Or are they…
“Bastian told me that his body can be used to cure illness, maybe even stop aging. If they got enough of him, they could still be alive.”
“We have detailed records of Creature Nine E—”
“Bastian,” I correct and she sighs.
“We have detailed records of Bastian and those he interacted with since the time of Earth’s indoctrination into the IBMA, so if it would make you feel better, we can review those after your registration.”
“Fine, but what is it thatwe’ll seeabout after his threat assessment?”
She smirks, the first sign on her face of anything beyond boredom. “You’re not easily distracted.”
I shoot up and cross my arms impatiently.
She clicks her tongue. “We’ll see if he gets to go back to Earth.”
My mind races with a thousand things like “You can’t do that” and “Fuck you if you want to try me” but then I remember that I am in a magic box where the door only opens iftheywant it to. They very much can keep us detained.
They haven’t been hostile. They’ve been accommodating. Perhaps my best move is cooperation. Maybe it’s my only move.
I look down at Bastian’s resting form. His breathing is deep and steady. Peaceful.
“I need something to write with,” I say.
Amyrah looks at me like I’m crazy. “Why for?”
“I’ll need to tell him where I’ve gone, unless you want him hunting us down, uninjured and at full strength.”
She smirks again. “That sounds suspiciously like a threat.”
I shrug. “Just a fact.”
She tugs a bit of red light out of her waistband, and in a flash it becomes a solid pen. “You can draw with it on the wall. It’ll use your magic.”
I accept the tool and give it a once-over. It looks like a stylus for a tablet, but without any buttons. Just a smooth, simple thing, almost like a wand.
I press the tip to the wall beside him and scrawl out my note. I let him know that Jerry isn’t bothering me right now—sort of a code so he believes it’s me—and mention that we need to get out of here so we can check on Renee and Oscar so he needs to behave.
Amyrah makes a choked laugh behind me as I draw a little heart around the words “I love you.” I glare over my shoulder at her and she clears her throat, hiding her smile.
“All right,” I grumble as I hand her the pen. “Let’s get this over with.”
forty-three
Worse than the DMV, it’s Witch Registration
The medical building is much of the same everywhere until we get to the lower levels where staff move about between glowing workstations. Each one is lit up with a different color magic, and most of them are displaying shapes I wouldn’t even consider language or information. Despite that, the strange beings standing, sitting, and floating behind them seem to be gleaning some knowledge.
Bastian’s appearance had prepared me for some strangeness, but the creatures here are on a different level of weird. Tentacles. Too many eyes. No eyes at all. Transparent skulls. Armored spines. All manner of combinations from my dreams and nightmares exist here.
“There’ll be a quick stop to provide a statement to the investigatory department after you’re in the system,” Amyrah says.
“What kind of statement?”
“For the beings you and Creature Nine…” She cuts herself off with a sigh. “Bastian, decommissioned.”
I’d forgotten all about the waitress.
