“Is that your brother?” a woman wanted to know.

“No, it’s my sister’s boyfriend.”

“You have a sister! That is awesome. I have a sister too.”

More people poured into the mess hall. An athletic man with a long scar across his face led the charge. He saw us and narrowed his eyes. “What the hell is going on here?”

“She’s telling a story,” the older soldier said. “You’ve got to hear this, Gabe. It’s a hell of a story.”

“Have you all lost your damned minds?”

“Welcome, Gabriel,” my sister said. “Welcome, all of you.”

Gabriel’s eyes softened. He raised his hand. A shy smile tugged at his hard face. “Hi.”

“I was telling you about Dace,” Catalina said. “Yes. Dace is one of those neither-here-nor-there guys. He isn’t smart and he isn’t athletic. He just kind of bums around the school and tries to look edgy . . .”

They stared at her with rapt attention.

“We have to go,” I murmured.

Rogan startled, as if coming awake.

“Wait,” Augustine said. “I want to hear the end of this.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, really, this is fascinating,” Cornelius whispered.

Rogan locked his right arm on Augustine’s shoulder, his left on Cornelius, and dragged them out the door.

“You’ve got this?” I asked Arabella.

She nodded. “They won’t get her.”

I walked out and shut the door behind me. The strike team had closed ranks and kept walking, herding Augustine and Cornelius down the hallway. We were twenty yards away before either of them stopped looking over his shoulder.

“What was that?” Augustine asked, stunned.

“Love,” I told him. “They love her.”

“Is that why Matilda likes her so much?” Cornelius asked.

“No. Catalina never uses her magic on those close to her. Matilda likes her because my sister is nice and takes care of her. We have about thirty minutes. The longer they stay near her, the more they love her. Eventually they’ll want to touch her. They’ll want a piece of her clothes or better yet a chunk of her hair or a finger. She can’t stop it. In twenty minutes Arabella will have to get her out of there, or they will rip her apart.”

“But what about Arabella?” Cornelius asked.

“She and I are immune. She is our sister. We already love her as much as we can.”

We ran through the narrow passageways, going through the place room by room. As soon as we cleared the mess hall hallway, Cornelius began to hum to himself. It was an incessant, almost hypnotic tune. It didn’t sound like any song I’d heard before. Maybe all this pressure had finally made him lose his mind.

Three people jumped us. The strike team took down two, while Rogan collided with the third and broke him like a rag doll. The man slumped on the floor, breathing fast, his right leg bent at an odd angle. I crouched by him.

“Where is Olivia Charles?”

The man’s hands curled into fists. He strained, but my magic was too strong. “Down the hallway to the bottom floor. She is in the room at the end of the hall.”

We left him in the hallway, sobbing.

Eight minutes later we reached the room, a vast empty space, its walls and floor completely black. I had seen a room just like it before, at MII. It was painted with chalkboard paint. A half-finished circle marked the floor, the piece of chalk lying discarded next to it. Olivia Charles was nowhere in sight. We spread through the room. No doors besides the one we had come through.

Rogan’s radio came on. “SWAT is en route,” Bug reported. “Three vehicles.”

Lenora Jordan must’ve gotten tired of waiting. I turned to Rogan and kept my voice low. “We have to find Olivia now. SWAT can’t see Arabella. They will try to kill her.”

“She’s here,” Cornelius said.

He was standing by a wall. Rogan and I moved to stand by him.

“Are you sure?” Rogan asked.

“Yes,” Cornelius nodded, his eyes clouded. “She’s here.”

Rogan looked at the wall. It trembled.

Colin, a short dark-haired man, snapped his gun up. Rivera gripped him in a headlock, before Olivia forced him to do anything else.

I faced the wall, gathered my magic, and struck at the mind behind it.

Power punched me, gripping my mind in a steel vise and wrapping me in pain. All I could do was hold it at bay.

Colin stopped struggling and clamped his head.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rogan on the floor by my feet. He was taking off my left boot, then my right.

“Sir?” Rivera said. “You could break the wall, sir?”

“Never disturb two mental mages locked in a duel,” Augustine said. “If you kill one, the other might end up with no mind.”

The vise squeezed my mind, red hot.

I just had to hold. As long as she held on to me, she couldn’t get to anyone else.

My bare feet touched the floor. Rogan moved around me, drawing.

She was crushing my mind like a nut.

Magic snapped into life under me. It was like landing on the surface of a pond, but instead of water, its surface was pure power. Rogan had drawn an amplification circle. I sent my magic into it, surrendering a little more of myself to the pain, and it bounced back into me, making me stronger. Magic coursed through my veins. I bounced again, and again, and again. Five. Any more and I’d expend too much.

I snapped the vise. It shot back and clamped my mind again, turning into shackles.

The room vanished. I stood in a vast dark cavern. Light pooled in a circle around my feet. My hands were glowing, a pale almost white light with a faint touch of yellow. To my side, I saw other shapes: a pale gold that felt like Cornelius, a brilliant blue beacon that had to be Rogan, and a conflicting clash of pale white and grey that must have been Augustine. Before me another humanoid shape stood in a similar circle, her light pulsing with violet. Beyond us in the distance, two more shapes waited, one pale and light yellow, like me, and one knitted of pure furious red. Catalina and Arabella.

What is this? Where am I?

The enemy magic squeezed me, trying to crush me.

I snapped the shackles. The violet presence recoiled and struck again, wrapping invisible chains around me, trying to tether me. I reached deep inside me and let the magic explode. It tore out of me, a powerful flood of light.

My body shook under the strain. She was wrapping her will around me. I felt myself unraveling, retreating further and further into the center of myself.

The light of my sisters waned.

I had to win. I would win. I had to know who the invisible puppeteer was, pulling all of the strings behind the scenes. I had to meet Caesar, because if I failed, he would keep sending people after my family. I had to know.

More chains spun out of the darkness, trying to contain me.

No. You won’t bind me. You can’t control my mind. I’ll be free.

I pushed. I had to win.

The first chain snapped, breaking. Then another and another.

Nobody controls me except me.

The chains broke. The other glowing figure screamed. My magic reached out and gulped her in a single swallow. The cavern exploded around us, shattering.

I opened my mouth and let my magic speak. “How do I open this door?”

“There is a panel on the left side,” Olivia Charles’ wooden voice replied from some hidden speaker. “The code is 31BC.”

The year the Roman Empire was born.

Rogan opened the panel and entered the code. Something clanged within the wall. It slid aside a couple of inches and stopped.

“Why didn’t the door open?” A low gnawing ache began within me. My magic still wasn’t at one hundred percent after I had drained myself down to nothing shocking David Howling. I was about to run out of power.

“I’ve disabled the mechanism from the inside.”

“We’re out of time.” Rogan raised his hand. “Are you clear?”

I let go, pulling my magic back to me. “Yes.”

The section of the wall trembled. Hairline cracks split it with a thunderous snap. The separate chunks of the wall shivered and streaked between us in a controlled starburst, revealing a small room. Inside it within an amplification circle stood Olivia Charles. Her gaze fastened on me. “You!”