Page 38 of Fool Me Twice

Bewildered, Ez lets her rift fade and heads to the edge of the Courtyard. Just down the block, a second mega-rift is billowing open in the middle of the road, large and imposing enough to block the steadily setting sun. “Huh. That’s new.”

“Verynew,” Roma agrees, her gaze sweeping over the street. She looks unusually apprehensive. “Why‍—why would a second mega-rift open?”

Ez frowns at her. “Why have any of these mega-rifts been opening in the first place?” she asks, and she strides forward. “You coming?”

Roma breaks into a jog to catch up, her eyes still darting around like she’s looking for something. “It doesn’t make sense,” she mumbles to herself, so quietly that Ez almost doesn’t hear her. “Unless there areactualsummoners? But‍?—‍”

Ez slows to a stop in front of the mega-rift, squinting up at it. It looks identical to all the others she’s encountered over the past few weeks, but… “Did the one we just closed feel weird to you?”

Roma goes still. “Weird? How so?”

“Like…” Ez struggles to put the sensation into words. “Like it was coming from somewhere different than usual? Not the rift itself‍—that’s still connected to Tamaros‍—but the magic creating it?”

Roma considers the mega-rift in front of them, her expression curiously blank. “Maybe. But it‍—it still closed with our dual spellcasting, right? So this one should, too.”

This might just be the first time Ez has ever heard Roma sound so unsure about magic. It’s strangely unnerving. “Right,” Ez says eventually, and she raises her hands. “On three‍—one, two‍?—‍”

Roma snaps out of her reverie just in time to jump in with her own incantation, the words only a little shakier than usual. Within a minute, the mega-rift is collapsing in on itself, leaving the gentle glow of sunset where it once was.

“Well, I guess that’s that,” Ez says, stretching her shoulders back. “A bit more work than normal, but‍?—‍”

Another rush of warmth swells over her, fainter this time. Her blood runs cold.“Anotherone?”

Roma’s eyes are wide. “But that should be impossible,” she says, popping onto her tiptoes like she can pinpoint where their newest mega-rift opened. “How are they being opened so quickly? How are they being opened indifferent places?How‍?—‍?”

Dread curdling through her, Ez pulls out her cell phone, swipes into the screen, and taps on Maggie Khan’s contact.

She picks up within two rings. “What do you need, Laguerre?”

“We just had three mega-rifts open in rapid succession,” Ez says. “We closed the first two and are en route to the third. Has that happened before?”

There’s a long pause. “No. No, that’s goddamn weird. For now, keep closing them and let me know if anything changes. I’ll mobilize Public Safety in case there’s a group of summoners planning something.”

Ez’s stomach lurches. Has everything else been a dress rehearsal for this moment? Is there a network of summoners trying to build an army from scratch? “On it. Stay in touch, Mags.”

“Stay safe,” Maggie says, and the line goes dead.

Ez turns towards Roma’s pale face, raising her eyebrows. “You coming?”

Slowly, Roma nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m coming,” she says, and they jog down the street towards their next assignment.

“It doesn’t make anysense,”Chester says, glaring down atThe Magic-Weaver’s Companionon Bryant’s kitchenette table. “We did the spell exactly as written, and we only opened one rift‍—the first one, just like usual. How do they keep popping up like this?”

“And you’resure?”The bands of anxiety that have been coiled around Roma’s lungs since yesterday cinch a few notches tighter, barely a step down from panic. “You didn’t accidentally tack on, I don’t know, a permanent reopening spell or something?”

Bryant snorts, not pausing in her pacing. “That’s not a thing. Right?Isthat a thing?”

“Hell if I know, Bryant, butnoneof this should be happening. I’m willing to consider any and all possibilities.”

Bryant’s jaw tightens. Right now, she’s carving a path across the main room of her suite while Chester pores over the spell book and Roma herself hunches on a kitchen chair, forearms resting on her knees and head hanging low. It’s a posture she’s becomeveryfamiliar with since her actions directly led to the epidemic of mega-rifts.

Because that’s the only word she can use to describe it, isn’t it? An epidemic.

Because, over the twenty-four hours since Bryant and Chester first cast theMagic-Weaver’sspell, more than two hundred mega-rifts have opened all across Redwater, forcing both the Sanctumandthe Chain into high alert to close them.

It’s been an absolute nightmare. Roma and Ez were hustling all over town until long past midnight last night, shuttering rift after rift until Roma’s eyes went blurry. Once her spellcasting started to suffer from sheer exhaustion, Ez ordered her to go home and get some rest, and Roma was too tired to argue as she stumbled back to the Sanctum to face her punishment.

The Council is furious, of course. Frankly, Roma can’t blame them. Her only saving grace is that she specifically ran this rift-opening spell‍—complete with her full nuance analysis‍—past Councilwoman Nasir before implementing it, and Nasir checked it with several other spellcasters before approving the plan.

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