Rook

called Albion. The only problem was that I couldn’t find any information on what or where Albion might be. Still, wherever it was, it wasn’t heavily populated. Camp Caius had only produced something like fifteen graduates in five years. Which made no sense. I mean, if they had fourteen students right now… Then I found out how many students died here. Quite a few. As in, more often than not—some in training exercises, most under the knife.
    The really frustrating thing, however, was that there was no mention of any members of the Court. I couldn’t imagine an operation like this opening without one of the elite overseeing it. Only we eight possess the control needed to set it up. The financial access. The procurement of the children. Nobody else in the Checquy wields the necessary power in so many fields. I skimmed through pages and pages, but found no mention of any of us. All reports were forwarded to the Founder, but no explanation was given as to who the Founder was.
    I was actually quite interested in the current students. Who were they? How were they obtained? The answers might give me some clues in tracking down the mastermind. I eyed the photocopier in the corner, then decided to risk it. Gus wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon, and if I just Xeroxed the front page of each file, I’d have the basic details. I bustled over and tentatively fired up the machine. It was noisy, but it sucked in the papers I fed it and spat out the duplicates. I had just finished putting the last files away in their drawers when someone tried the door. I froze.
    Don’t panic, I told myself. It’s one of Gus’s buddies doing his rounds. But did that mean he’d found Gus and tried to wake him? Or was he on his way back to the command center, checking the doors as he went? Therewere no alarms I could hear. All of these thoughts flashed through my brain before I heard the sound of a key in the lock.
    Absolute terror jump-started my thoughts, and those thoughts carried my body three quick steps behind the door. It swung open, and one of the guards came in. He took a cursory look around. It wasn’t Gus; I knew it couldn’t have been, but I was relieved. This guard was taller and younger. His gun wasn’t in his hand, which reassured me a little. He was just beginning to turn away when the photocopier beeped. He spun around, his hand going for his gun, but I tore one of my gloves off, reached out, and made the connection.
    I silenced his voice.
    I stilled his body.
    I poured sensation into his spine.
    He never even saw me as I overloaded his system. He dropped to his knees, twitching, mute. I hadn’t hit anybody like that since my earliest times in the Estate, before I learned to control my powers. His senses were completely overwhelmed. The London Symphony Orchestra could have been playing in the room. The entire Playboy Bunny Corps could have been doing the cancan right in front of him, and he wouldn’t have known.
    Then I knocked him out completely. He buckled and sprawled on the floor, and I knelt down and shut his eyes. He would wake in an hour or so with a terrible headache. And soiled trousers. There would be no proof of my coming or going. At least, aside from this poor schmo’s being on the floor. Maybe he’d put it down to some sort of seizure. Hurriedly, I shut off the photocopier, taking care to use my gloved hand, and then I left. I risked a look in the office and found Gus sprawled in his chair, just as I’d left him. I paused for a moment, and then went in. It would look rather suspicious, I decided, if two guards were found unaccountably unconscious.
    I laid my fingers carefully on Gus’s temples and reached in with my powers, rousing and wakening. He sighed and his eyes opened briefly, but his brain was still not taking in any information. He was no longer submerged in the trance I’d put him in, just in a normal drowsy state, so light that he would come out of it without ever being aware that he’d napped. I backed out of the office quietly.
    Getting out was just as easy as getting in. When I finally got into the car, Wolfgang looked at me strangely, but I was too busy driving us the hell away to spend any time soothing him. It wasn’t until we had gone seventy miles and I had to pull off to the side of the road to go to the toilet that I realized I was grinning like a loon, and humming the 1812 Overture.
    So much to think about!
    Love,
    Me
     

19
     
    M yfanwy knocked hesitantly on the guest