Page 66 of Fool Me Twice

Somehow, Ez can’t think of anyone she would rather do this with. “I’d say we have a damn good chance,” she says, and she gives Roma a small smile. “I’ll check the demons’ spell books. You’ll check the hunters’?”

Roma smiles tentatively back. “Deal,” she says, and the two of them fall into companionable silence as the sun finally slips below the horizon.

29

Ugh,” Bryant says, wrinkling her nose as she follows Roma and Chester down the well-worn staircase. “I hate it down here.”

“We’re not even in the prison yet,” Chester points out, swiping his key card and holding open the door. “After you.”

Roma nods her thanks as she strides through, Bryant following close behind. “But, you see, Locke,” Bryant argues, “the trek down the ominous staircase is almost worse than entering the prison itself. Theanticipationis the real killer here.”

“I gotta disagree with you there, Nehemiah,” Roma says, squinting in the harsh lighting. “I’d argue that the prison proper is objectively worse than the ominous staircase.”

Chester makes sure the door’s locks engage before motioning them forward. “You’re both ridiculous. And how is the staircaseominous?It’s identical to every other staircase in the building.”

“It’s the vibes, man,” Bryant says solemnly. “It has those ‘abandon hope, all ye who enter here’ vibes. You know what I’m saying?”

“Uh,” Chester says. “No, actually. Literally not at all. It’s astaircase,Bryant.”

“Spoilsport.”

Roma’s eyes widen as Chester leads them down the main hallway, her friends’ lighthearted bickering fading away. The last time she was down here was just after Ez and Obie broke all the demons out, when most of the cell doors were still gaping open, but now‍?—

“It’s like the jailbreak never even happened,” she whispers, staring down the line of packed cells. “How‍?—‍?”

“Even though the mega-rift crisis has been occupying most of the Sanctum,” Chester says, “we’re still seeing a lot of summoners around Redwater. It’s the same uptick we’ve had for the past few months, remember?”

“Ah, yes,” Bryant sighs, rolling her eyes as Chester hangs a left around the interrogation rooms. “The eclipse chasers. Someonereallyneeds to tell them that no, theycannotaccess an eclipse’s power six months early, thank you very much. Redwater is going to be a hotbed of untapped magic during totality in December, but right now, it’s just business as usual around here.”

“Aside from the mega-rifts, of course,” Chester says, swiping his key card outside the spellcasting library. “And we’ve been getting a lot of neophyte demons from those, too. You and Laguerre might be able to close the mega-rifts with impressive efficiency, Roma, but most of the overnight spellcasters don’t have the greatest demon partners. We usually get neophytes who accidentally wander to Earth a few times per week.”

Roma almost does a double take. Neophytes are getting througha few times per week?The only time that happened on Roma’s watch was when she specifically left a mega-rift open for over half an hour to test her theory. Maybe the overnight spellcasters‍—or their demonic counterparts‍—are refusing to usetransport rifts to travel around town, giving them longer gaps between closures?

Or maybe they’re leaving the mega-rifts open on purpose. Maybe the Sanctum spellcasters and Chain spellcasters are waiting until they get a neophyte demon‍—or two, or three‍—from Tamaros before closing them. Maybe‍?—

Hastily, Roma forces the idea from her mind. Even if the Sanctumisworking with the Chain, there’s no way they’d voluntarily allow demons into this dimension.

Filling the prison can’t bethatimportant, right?

Roma swallows hard as Chester closes the library’s door behind them, willing the scent of treason to vanish before her friends notice it. “And speaking of the mega-rift epidemic…”

Immediately, Chester’s and Bryant’s expressions turn serious. “I still can’t believe our spell destabilized the Deep,” Chester says, incredulity winding through his voice. “What did you say the odds were, Roma? A two percent chance of it being a spell that couldn’t be cast around a magic reservoir?”

“Istill can’t believe we tapped into the Deep and actually survived the experience,” Bryant says, and she lifts her hand. “High five, Locke.”

Chester complies with a grin. Roma rolls her eyes. “You two didn’ttap intothe Deep. You’d most likely be dead if you did. But the Deep keeps a record of all casted spells, and it just so happens that it didn’t like recording this particular spell‍—almost like a line of bad software code can make a computer crash.”

Bryant blinks slowly back at her. “We… broke the Deep’s software?”

“The metaphor may have gotten away from me a bit,” Roma says, “but generally speaking, yes.”

“We broke the Deep!” Bryant cheers, and she holds up her hand again. “Another high five for us, Locke!”

Chester slaps her palm firmly before turning back to Roma. “So what’s our play? You mentioned that you and Laguerre need to build a point-by-point counterspell, right?”

“Exactly,” Roma says, striding over to the shelf to grabThe Magic-Weaver’s Companion.“But we’re not going to be using that counterspell just to close a mega-rift. Going back to our software analogy, casting the counterspell will give the Deep the line of code it needs to fix itself, but to actuallyrunthat code, we need to access the Deep and use its magic to activate the spell. Hopefully, that’ll restabilize it and end the infinite loop of rift-openings.”

“Hopefully,” Bryant repeats. “So there’s also a chance of it figuratively and literally blowing up in your faces?”

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