T. Laine looked at me and her eyebrows went up. A half smile touched her face, and she tucked a strand of black hair behind an ear. “Talk to me, Green Thumb. Tell me interesting possibilities.”
I had told her about my childhood nickname, but it sounded peculiar coming from her. I started to cross my arms over my chest but resisted that protective instinct and stuck my nervous hands in the pockets of my jacket, fists dragging down on the heavy cloth, saying, “Not to change the temper of the room and not to step beyond the purview of PsyLED’s responsibilities, but I have an idea. If it works, the Knoxville witches can be the heroes.” The wide-eyed witches still sitting in their chairs raised their gazes to me. “All it’ll take is for a full coven of the Knoxville witches to try a dangerousBreakspell mixed with some nonwitch magic, and swear a blood oath that you’ll keep my own little secret.”
After an uncomfortable silence, during which the witches exchanged meaningful stares that I couldn’t interpret, Taryn said, “Talk to me.”
I watched T. Laine as she retook her seat. Lainie had a speculative look on her face and she gave me a wait-a-minute gesture with one hand as she pulled an elastic and tucked her hair up in a tail to keep it out of the way.
From the tablet’s speaker, Soul asked, “Do I need to be part of this?”
“Beats me,” T. Laine said. “But deniability is always helpful.”
“Indeed. In that case, I’ll handle the questioning of our powerful Rosencrantz suspect in the null room. Keep me informed of anything you think pertinent. Soul out.”
“Me too,” JoJo said. “By the way, we just got a hit on Daveed Petulengo. Local LEOs picked him up at a private airport outside of town. He’s in custody and on the way to FBI headquarters for questioning and processing. Call me if you need me.” T. Laine closed her tablet and turned it over on the small table.
I said. “Remember when we first met and you said you might be able to route a spell through me?”
“A working. Notspell,” she said. “Spellis pejorative.”
“Okay. Fine. Do you remember?”
T. Laine gave me an abbreviated nod. The other witches were watching, puzzled but attentive.
“The slime molds move, almost like magic. Well, what if they are actually being powered by the working? If so, then they can be stopped by a working. And do you remember theBreaksp—working you used to cut me loose from the site where the deer were caught up inInfinitio?”
T. Laine frowned as she put two and two together and came up with the same idea I had. Her eyes lit up. “What if witches can direct aBreakworking to sever the connection betweenInfinitioandUnendlich,” she suggested. “Instead of trying to stop the workings, we just separate them and then shut them down one at a time.”
“That would prevent backlash,” Taryn said.
“Even ifInfinitiohas some kind of self-aware AI programming, it should work,” I said, finally taking a place at the table.
“It would take twelve of us—a full coven,” Lainie said. “But if we time it right we can—”
“Destroy the circle and triangle,” I interrupted, not wanting to say certain things—about the Old Ones—in front of the others. If they didn’t know, I wasn’t going to tell.
“Right. And if we can’tcontaintheInfinitio/Unendlichenergies, we can at least break them up and dissipate them safely.” T. Laine gave me a smile that was mostly guile, emphasizing the wordcontain. She was thinking about the containment vessel I had brought from Spook School, though neither of us could say that aloud. Containment vessels were created in the R&D department of a company PsyLED paid to create antimagic weapons for the sole purpose of protecting humans from magic and magic users. Meaning witches, among others. Fortunately that company was in Silicon Valley, not in Knoxville.
I shrugged and tilted my head in agreement.
“We’d have to test it first. And then”—she pulled her cell phone and checked the time—“get it done tonight, before dawn.”
“Why before dawn?” I asked Lainie.
“Because according to Taryn, this working was sabotaged.The altered working has been building for the last half of the lunar cycle, and is set to complete at the end of the cycle at dawn tomorrow.”
“Complete?”
Carefully T. Laine said, “The working was supposed to pull energy from deep in the earth from a well or reservoir of some kind ofancient magical energy.”
“Ley lines?” I asked.
“That’s what they say.” T. Laine didn’t look at me, but I realized she was talking about more than just ley lines. She too was hinting at the Old Ones, but not saying the name.
Taryn sat forward in her folding chair, concentrating on Lainie and me. “Before we try anything you need to know what was going on. All of it and not the bits and pieces that LuseCo told you and that you figured out yourselves. Our tests ofInfinitioandUnendlichwere supposed to provide enough power to meet all of Knoxville’s energy needs for a year, tying into and unifying the grid for seamless, available power, not weaponization, as you indicated earlier. We didn’t know it would damage the ley lines. There was nothing in the notes about that ever being a possibility.”
“You were monkeying with the power grid. That’s why the lights have been flashing,” I said. Then, remembering a screen on Makayla’s computer, I added, “Using a back door into the TVA. You hacked the TVA to test your theories.”
“Not us, but maybe someone at LuseCo,” Taryn said. “And if the Rosencrantzes didn’t know that LuseCo was tinkering with the grid, then there’s no telling what will happen when the sabotaged working completes.”
