The Black Tide (Outcast 3)

No, but there are charms that warn a wearer if someone is using either magic or psychic powers, and charms that prevent the use of both personal magic and psi powers against the wearer. Four of Nuri’s have gone missing.

“Personal magic? As opposed to what, exactly?”

Cat mentally shrugged. He didn’t explain it.

Maybe because most people would be familiar with the term—and maybe because it was pretty self-explanatory. It could have simply meant spells directed at a particular person rather than greater spells, such as the rifts or the soupy-feeling shields that protected them. “Four?”

Two for him, two for someone else, they think.

The very last thing we needed was Dream getting her hands on charms like that... although as an earth witch of some power, it was rather odd that she hadn't already created such charms herself. Especially when she knew I was a face shifter and obviously using other identities.

Had the rift she, Winter, and Sal been caught in somehow erased some of her magical knowledge, just as it had erased much of Sal’s memories of our time together during the war? Was she able to create the rifts, but do little else?

Or was it more a case of the rifts taking so much of her time and power that she simply didn't dare risk creating simpler magic?

I closed my eyes and took another of those deep breaths that didn’t do a whole lot to calm the inner tension. In the end, the answers to any of those particular questions didn't really matter. Only the fact that Branna had probably accepted a kill order on me did.

“Can you ask Jonas to find out what the charms look like? And tell him I'm attending the inauguration ball with Charles tonight, so I'll need to know before then.” I hesitated. “And ask him if Branna is aware of my Cat identity.”

Because if he was, it would make going to the ball a whole lot more dangerous.

If he could get into the ball in the first place, that was. He might have accepted the kill order, but would he really go so far off the rails in his desperation to kill me that he’d forsake reason and be utterly willing to jeopardize the very future of our world by joining forces with Dream?

A large part of me wanted to give him the benefit of doubt—until I remembered the murderous gleam that entered his eyes whenever he was in my presence.

And if he had lost everything he valued in the war, as Nuri had suggested, then perhaps he figured he had nothing to lose—even if everyone else did.

Plus, why would he snatch four such charms if he wasn’t working with someone else?

I'll go see Jonas now, Bear said.

“Thanks, Bear,” I said, but I was talking to the air. He’d already disappeared.

I grabbed a coat from out of the wardrobe and then headed downstairs.

Are we going out? Cat said, excitement in her tone again.

“Yes, because I need to buy a dress for the ball tonight.”

What’s a ball?

It was such a simple question, but one that made me want to cry. It wasn’t fair that my ghosts never had the chance to experience such things, either before or after their deaths. “It’s a place where people wearing their prettiest clothes get together to eat, talk, and have fun.”

Can we come with you?

I hesitated. If the ball was everything Charles had claimed, then I certainly didn't want them there. They might technically be over a hundred years old, but in some respects they were still very much the age at which they'd died—fourteen and eight respectively. While they were both well aware of what I'd done as a lure, in all the years since the war's end, I'd never let them accompany me whenever I went into Central seeking adult company for an evening. And I'd certainly refused to let them be present whenever I'd been with Sal or with Charles.

“We’ll play it by ear,” I said eventually. “If things get heated, then I’ll ask you to leave.”

I can’t wait to see the dresses! Cat spun around me as I caught the elevator down to the ground floor. You should get something very pretty.

I smiled. “And you can help me pick it out.”

She clapped her hands in delight. You will look like a princess!

My smile grew. While fairy tales hadn't exactly been part of a déchet’s education, I'd spent the years since the war reading just about anything I could get my hands on, be it dry old manuals on how to fix the va

rious bits of vital machinery within our bunker or the wide variety of fiction I’d found in the personal lockers and trunks. When I'd gotten through all that, I’d gone into Central and stolen some more. And when I’d discovered the fairy tales, I'd read them all out loud to my little ones. While ever-practical Cat liked her princesses to be no-nonsense and self-reliant, she'd always loved the scenes where they dressed up in pretty dresses and captured the prince’s love. She was very much a romantic at heart, even if by design we déchet shouldn't even understand the concept.