Amos looks up, his face wretched. “I know it sounds terrible, but The Conclave promised, promised…byai cartefi da i'r babaod.”
Shit. The binding might be broken, but the trauma has scrambled his speech centers. He’s reverting to a tongue I can't decode.
“Gagais dwau, ond bydai'r wreiconen a'r egni tyw yn brwyo…”
Amos raises a fist and shakes it at the ceiling. “I couldn’t make it work,” he says. “Then it was all too late, Phillip died, and Petra…” his voice chokes, “...she couldn’t continue living after that. I wanted to join her, but they had me, you know? I was in their facility, a slave to their needs, until finally the research was halted. That’s when I was given a position at Validus Vale. My retirement gift, they said.” Amos shakes his head miserably. “I pray every day that the Conclave keeps its side of a bargain.”
He breaks down into hysterical sobs.
“Get him to tell us in English,” Theo begs me. “What did he do? Where are the children?”
I try to compel Amos again, applying precise mental pressure. There is no response. His mind isn't just resistant; it seems fundamentally broken. So fractured that the command cannot find purchase. It's like navigating a bomb site.
Failure.
There's nothing more I can do in the present moment, so I give Amos a shot of my magical valium. He relaxes back onto the sofa and closes his eyes.
Theo rushes into my arms. “He did something terrible with those children, didn’t he? Oh, Gods, I’m scared to find out what. It’s too much, everything is too much. I could taste his pain, his fear, his regret.”
Her silver eyes are haunted. I’d die a thousand deaths to give them peace, but all I can do is hold her, absorb her shuddering weight, and try to project calm.
“I’ll find a way to translate his words. I’ll get the answers,pulu.” I will.
I have to.
“This is all tied up with the dark essence, isn’t it?” she whispers against my sweatshirt.
“I can’t believe it is not,” I tell her. “But it feels like we are stumbling around in the dark. Fuck, pulu, we desperately need actionable intelligence; everything we uncover only leads to more questions.”
I tighten my arms around her.
This ends here. No more stumbling around in the dark.
“We have to stop just reacting to their moves. We need to start planning our own.” I look down at her. “The All Hallows Ball. All the players will be there. Tyrus. The Conclave. Everyone.”
Theo nods, a hard glint entering her silver eyes.
“If they have secrets to spill, I'll hear them. Whatever it takes.”
30
Iwalk towards my Beginning History of Magic class in a daze.
Even with all Alexis’s smarts, I continue to be eaten up with panic. What if we can’t come up with a plan to save all those babies?
And what did Professor Amos do to those poor little souls?
And then there’s Wes.
The image of him in that white room still burns in my brain.
Ducking into the loos, I take out my phone and call Donovan.
He picks up on the first ring. “Tee-Tee, you OK?”
“Yes, No. I don’t know. I just needed to hear your voice. You and Wes are still at Cosmo’s, right? Everyone is safe?”
“Yeah, Cosmo’s been sleeping most of the time. Wes and Max are looking at old photos again. What about you, baby? What’s going on with you?”
