Calamity (Reckoners, #3)(35)

What? she mouthed.

What was that? I mouthed back.

What do you mean?

Prof continued to walk through the crowd, a glowing field forming before his feet as he stepped. His path rounded, and he came back along on my other side. “I have need of loyal soldiers,” he declared. “Who among you wish to serve me, and be lords over your inferiors?”

About two dozen opportunists in the crowd stood up. Serving Epics so directly was dangerous—merely being in their presence could get you killed—but it was also the one way to get ahead in the world. I felt sick to see how eagerly some of the people stood, though the majority of the crowd remained kneeling, too scared—or too sensible—to throw their lot in with a new Epic when he hadn’t yet established total dominance.

I’d have to ask Megan more about Firefight later. For now, I had a plan. Kind of.

I took a deep breath, then stood up. Megan glanced at me, then stood as well. What are we doing? she mouthed.

This will let us move through the crowd, I mouthed back. It’s the only way to get to Mizzy.

Prof stood on his glowing walkway, hands behind his back. He studied the people in the crowd, surveying them. He turned about, looking directly at the two of us, and I swallowed nervously. This could be a way to weed out those whose loyalty was too fleeting. His next step could be to kill those of us who had stood.

No. I knew Prof. He’d realize that in murdering those most eager to serve, he’d have trouble finding servants in the future. He was a leader, a builder. Even as an Epic, he wouldn’t discard useful resources unless he considered them a threat.

Right?

“Good,” Prof said. “Good. I have a task for you all.” He held his hands out, and I thought I felt something vibrate. A familiar sensation from the days, months ago, when I’d worn the gloves and used Prof’s power.

I towed Megan to the side as Prof released a wave of power over the top of the crowd. The air warped, and the entire parking garage behind us exploded to salt dust. People screamed and dropped through the collapsing powder.

“Go,” Prof said, waving toward the destruction of the parking garage. “Execute those still living who disobeyed my will and hid as cowards.”

The twenty-something of us jumped into motion. Though the drop had already hurt, or killed, those on the upper two floors of the garage, there would be others who hadn’t fallen far—or who were hiding in the underground portion.

Prof turned to resume his inspection of the crowd. That gave Megan and me our opening. We veered, using the pole Mizzy had indicated as a reference point. There she was, huddling down with a hoodie—I had no idea where she’d gotten it—covering her head. She glanced at us, and I gave her a thumbs-up.

She didn’t hesitate. She sprang to her feet and joined us, and in an eyeblink Megan had changed Mizzy’s features to something similar but unrecognizable.

“Megan?” I said.

“See that wall over there?” she said. “The one by the ramp leading to where the garage used to be? I’ll create duplicates of us once we reach it. When they appear, drop down by the wall.”

“Got it,” I said, and Mizzy nodded.

We hit the location indicated, a salt ramp that now ended abruptly to our left. One version of the three of us split off and started up the ramp. The duplicates wore our clothing, and had the same fake faces we’d been wearing. Three people from another reality, living in Ildithia. It hurt my brain sometimes to wonder how all this worked. Those faces Megan had overlaid us with…did that mean these three were doing the same things we were? Were they versions of us, or were they completely different people who had somehow ended up living lives very like our own?

The three of us—the real three—dropped and ducked behind the wall as our doppelgangers reached the edge of the ramp and hopped off. We were shielded from Prof and the crowd by this wall, but I still felt horribly conspicuous as we army-crawled across the ground toward an alleyway.

A gust of wind carried dust across us, and it stuck to my face, tasting sharply of salt. I still wasn’t used to how dry it was in this city; my throat felt ragged from just breathing.

We made it to the alley without incident, and our doppelgangers disappeared into the pits of the destroyed parking garage. I wiped the dust from my skin as Mizzy made a face, sticking out her tongue. “Yuck.”

Megan settled on the ground beside the wall, looking exhausted. I knelt beside her, and she grabbed my arm and closed her eyes. “I’m fine,” she whispered.

She’d still need time to rest, so I gave it to her. I didn’t miss that she started rubbing her temples to try to massage away a headache. I knelt by the edge of the alleyway so I could make sure we were safe. Prof continued to walk among the crowd, passing the place where Mizzy had been hiding. He occasionally made someone look up and meet his gaze.

He must have a list of descriptions of Epics, I thought, or other malcontents in the city.

He was here for a purpose. I couldn’t believe that Prof had randomly picked Ildithia to rule. And I was increasingly suspicious that the secrets to why he did what he did came from the things he’d found when he’d taken power from Regalia.

I didn’t lure Jonathan here to kill him, child, Regalia’s voice echoed in my head. I did it because I need a successor.

What did Ildithia hide that had drawn Prof’s attention?