireless earbuds I was wearing. Around two seconds after she’d started talking, Marika started relaying the words to Jay and me.

“She’s saying to wait until Xander comes back out with me. She doesn’t want two of us in here at the same time.”

Well, that would be a problem. Even with the heightened senses his transformation came with, I thought it rather unlikely that he’d be able to find Marika, hidden in the safe room. I had little to no doubt that if Xander emerged without having found her, Julia would start to double down on threats.

Time to go, then.

In the grand scheme of things, there were few things about the appearance of wizards and the sudden introduction of magic that brought me more enjoyment than watching the smug, secure entitlement on Augustus’s face turn to shock and pain as I stepped in and elbowed him in the solar plexus. As soon as I moved, Jay released Roman and wrapped one muscular arm around Julia’s neck, drawing it tight. I tried not to let the sight of her eyes widening in surprise distract me too much.

Augustus doubled over without a sound, a thin stream of spittle escaping his lips as he struggled to draw breath. He reached an arm out to try to keep himself from collapsing on the ground, which I kicked out from beneath him with hardly any effort. The gasping wizard pitched over onto his side, and I crouched and punched him across the jaw. I’d never actually hit someone with the intent to harm since I’d started training for it, and I felt a savage surge of satisfaction as he went limp.

Things weren’t going as well on Jay’s end.

As soon as Jay began constricting Julia’s windpipe, the crowd turned on him, moving as a single, cohesive unit. It was eerie to watch, more like a single mind than a cluster of independent decisions. They were clearly under some continuous compulsion to mobilize against anyone taking aggressive actions against her. I’d conjectured that she wasn’t capable of delivering telepathic instructions to people already under her control, judging by the explicit way she layered her commands. She wasn’t that strong, she was just prudent.

I hoped.

“She’s got a persistent compulsion up, Mari,” I spoke into my collar, where the microphone was hidden. “Plan A2.”

I could hear the glee in Marika’s voice as she responded.

“Let’s get loud.”

Jay released Julia upon hearing the words, shoving her roughly to the ground and grabbing Roman and Tyler as he began moving away from the angry crowd. Whatever magic was motivating their instinctive defense was absent in my two friends. I imagined Julia hadn’t had time to run the full mind-slave gambit with the two of them, instead opting for something easier to slap together, something that would visually display the “mind control” effect upon witnessing the pair as hostages. They didn’t seem to have it in them to pull back against Jay’s guiding hands.

I couldn’t hear her, but I could see from the slightly deranged expression on her face and the way her mouth moved that Julia shrieked with rage as she fought her way back to standing. One delicately manicured hand came up, pointing at Jay, before her mouth opened again, her teeth bared like an angry dog.

The next noise I did hear. It wasn’t terribly loud, but then again, I was wearing earbuds that were designed to cancel noise from the outside. To me it sounded like a single deep note, carried on over the seconds like an opera singer with infinite air. Like the world’s angriest taxi driver was honking his horn outside my house, at a pedestrian that wouldn’t ever move out of the way. Judging from the way Julia and her mob immediately hit their knees, makeshift weapons hitting the ground all at once in an easily imaginable clatter, the noise was far louder to them.

Julia’s mouth moved, and I saw the panic flit across her expression as she realized that none of her thralls could hear her over the modified train horn.

Not so magical now, I mused internally. A device invented by Mundanes more than sixty years ago renders you into a pretty, sociopathic, arrogant weakling.

I walked over to where Jay was standing above Tyler and Roman, the younger pair writhing on the ground like the rest of the thralls. I tapped him on the shoulder as I knelt down, and he deposited a pair of earplugs into my hand. Gently, but firmly, I pulled my brother’s hands away from his ears and pressed the earplugs into place. There had probably already been some damage done, but getting the kids some hearing protection was still the top priority. It wasn’t their fault they’d been put into this position and I didn’t want them permanently deafened as a result of my escalating grudge match with Avalon.

Once I’d gotten the earplugs into place, Tyler blinked confusedly at me. A relieved smile split my face as I saw him mouth my name. According to our brief education on magic, though nearly all mesmers had very unique ways in which their compulsions had to be applied, Compulsion magic in general shared two glaring weaknesses. First, applying significant system shocks to compelled targets could disperse the effect. Depending on the strength of the individual wizard, sometimes something as simple as a slap in the face was enough. In this case, perhaps owing to the auditory nature of the compulsion’s condition, a terribly loud noise had done the trick. Second, many compulsions were only as strong as their mesmer’s concentration. Destabilizing the mesmer, causing them pain or stress or, in what Cheri described as a “nearly guaranteed success”, knocking them out, would usually see their compulsions released, as the complex magical structures that were required to maintain them collapsed with their wielder’s composure.

From what I could tell, we’d gotten her both ways.

All around the clearing, Julia’s thralls were shaking their heads, hands clapped over their ears. I saw the emotion blooming onto each of their faces as the noise blasted away Julia’s magic, saw the fear and confusion and, eventually, anger cloud their expressions as they worked their way back to their feet.

I realized a slight flaw in the plan right at that moment. For this countermeasure, we’d been banking on Julia being left defenseless after her thralls were removed. Considering the size of the mob and the quantity of available weapons, I was suddenly concerned with what might happen if the crowd decided to turn on the girl. It wasn’t that she didn’t deserve it, I could hardly imagine a more poetically just end to the situation, but I didn’t want to get the Club wrapped up in a murder investigation or be indirectly responsible for pushing someone to that extreme.

I felt a surge of gratitude, and something not unlike camaraderie, as the thralls closest to Julia gave her disgusted looks, and then dispersed without picking up their weapons. In fits and starts, the bravest of them followed by small clusters that turned into a mass exodus, Julia’s army turned and walked back the way they’d come, into the forest between us and Haden.

Jay went and took up a position by Augustus’s prone form while I took my time pacing over to Julia. I saw the blood shining red through her fingers, where they were clamped over her ears. A cold part of me wanted to let the horn continue, in the spirit of sharing even an iota of the misery she’d caused on her idle whims. I glanced back toward the Tryhard Clubhouse, at the friends arrayed in front of it. The people who believed in me, who thought I was a better person than I was. The ones who enabled me to be that person. I realized in that moment that perhaps Julia was the way she was because she didn’t have anyone like that.

I reached up and gave a wave to the camera mounted at the apex of the old barn’s roof. Past the dampening of my headphones, the blare of the train horn ended as abruptly as it began. I fished the earbuds out of my ear and knelt down next to where Julia was quietly sobbing into the dirt.

“Can you hear me?” I asked, using the slightly over-exaggerated loudness one normally saved for the hearing-impaired.

Julia’s mouth opened, and my fist flashed out, stopping just short of her pearly white teeth. Whatever she had intended to say withered on her tongue.

“Non-verbal communication only, please,” I said. “The first syllable I hear from you, I’m gonna hit you, and I won’t stop until you stop moving.” A wry smile twisted my face. “Nod if you understand.”

A nod.

“Great.”

Xander emerged from the Clubhouse, but he was escorted by Adela and Marika. Adela had a baseball bat held up like she was expecting a pitch, while Marika was simply wearing handwraps. Xander had a bloody nose and an eye that was already beginning to blacken, and judging from the skip in Marika’s step and her happy, tuneless humming, she’d been the one responsible.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here,” I said, “and guess that you didn’t report the manifesto’s disappearance to the Rainbow Cabals.”

Glaring, she shook her head.

Because that would mean a criminal investigation on you, though I’m sure that matters to you a hell of a lot less than the notion that such a grand failure of yours might be made public. That means that getting the manifesto back before its absence is noticed is your top priority.”

“Am I allowed to talk?” Xander asked from behind me. I glanced at him, then gave him a nod. Couldn’t hurt. “The way I see it, both of us want the same thing. We want this settled without getting the Cabals involved, and each want the other side to leave us alone from now on. The second part is, admittedly, a new addition for us. I think I speak for Augustus and our fearless leader here when I say we now recognize that you guys aren’t to be fucked with.”

“Hear, hear,” Adela said quietly, prompting a double-stomp that surprised me with its ferocity. I didn’t recall showing Adela that particular tradition, but I’m glad someone had. It was well timed, and highlighted our unity.

Xander held up a hand to show he wasn’t done talking. “That’s all well and good, and I’m sure we’d be happy to set up an arrangement like that. Sweep this whole thing under the rug and move on.” He paused, and his face took on a grim expression. “Sommer, on the other hand, won’t.”

“Heinrich?” Jay asked. “Why would he have an issue?”

“Julia and I are initiates in the Rainbow Cabals,” Xander explained. “The Cabal of Shadows and the Cabal of Dreams respectively. This is our first assignment and, should things go well, we’ll be inducted into our chosen Cabals. Heinrich, on the other hand, is already a Shepherd. He took an oath to answer to the Mage of the Path, and he takes it very seriously. To him, it wouldn’t matter if revealing that we’d lost control of the manifesto would result in a criminal investigation, our imprisonment, or death. If he found out-”

“He would be very cross.”

I felt a chill run through me. The deep voice had come from above us, and the only high ground in the area was the Clubhouse.

Crouching atop the roof of the barn, the friendly inviting smile he’d worn in our conversation earlier that day now just a memory, Heinrich glared down at the small gathering beneath him.

Exemplar, right. For all I knew, he was a worse person than Augustus. His gaze settled on me, and I saw comprehension dawn.

“I suppose I should commend you,” he said. “Were you a wizard, a prosperous future in the Cabals would be practically guaranteed. Even when I knew someone was attempting something, I did not see through your charade.”

I felt Julia stir beside me, in the moment I was focusing on Heinrich’s words. Before she’d even finished the first syllable of whatever command she was trying, I struck her across the jaw, laying her out on the packed earth.

“As much as I appreciate the compliment,” I answered, wringing my hand, “I would much rather you all just leave. I understand the logic behind the manifesto, even if I find it reprehensible. All things considered, I think I prefer this approach to the alternative. But I will be dead and in the ground before I let you people walk all over us without doing everything in my power to settle the score.”

“I respect you for that,” Heinrich said, standing from his crouch. If he had any reaction to my knocking Julia out, he didn’t show it. “I acknowledge your resolve, and feel obligated to tell you that I shall do everything in my power to ensure the dream of my mentor comes to fruition. I can not, will not, allow your meddling to continue, or your transgression to pass unreported.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” I responded. “The only ones who truly lose are you four. All they’ll take from us are memories. You could lose everything.”

“To flee that judgment,” Heinrich said, his speech bearing the slow cadence of a recitation, “is to stray from the Path.”

I blinked, and Heinrich was gone. Panic surged through me, and I put my arms up to defend myself as I swept my gaze around the clearing. As it turned out, he wasn’t coming for me.

“I have been instructed in how to deal with selfless leaders,” Heinrich told me, leaning down to seize Roman’s wrist. The descent from the thirty foot rooftop had taken him less than a second. Roman struggled against the massive wizard’s grip, but Heinrich lifted him like he was weightless, holding him off the ground by the arm. “There is no length you will not go to, nothing of yourself you would not sacrifice for those under your care. You are unassailable in this.”

Roman’s scream rent the autumn air as Heinrich crushed his wrist, the breaking of his bones wretchedly audible. It wasn’t a single break, the sound more like the crumbling of a pretzel than the snapping of a board. The young boy kicked and thrashed, but his panicked cries only grew more pained as he struggled.

I felt like I’d been doused in ice water.

“Your friends, your charges, are what make you vulnerable.”

The sound of splintering wood punctured the song of agony, and a cloud of tiny wooden fragments blossomed into the air around Heinrich’s head. He dropped Roman to the ground, and as he turned around I saw Marika standing there, holding the remains of a baseball bat in her hand. She backed away a single, faltering step before Heinrich turned and grabbed her by the throat, his hand almost completely encircling the girl’s neck. Marika’s free hand grabbed Heinrich’s wrist as he lifted her off the ground, doing her best to take her body’s weight off of her windpipe with what leverage she had.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Heinrich said, turning his face to one side as Marika stabbed the broken handle of the bat for his eyes. The sharp, splintered wood crumpled on impact with his skin, as though he were made of stone. “I’m going to ask you a question, and then I’m going to hurt one of your friends. We will continue this until I have-”

Heinrich cut off with a surprised gurgling sound as Marika shoved the handle into his mouth. She made a sound halfway between choking and laughing before Heinrich tore the bat out of her hand, spitting out bloody splinters. Growling with anger, he turned on his heel and hurled Marika through the barn door into the Clubhouse.

I heard a cry of anger from Jay, who had used the distraction Marika provided to drag Roman away from Heinrich. He stood in front of the fallen boy, his arms up in a boxer’s guard. Hearing my friend’s anguish roused me from my hesitation. I’d been frozen to the spot when Heinrich broke Roman’s wrist, but as the icy cold of fear had melted away, burning fury rose in its place.

Heinrich worked his mouth, and spat out a mouthful of blood as I approached him. It struck an odd note, that his apparent invulnerability was limited to his exterior. Were his other soft tissues vulnerable as well? He’d turned away from Marika’s initial strike to protect his eyes. All I had to do was-

He disappeared again. I felt the wind of his movement as he passed me, and I realized too late that I’d acted recklessly. He’d even announced his intentions, for God’s sake. Fear was like a leaden weight in my stomach as I heard the frightened cry from behind me, and I slowly turned.

Just as he’d held Roman aloft, Heinrich now had Tyler in his massive hand. 

“Emily…” Tyler moaned, tears streaming down his face as he hung there, looking like a toy in Heinrich’s grip.

My heart broke. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Tyler wasn’t the bravest boy in the world, and I’d recently come to terms with the fact that his desire for my approval would drive him to act braver than he felt, braver than he had the means to follow through with. At this moment, though, he was just a fourteen-year-old boy, more afraid than he’d ever been in his life.

Because of me.

“We give up,” I said, hanging my head. “Please...just stop.”

All of the screaming seemed to have roused Julia, the girl returning to her feet with murder in her eyes. The side of Julia’s face was swollen, and she was staring at me with unfiltered hatred.

“Kneel,” she hissed, her voice slightly distorted by the hand she had pressed to where I’d hit her.

Every member of the Tryhard Club knelt. We were beaten. With Julia back in the mix, our hearing protection removed, and the overwhelming force that was Heinrich Sommer, there wasn’t a path forward that showed victory for us. What was worse, every moment I struggled against it would see the people who had trusted me to lead them tortured, mangled, broken. My hands curled into fists, drawn so tight that my nails cut into my palms.

My head bowed until my forehead pressed into the dirt, my windswept hair hiding the tears of shame that spilled from my eyes.

You were supposed to keep them safe, I thought bitterly. You were supposed to help them.

I felt a soft touch at the back of my mind. It didn’t feel like Julia’s compulsion, that echoing mental force. It was gentle, sweet.

This isn’t your fault, Emily, a voice said. It’s mine.

I blinked the tears back, lifting my head to glance around the clearing in surprise. There wasn’t anyone nearby who looked like they were talking.

I’m going to make this right.

I caught a flowery smell in the air, raspberry and vanilla sweet on the autumn wind. I felt the despair in my heart slip away as something fiercer took its place. Pride and hope and the desire for victory re-ignited inside me, burning twice as high, twice as hot as before.

Dangling from Heinrich’s hand, Tyler gave a disbelieving laugh. Then, he vanished. Heinrich looked confusedly at his now-empty grip, his eyes searching the area like mine had moments before. His gaze was turned to the left when a girl appeared in the air on his right, clad in a pink dress and a ridiculous black-and-red wizard hat. She struck Heinrich on the side of his head, her fist flashing with crimson light as it impacted with a sound like stone on stone.

As Heinrich was knocked from his feet, flying into Julia and sending them both tumbling into a heap a short distance away, Cheri turned to us, pulling the scarf down from around her mouth.

“Tryhard Club,” she said. “Rise.”

We obeyed.