I immediately followed the sound of rattling. I found a small bird cage sitting on a wardrobe, and my Air magic felt Alette’s wings fluttering happily inside. She was thrilled we’d come to rescue her. Sprigs reached through the bars, and his tiny little leaves brushed against my skin. I opened the cage and put Sprigs in my chest pocket, while Alette fluttered over to Kallie.
“I’ve got the grimoire and my journal,” Ava said, and she yanked out a desk drawer so hard that it fell onto the floor. She didn’t bother to put it back.
“Guys… I’ve got some stuff you might want to see,” Kallie said as she shuffled through papers. “It’s our criminal files. They were scattered all over his desk, like he was studying them.”
“Take them,” I decided. “We can look them over once we’re somewhere safe. It’ll help us learn what he knows about us.”
“It’s a lot,” Kallie said apprehensively. “He’s got everything in here— dear gods.”
Kallie drew a sharp breath, giving the rest of us pause.
“What did you find?” Ava asked carefully.
Kallie’s breath wavered. She paused, like she wasn’t sure if she should answer, before she said, “It’s… medical records from your surgery. The Warden hired angel surgeons to work on you.”
“We know that,” I said. “The Warden wouldn’t trust anyone else.”
“It’s not just that…” Kallie sounded concerned. “The Warden has pages of notes detailing their observations. It’s like they were looking for something. Listen to this;Doctors performed a living autopsy on the subject in order to find the source of her demigod powers, and observed the subject’s Anichi magic working to repair her spine in real-time. No abnormalities were found during the living autopsy to indicate a physical connection to demigod abilities.”
Kallie paused for a beat as she looked over the notes. I could feel the horror of what she’d found permeate the room before she said anything.
Her voice sounded hollow. “They made incisions to Ava’s spine while it was mending, because Ava was unconsciously healing herself too fast for them to make their observations. Her Anichi powers were trying to put her body back together, but the surgeons kept undoing what her magic was trying to fix, hoping to bring her demigod powers out.”
Kallie went on. “Eventually… what damage the surgeons did became irreversible, because Ava’s Anichi magic fused her spine back together improperly. That’s why Ava can’t heal her spine… that’s why no magic can. Ava’s magic was trying to save her, but now that the injury is fixed in place, there’s no undoing the damage.”
“That fucking bastard!” I yelled. The ground rocked beneath us as I filled with rage. I was starting to lose a grip on my magic.
“This is all his fault. I could’ve…” Ava’s voice tightened, and she managed to choke out, “I could’ve healed myself. I could’vewalkedagain. But the Warden had to poke around inside of me and undo all the progress my healing magic made. Now I’m never going to heal properly… ever… all because of him.”
If there was ever a shred of hope that Ava could walk again, it was completely obliterated. Ava’s spine had healed incorrectly due to what the Warden’s surgeons had done to her. Nothing— not even magic— could reverse it. This wasn’t like when Ava had healed Ez when he had sepsis, because in this circumstance, her magic had been manipulated against her, and she couldn’t undo what her own power had done.
Devastation permeated our bond. We all knew the chances of Ava walking again were slim to none, but we didn’t understand the gravity of the situation until now.
I knelt in front of her. “Pidge…” What did I say to her, in a time like this? I was absolutely gutted; I couldn’t imagine howshefelt.
Ava didn’t speak. Not at first. Then she took a quivering breath and stated, “This changes nothing. The Warden has done everything he can to crush us, but I am fucking done playing his games. He doesn’t realize who he chose to fuck with. If this is my fate, then I have to accept it, because I’mnotgiving up. I swear to you now, I’m going to become the biggest supernatural criminal mastermind in history. And after that, we’re going to make the Warden pay.”
A few silent beats passed as we all absorbed her words. Ava didn’t want to give up— not for anything. This news was devastating, but even Kallie’s time powers couldn’t take us back in to stop it. We’d already tried.
I reached up to take Ava’s hand. “Then that’s exactly what we’ll do. Kallie, get Marcus to subconjure those files. Grab anything that looks important. We’re going to give the Warden hell.”
Kallie rushed to gather as many papers as she could. I walked over to the nearest bookcase and felt around. It was filled with all kinds of potions, books, and files— whatever the Warden thought was useful in his mission to become god.
He wasn’t getting any of it back.
There was a loud, smashing sound. Something splashed across my shoes, and I heard Marcus let out an aggravated noise as he threw a potion on the ground.
“He broke Ava,” Marcus said. “Let’s break his things. Before we break him.”
There was a beat of silence. Then I heard an angry noise as Kallie tossed something across the room, and it crashed through the glass ceiling.
Marcus had never had a better idea in his life. I conjured a baseball bat in my hand, gripped it in two hands over my shoulder… and started swinging. Potion vials shattered, and the spines of the books burst as papers scattered all around the room. I brought my baseball bat down on the bookcase, and it blasted through five shelves at once, spilling the rest of the contents onto the floor.
The Warden thought he could take my wife’s legs away? The broken contents of this room would be the last of his worries once I got done with him.
Ava cheered as I went absolutely crazy tearing the room apart. Marcus laughed like a mad man as he tipped over the wardrobe, and Oberi growled as he began ripping things off of shelves, tearing them to pieces with his teeth.
“Charlie snapped, oh how fun! I think I’d like to join.” Marcus said the words like he was reciting a nursery rhyme, and Rishi yowled.
