Mallory squeezed her eyes closed, kneaded her forehead with her fingertips. “This is a big operation that’s going to need a lot of power. We’re talking about, what, a few thousand supernaturals within the net? The magic has to be powerful enough to affect them all, or it’s not much good. A sorcerer carries power innately. But this is exponentially larger than one person.”
“So, how will he do it?” Ethan asked.
“If it was me,” Mallory said, opening her eyes again, “I’d either have a generator, or I’d tie right into the grid, maybe with a transformer that turns electrical power into magical power. And I’d put it as close to the middle of the QE as I could. That makes the spreading of the magic more efficient.”
“So downtown,” Catcher said.
Mallory nodded. “If it was me. And he’d want high ground, too. Taller than Cadogan House.”
Ethan looked at me. “Any sense of where he’d go? A building that he’d want to use for this?”
There was, of course, one building that he’d wanted most of all—the one he’d wrenched from my father.
I looked at Ethan. “Towerline. We’d thought Reed had wanted it for his portfolio. Maybe that hadn’t been the only reason.”
Ethan looked at Luc. “Assemble everyone. We won’t lose anyone else on my watch. We take Reed down, and we do it tonight.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
IDENTITY
Mallory studied the translated equation, then helped Paige set the wards on the House. When it was protected, or as well as it could be, the city’s supernatural leaders were called, and we prepared for battle.
o;Jesus,” Ethan muttered, low and sorrowful.
There was pounding on the stairs, and Luc raced into the front room, magic flurrying around him. He stopped when he reached us, and his expression was as cheerless as Catcher’s.
“The raid?” Luc asked.
Catcher nodded.
“We just heard on the scanner,” Luc said. “They’d kept the radios off during the op.”
“They wanted to keep it quiet in case Reed had informants inside the CPD,” Catcher said. “It didn’t seem to matter much.”
“This was probably a one-off,” Mallory said. “Kyle Farr, but with trolls. We’d know if he’d started the big magic. But he won’t wait much longer.”
“Did Paige catch you? Talk to you about the net?”
“The net?” Luc asked.
“We think the QE is a boundary for the magic,” Ethan said. “Or, if you prefer, a trap for everyone within it.”
Luc’s eyes widened. Understandably.
“We can’t let this happen,” I said. “We can’t let him take us all over.” I could feel the rising panic, and I ignored it, wouldn’t let it rise again. I wouldn’t let his glamour happen again.
“We won’t,” Mallory said, and pulled a plastic bag of what looked like braided friendship bracelets out of the messenger bag she’d canted over one shoulder.
“We haven’t had time to finish the countermagic. We’re working on it—and there are supplies in the car. We can finish it on-site. But I was able to make a few of these. They’re shielded,” she said, handing one to Catcher, to Ethan, then looked at me. “Wear your apotrope. It should keep them out of your head. It’s probably a better shield than these”—she lifted up her right wrist to show the bracelet she wore—“but they’re all I had time to prepare.”