The Key (The Magnificent 12 3)

The thing was, Mack was starting to worry, because she was making sense. The odds were ridiculous. And even Grimluk had made clear that it would take the united power of all twelve to defeat the Pale Queen.

Was this a hopeless mission? Was he doomed to defeat anyway?

And could he possibly, somehow, maybe, work out a deal with Risky? Wouldn’t it be better to have her crushing all of humanity beneath her boot rather than her mother doing it? At the very least, it would mean one evil tyrant rather than two. That had to be an improvement.

“You will never turn Valin to your side, Mack,” she purred, seeing his hesitancy. “He is ours. So there will never be a Twelve. Perhaps you can fantasize about an Eleven, but never a Twelve. In the end you will be defeated. Unless …”

“She is trying to weaken you,” Xiao said.

“I’m trying to help him, annoying little dragon person,” Risky said. “Join me, Mack. Join me, and no harm will come to you and yours. Your family will be safe.”

With that, the mask of sweetness seemed to fall from Risky’s face. Because that was a threat she was making.

“My family?” Mack said.

“Your family, your town, your school,” Risky said. “Go, Fighting Pupfish, right? Figure it out, Mack. Put two and two together.”

“I … what?”

“Give me the Key and join me,” Risky said.

Mack hesitated. Just for a moment, but long enough to earn a hard look from Dietmar and Xiao.

“I’ll never join you, Risky,” Mack said finally. “And this is our stop.”

Risky shrugged. “We’ll see.”

And with that, she disappeared.

The train pulled into the station.

They switched trains, and Risky was not on this one. There wasn’t much of a crowd, and the six of them were able to sit close together.

“We have twenty-eight days left,” Mack said, shouting a bit to be heard over the frantic squeal of brakes and the rattle of the train as it turned a corner in its dark tunnel. “If we can save Sylvie’s friends—”

“They are not friends. They are Magnifica, but I don’t know them well.”

“Great,” Stefan muttered.

“What are their names so we can stop calling them just ‘your friends’?” Jarrah said.

“One is called Rodrigo. He is from Argentina. The other is Charlie. He’s English.”

Mack frowned. “I’m trying to find some pattern. It’s like the Magnifica are spread all over the world. The United States, France, China, Australia, Germany, now Argentina and England. Plus India, where Valin is from.” He looked to Sylvie so she could explain.

“Valin is my half brother, but he is from India,” Sylvie said. “Our father was a French diplomat. Valin’s mother is Indian, and he was raised in the Punjab. Her family is from somewhere in the interior. It was there that in ancient times Mack’s family did a terrible wrong to Valin’s mother’s family.”

Mack made a frustrated grrrr sound. “My family isn’t even ancient; how could they have done something evil to people in India? Like I said, we’re boring! We live in Arizona!” Mack protested.

“We have Indians in Arizona,” Stefan pointed out. He had come up behind Mack.

“Different Indians,” Mack snapped, and then his phone chimed and he made the frustrated grrr sound again. He did not have time for more idiocy from the golem.

“This is our stop,” Dietmar said.

They got off the train and started to head up the escalator to the outside world. Suddenly Mack stopped them. He drew them aside into a connecting tunnel, where a woman played a mournful tune on her violin and collected

donations in the open case.