Finnian hadn't meant to stray aside, really.
It had just been a flash of something at first, a glimpse from the corner of his eye. He wasn't even sure what he had seen; when he turned around to face it fully, he found nothing out of the ordinary. Just rows upon rows of seats with spectators in them, colorful banners, members of teams talking to each other or members of the audience.
And then it registered.
One of the banners was not like the others, and it hadn't been there just a minute ago. It wasn't colorful like all the other ones, not even white like the banner for St. Lucia's team. Instead it was pure black; and written on it, in bold white letters, was one short, simple sentence.
YOU CAN'T KEEP US OUT.
Dark Mages. Dark Mages had found their way in here.
He knew he should run. He should get away from them before they spotted him, let alone realized exactly who he was. His father was right, he'd make an easy hostage—and if these protesters knew that, what would happen to him? Would he be kidnapped? Tortured? Used as leverage against his powerful and influential family?
He knew all that. But he didn't want to run from these people. He wanted to know.
Eyes glued to the banner, he took a tentative step towards it. Then another, then another. And then, before anyone had realized he had broken out of the group, he was striding decisively into the stands, past the emptying rows of seats and the colorful crowd, straight towards that single flash of black amid it all.
A security guard nodded to him as he walked past. "Good game today," he said. "The new position suits you, Mr. Day."
"Thanks," Finnian replied, choosing to pretend for the moment that his change of position had been a deliberate change instead of going straight against his will. No need to embarrass himself by admitting he'd lost to Hikaru.
And then, suddenly, it was just him and the banner and seemingly no one else.
He frowned. That couldn't be right. Whoever had hung that thing up still had to be around, right? Unless their goal had been to just hang it up in an easily visible spot and disappear again, but even in that case, they couldn't have gone far.
Which meant…they were here. Just hiding.
"What illusion are you hiding under, hmm?" he asked, pacing around the banner, searching for any signs of movement where there should be none, any signs of human presence. "Whoever made it isn't half bad. And how in the world did you people get past the wards?"
He knew he should shut up. What was he doing, trying to talk to Dark Mage rebels? At best he was being a traitor to the family legacy, acting all buddy-buddy with the enemy. At worst, he was actively putting himself in danger.
And yet, for some reason, he couldn't help himself.
"You can talk to me, you know," he said. "I'm not planning to attack you, what kind of heathen do you think I am?"
There was a ripple to his right, and a girl barely older than Finnian flickered into existence. "Pretty big words from a Light Mage," she snapped. "Isn't attacking us all you ever do?"
"Corey!" a male voice hissed from somewhere between the seats.
"Hey, hey, do you see me attacking you?" Finnian lifted his hands in a gesture akin to surrender. "There, my hands are up, see? I'm more surprised you people aren't attacking me, to be honest. I'm practically offering myself on a silver platter."
The girl—Corey?—narrowed her eyes at him in obvious suspicion. She was maybe seventeen or eighteen, with long, straight dark hair and equally dark eyes. And no one in this crowd, he suddenly realized, would have recognized her as a Dark Mage if she hadn't been wearing a black Let Us In T-shirt.
"You're still acting suspicious," she said, striding a step closer to him. She was at least as tall as Finnian, possibly taller. "Why should we trust you not to lead us into a trap?"
"What trap?" Finnian retorted, laughing and gesturing around. "Look where you are. You walked open-eyed into the lion's den and now you're worried about a trap? After hanging up a banner that alerts everyone to your presence?"
The girl rolled her eyes. "You don't ever shut up, do you?"
"Corey, don't antagonize him." A boy materialized from behind a row of seats, about the same age as the girl, broad and curly-haired with thick-framed glasses. "That's not what we're here for, remember?"
Finnian raised his eyebrows. "You're not here to antagonize a high school student who's outnumbered and also younger than you two? Whoa, it's almost like you two have standards."
Corey let out a huff. "I don't care what you say, Archer," she said, "if you don't shut this guy up fast, I'm gonna throw hands with a high school kid."
"Hands or spells?" Finnian retorted. "Anyway, you still haven't explained how you got in here."
"And why should we tell the enemy?"
"Point taken." Finnian stuck his hands into his pockets. "You could at least say what you came here to do, though."
Before Corey could make a response, Archer spoke up. "We're here to prove a point," he said. "Just that," he added with a pointed glance at Corey.
"Ah." Suddenly Finnian understood. "Look, you're installing all these horrible, fancy, expensive measures to keep us out, but when we make our way in you don't even notice. Something like that?"
Still looking wary, Archer nodded.
"And that's it?" Finnian continued. "No wreaking havoc and destruction? If someone from my side made their way into yours, they wouldn't hesitate, you know."
Corey gritted her teeth, but she sighed. "No," she admitted. "No destruction. We're trying to keep this peaceful."
Finnian looked at them both, really looked at them. If they changed out of their Let Us In gear and into flying equipment, they wouldn't look out of place between the seniors on his very own team. And he knew he should be afraid of them—terrified that the enemy had somehow found a way around the stadium's high-tech wards. But when he looked at them, all he saw were two teenagers who, had they been born with a different magic type, into a different family, might as well have been his teammates.
"Noble," he said, and to his surprise he actually meant it. "Whose idea was that?"
"We have good leaders," Corey said at once.
"Very good leaders," Archer agreed, and he smiled. "They're always saying violence should be a last resort, and that we shouldn't hand your side any more arguments against us. Especially Mercury, she—"
"You two!"
Finnian spun. The very same security guard who had greeted Finnian earlier was now running up to them with three others in tow, a gun in his one hand, a glowing tangle of magic around the other. "How did you get in here?" he barked, lunging straight for Corey. "On the floor, right now, both of you! If either of you even think of using magic I'll shoot you!"
Corey and Archer shrank together, but there was nowhere for them to run. The security guards had surrounded them already, all of them pointing guns and raw magic in their direction.
"Down!" the guard barked again, and the two teens obeyed. Their faces were very pale, their eyes wide and fixed, trembling, on the barrel of the guard's gun.
"Are you going to question us?" Archer asked softly, still trying to cover Corey's body with his own as they both knelt on the ground.
"Silence!" the guard yelled. "One more word without being asked, and I'll shoot you! Do we understand each other?"
Trembling and shaking, they both nodded. There were tears gathering in Corey's eyes.
"Don't shoot," she mouthed over and over. "Don't shoot us. Please."
Do something.
The thought shot through Finnian like lightning. What was he doing? This was absurd. These were two unarmed teenagers surrounded by four adult men with guns, forced down and threatened like criminals. Enemies or no, this was…unfair. Completely ridiculous.
He swallowed and took a breath.
"What are you people doing?" he asked the guards, struggling to keep his voice stable against the sudden panic rising up within him, panic at what he was about to do. "Four grown, armed adults against a pair of unarmed high schoolers? Some heroes you are." He scoffed. "What happened to picking on someone your own size?"
The guard from earlier turned towards him, his tone perfectly civil from one moment to the next. "Stay away, Mr. Day," he said. "These are terrorists. Get to safety."
"Terrorists!" Finnian repeated, barking a humorless laugh. "If these are terrorists, then I'll be the Archmage! Do you see any weapons on them? Bombs? Anything more dangerous than their own bare hands?"
The guards exchanged a glance, then the one who'd talked to Finnian nodded. "Good idea," he said. "Search them."
Before Finnian could comprehend what was going on, two guards had already pushed down Corey and Archer while roughly shoving through their pockets. One of them yanked out Archer's phone and pocketed it. "This is confiscated," he said.
Archer struggled against her grip. "That's stealing!"
"It's confiscating," the guard shot back. "How do we know you won't use this thing to blow up a bomb you've planted here somewhere?"
"We could just use magic!" Corey protested and was slammed roughly against the ground. The air escaped her with a gasp, but the guard who held her wasn't satisfied. He picked her up again and slammed her down a second time, not caring for the sickening crack of one of her bones breaking.
There were tears on Corey's face. Blood was streaming from her nose, and Finnian had a feeling it was broken. The guard knelt on top of her, holding her down with all his weight. Archer had a knee against the back of his neck, slowly but steadily cutting off his air—if it didn't break his neck first.
Do something, coward!
Finnian's chest was tight. It was hard to breathe. He wanted to run, wanted to scream, wanted to dash straight to a psychic and have them erase this memory from his mind. He did none of these things. He kept his eyes glued on the bruised, bleeding teenagers, reminding himself, over and over, that all of this was his fault.
"Will you stop it?"
His hands were cold and clammy, his knees shaking like jelly. All the same he forced himself to walk into the group, coming to a stop right in front of the guards holding down the Dark Mage teens. "Look at you!" he said. "Pros at work, are we? And here I thought you were supposed to keep people safe, not hurt them!" His voice was dangerously close to shaking, but he willed it back into stability. "How would you like it if I brought this to your superior, huh? Do you think your boss would like to hear what you did?"
There was a startled pause, then one of the guards started laughing. "Relax, kid," he said. "These are Dark Mages. We're not supposed to keep them safe—we're supposed to keep people safe from them. Now go back to your teacher before we have to remove you by force."
Anger seized him. How? How could the same people who had treated him with respect and courtesy do that to others? How did it fit together in their heads? But for the banner and the T-shirts, they'd never have known these people weren't Light Mages!
"I said enough!"
Finnian extended his reach, sucking in all the magic he could use, feeling it course through his veins like threads of light and power. Pushing apart the air in front of him like he was parting a curtain, he reached into the gray portal beyond and emerged with his familiar, who planted himself at his side with a roar.
The guards flinched back. Finnian smirked. Good. The size of a familiar indicated the magical power a mage had, and a familiar as large as Atlas was rare and hard to find. The large white lion spread his wings and roared, then he turned and lunged at the guards who were still holding down the Dark Mage kids.
Chaos broke out. There were shouts, then a gunshot that Finnian parried with an intuitive shielding spell. Atlas rampaged all around him, chasing off the security guards long enough for the two Dark Mages to stagger slowly to their feet.
"Go," Finnian hissed over his shoulder. "Run!"
"Finnian!"
He turned, distracted, and that was all the guards needed to take off after the Dark Mages. Bianca and Helio were running up to him, closely followed by Coach Greene.
"Finnian!" Bianca burst out as she came to a stop beside him. "Where did you run off to? What the hell is going on?"
He glanced at his teammates, then back at the Dark Mages. They had vanished from sight. Hopefully they had managed to escape.
"Nothing," he snapped.
"Finnian," Helio began, "you—"
"There's been a bit of a misunderstanding," said one of the guards. "Don't worry about it, Mr. Day. We have it all handled—you just get home safe before they catch you again."
Coach Greene stared at him in incomprehension. "'Catch you'?"
"No one caught me!" Finnian burst out. "They didn't do anything, which you would realize if you just bothered to open your eyes for—"
"Finnian." Helio's grip on his arm was like iron. "Let's just go."
All eyes were on him as he entered the bus, where the rest of the team was already waiting. Finnian sneered and glared at all of them, daring them to say something. No one did, but he could feel their gazes on him anyway, boring into him, questioning.
All of them except Hikaru. Hikaru only gave him a brief, disinterested glance as he dropped into the seat beside him before turning back towards the window and ignoring him again.
Ignoring, thankfully, the way Finnian's hands were still shaking with helplessness and anger.
Yes, he thought. Insulting as it was, just this once he was glad that Hikaru cared little enough about him to leave him alone.
Comments (1)
See all