A Farewell to Charms (9 page)

“How long have you been here?” Isabel asked.

“Almost six months,” I said.

“Wow,” Gregory said. They stood there, staring at me, trying to figure out what made me so special.

It was in that moment that I made up my mind. I could either be a part of the problem, or I could be a part of the solution. I had tried to be rational, tried to play by the rules, and it just wasn’t working. I could wait until it was my turn to address the council as a substitute ambassador, but who was to say they would listen to me? I mean, they already KNEW about sub-sanitation; they were the ones who invented it. No, I needed to take some action myself.

Now was the time to make a
real
impact. “I have to go.” I hobbled away, out of Dorshire, away from all the confusion. There were footsteps behind me, but I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I took a painful hop down each stair, trying not to let the ankle slow down my resolve. I was starting to form a plan now and wouldn’t have much time to execute it.

“Desi!” Reed caught up to me easily, his hand light on my shoulder.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Why are you so mad?”

“I’m not.”

“You are. Here, let me help.” He swooped me up into his arms and stuck my crutches on top of me. I didn’t even have time to object—he had me down the stairs and seated on a bench before I knew it. My skin was all tingly from his touch. He kneeled down in front of me and brushed a hair away from my face. “Now. Is this about that crazy stolen magic story?”

I flinched. Story? He made it sound like I’d wiggled my way into this little club. I didn’t ask for any of this. I was actually really happy at Level One, trying to make little impacts in my clients’ lives, not worrying about ambassador meetings and Matching and power. Reed didn’t get that because he was a legacy. Born and bred to be a part of Façade. He’d lived with this his whole life and had never had cause to question.

“It wasn’t a story,” I said.

“Okay. But what I’m really concerned about right now is how upset you are.”

I buried my face in my hands. He might think I was nuts, but he also cared about me, or at least cared if I was upset. He’d defended me in front of all those people, not worrying if he looked crazy by association.

Who could blame him for thinking I was making up my “story”? The sub-sanitation room is really one of those things you have to see to believe. Which meant I needed to include Reed on my plan. I was going to the sub-sanitation room. Right now. Meredith had a special key to get in, but Reed said that I could program my manual to get anywhere into Façade. Why not there? And once he saw those glowing vials filled with stolen magic, he would
have
to believe me.

“Hey, you want to go explore Façade some more?” I asked. “I could show you some places Sergei didn’t.”

“Can’t. Sergei just sent me an urgent job.” He smiled and held up his manual. “Another time, though?”

“Yeah. Another time.”

Reed reached over and gave my hand a little squeeze. “Be careful out there.”

My hand was still buzzing minutes after he left. Stupid hand. Didn’t matter who Reed was or how I felt about him in Sproutville. Here, he was important, and here he didn’t want to listen to me. And although that realization was painful, it didn’t change what I needed to do.

Infiltrate Façade.

A
s I limped through Façade’s corridors, I devised DBIF: TBP, short for Desi Bascomb Infiltrates Façade: The Battle Plan.

1. Find a map of Façade.

2. Get into the sub-sanitation room.

3. Find a former sub’s magic.

4. Return/restore that sub’s magic.

The problems with that plan:

1. Façade: Even if I managed to find a map, I still wouldn’t have an invisibility cloak to hide me. I couldn’t cover all of my tracks. And if surveillance went back to monitor where I had been, they could document my every move.

2. Room: There is a special key that I didn’t have. There was an application that I needed to somehow access and
hope
even worked.

3. Magic: When Meredith showed me the Wall o’ Magic, there were thousands of vessels, and there could be much more stored somewhere else. To just pick up one vessel and know who originally owned that magic was not going to be easy. Forget easy. Impossible.

4. Return: And if I did figure out who owned that magic, I had to return it without Façade knowing and somehow make that sub magical again.

To put it optimistically, I was doomed.

But Vanna’s tenacity had inspired me to take the risk. I could get in trouble. I could lose my job. I could be sub sanitized. And that’s if Façade was feeling kind. But that meeting was the last straw. I couldn’t know what I knew and pretend that I didn’t.

First stop was the lobby, where Meredith said Ferdinand could somehow help with my injuries. It took forever to get there with my crutches. When I finally reached the front desk, I was out of breath. “Hi, Ferdinand!” I wheezed.

He cleared his throat. “What happened to your ankle?”

“Just another subbing escapade. Meredith said you might be able to help with that?”

“Yes. And if there’s anything else, you’ll need to sign in since you’re here alone.”

“Oh, really?” Man, that’s probably why Meredith wanted me to come down here first, so I wasn’t sneaking around Façade without documentation. I scribbled my name, fudging my entry time by a few minutes. There was a space asking my reason for visiting. Somehow, sabotage didn’t seem like a good thing to write down. Then I had a genius idea, something that might just solve the next glitch in my plan. I wrote
Broken manual
.

Ferdinand took the clipboard from me and glanced up. “You’ll want to head over to Central Command to get that manual fixed. Do you know where to go?”

I scratched my head. “Um, kind of? Do you have a map of Façade?” A map that would also have directions to the sub-sanitation room hidden somewhere deep in the belly of the agency.

“A map? So anyone could waltz in and wander anywhere they like? No maps.”

I twirled a piece a hair around my finger, hoping Ferdinand didn’t notice my hand shaking. “Oh. Sorry. I just get lost super easy.”

He pointed to the hallway on the right. “Go down there. Central Command is on the left. And,” he lowered his voice. “If you
really
need a map, Hank would be the one to ask. But I didn’t tell you that.”

“Tell me what?” I asked innocently.

“As far as your injury goes.” Ferdinand opened a drawer and took out a jar of loose powder. “Let me see your ankle.”

He walked around the receptionist desk and knelt down in front of me, his knees creaking. One shake of the sheer powder and I could physically feel the swelling in my ankle leave. “Oh, my gosh,” I said.

“Anywhere else?” he asked.

I motioned to my knee. Another shake and I was just like the Tin Man after a few drops of oil. I dropped the crutches and tested my foot. Fine. Better than fine. Man, I was so glad Ferdinand was the one working the reception desk and not one of Lilith’s drones—they might have swapped the powder with some wart potion.

“They make makeup that can heal injuries,” I said.

“In the testing stages. I hear it can cause rapid hair growth, so be careful with that.”

“Ferdinand, they have the power to
heal,
and they’re not using it on non-royals, too?” My voice was almost shrill.

He gave me a stern look. “I believe that the power was just used on you, and you’re not royalty. Now, didn’t you have a manual to fix?”

“Oh, yeah.” I took a few more hesitant steps, in shock of my newfound mobility and the fact that Façade had another trick that should be mass-produced for the greater good. They probably only used that powder on princess hangnails. “Thank you, Ferdinand. Seriously, you’re the best.”

He gave me a grandfatherly wink and waved me away.

I pasted a smile on my face and skipped down the hall, doing my best to look like a carefree little sub with nothing wrong but a glitched manual. Everything had worked so far. The hard stuff was ahead.

When I got to Central Command, I stood in the doorway and watched the activity for a minute. This was the mission control of Façade. One screen monitored magical activity; another, bubble-flight radars; and computers whirred with mysterious information. Lilith once described the folks here as “technomagical,” the science geeks of Façade.

I spotted Hank, the hipster computer boy who had first given me my manual. He grinned when he noticed me. “Desi Bascomb. You just can’t get enough of me, can you?”

I felt heat rise in my cheeks. Hank was a few years older than me, and although I knew he was only joking around, I still didn’t quite know how to respond to guys like that. Reed was really the only boy I’d ever been able to be myself around. And Karl. Who was really Reed subbing for Karl. “Hi, Hank. I have a little problem with my manual. I know you’re the one to fix it.”

“Sure.” Another tech person whisked past us. The room was always in such a frenzy, I wondered how they didn’t leave every day with a huge headache. Or suffer a caffeine overdose—the coffee center was used more frequently than the computers. “What’s up?”

“Sometimes the screen just dies on me.”

Hank took my manual and started punching buttons. “Looks fine to me.”

“Yeah, it usually is, but it doesn’t always work. Totally random.”

“Did you try rebooting it?”

“No.” I smiled at him. “See, I knew it was something little. Sorry to waste your time.”

“Time well spent.” Hank handed back the manual. I turned as if to leave, then paused like I’d just had a thought. “Hey, since I’m here, can you make sure all the updates and applications are current and stuff?”

“You want me to trick it out?” he asked, a glimmer of mischief in his eyes.

“Sure. I don’t know if there are updates that need to be added now that I’m Level Three. And…” I paused, my heart pounding. “Another sub told me there is some key app? And I heard there was a map for Façade? I’m always losing my way around here, and I feel stupid every time I have to ask for help.”

Hank motioned me over to his table of computers. He tapped on his keyboard at lightning speed. “So don’t tell anyone I’m doing this, but I figure with your quick advancements, the council is in love with you anyway and just hasn’t gotten around to getting you updated.”

“Right,” I said, trying to hide the urgency in my voice. The flashing lights and loud noise around us was not calming my nerves. And maybe I was just being paranoid, but I swear everyone kept looking at me, almost like they knew what I was planning to do.

“Map is on there. We don’t get GPS in the building, so it can’t show you where you are, just a general overview.”

“Good. The map will still help.” Ugh, I was sweating.

Sweating was so not stealth! “You know, in case I ever get lost.”

“So for the door app, you just press the key button and locate the door you’re trying to access. A green light appears, and you cover the doorknob with the manual. It should unlock. And if you have another manual there, you’re more likely to get in. They combine power.”

“Kind of like the muting application,” I said.

Hank looked up at me appraisingly. “You know about that app?”

Whoops. I licked my lips.

He stood so that we were super close. I could just see his dark blue eyes under his free the people hat. “You’re manual wasn’t busted, was it?”

I avoided his gaze, which I learned during my Vanna training was a sure sign of deceit, but I
was
lying, so…“It really was, you know, random.”

Hank laughed. “Now I see how you moved up so fast.” Something on his computer beeped. He plugged a cord from his computer into my manual, then handed it back to me. “Updated. Be smart with it.”

“Thanks.” I tried to keep the relief out of my voice. Two obstacles down. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, stop by again,” Hank said. “Don’t be one of those snobby magical types who won’t mix with the techno geeks.”

“Never.”

A red light flashed on the MP meter, the radar that detected magic, and Hank hurried over to the screen. “Take care, Desi!” he called.

See? There were a lot of cool people working at Façade. Hopefully, I didn’t do something that brought the whole agency down and made someone like Hank lose his job. I had a feeling he wouldn’t be quite as content working the Genius Bar at the Apple store.

Once outside of Central, I pulled up the map application. Not having a GPS actually worked to my advantage—if I couldn’t see where I was, Façade might not be able to, either. At least not from a satellite. There were, of course, security cameras all over. I knew that I was going to get caught on film, so I had to figure out a believable reason for being in sub-sanitation.

The room didn’t appear on the map, but there was a “sub-questioning” room that was far removed from anything else in the building. This had to be it. I started down the twisty maze that made up Façade. I vaguely remembered some of the hallways I walked through during my last venture here, how the decor became more sparse, with only an occasional medieval tapestry to lend any cheer. Why waste time or money on decoration when most people who made it this far didn’t remember Façade five minutes later anyway?

And then I saw the door—white with an old-fashioned handle—and I knew I was in the right place. Although there was nothing
right
about what was behind that door.

Nothing right at all.