"Looks like your mission just became a little easier, Luka."

Garrett had kept his word. Once he had finally been allowed to push through the magically induced blackout, he had felt it. If he focused on it, the wild magic had become like ants in his veins, as it spread. Now, all he felt was the pleasant buzz of his own magic. When he was about to leave, two people in masks came up the road, dragging an Agent. One of the Agents from the files Garrett had given him. This guy had been sent for him, but there was no way he could have followed him to this place. Luka's magic might have suffered under the effects of the infection when he came here, but he would still have noticed being followed.

"Take him inside," Garrett told his people as they passed him. They were wearing the animal masks, one was some sort of cat creature, maybe a cougar, while the other was a bear.

Garrett's hand came to rest heavily on Luka's shoulder. He barely even reacted, and was vexed to find that perhaps he was already getting used to Garrett's manner.

"Ready to play your part?"

"No," Luka said.

Garrett smiled, and at the flash of those long canines, Luka's thoughts once again turned to a predator. He patted Luka on the back, and Luka followed him inside.

Luka saw now why he hadn't been led inside in the first place. The building's interior was skeletal, as if it had once been undergoing thorough renovations, but they had barely begun before the whole endeavor had been abandoned. There were no walls, not really, no rooms. The only solid thing were the floors, and the stairs leading between them. Everything else was just beams. The Agent was already tied to a chair in the middle of the room, the only piece of furniture in sight.

"Cozy," Luka muttered, but Garrett ignored him. He understood that these locations were for meetings, gatherings. They weren't meant for them to stay in for extended periods of time. If indeed there was an official club house, it would be somewhere more solid, more inconspicuous, and Luka would never be taken to it.

"So," Garrett said to the Agent, "would you like to tell all of us what you're doing here?"

The Agent's eyes were wide and scared, as he looked around at the people surrounding him. Aside from Garrett and Luka, they were all in sharp suits and animal masks. The guy was young, probably too eager to prove himself. Maybe he cared about Luka's reputation, maybe he would have taken any job. He wasn't even looking at Luka, at least not yet. He was still scanning the animal masks, the iron and wood obscuring their features and casting their eyes in shadow.

He could see Garrett losing his patience, as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Luka," he said. Luka wasn't entirely sure what he wanted from him, but he stepped forward. Garrett walked towards the Agent, reached out and tipped his head up so he was looking into Garrett's eyes. "They are not important. You're here because of Luka Lavrin." He swept his hand towards Luka, and the Agent's eyes darted quickly towards Luka and then back. "Well, you found him. Now, tell us what you know, or I'll let him have you."

He swallowed hard. "Luka Lavrin is a Healer," he said, as if there was nothing else Luka could do to him. He had felt sorry for him, but now he thought that perhaps a lesson was in order.

Garrett smiled, of course. "You do know how Blood Mages are made, right?"

The man shook his head. "If he was a Blood Mage, he would have been executed."

"Execute a hero?" Garrett lifted his hand to his chest in an exaggerated gesture of appall. "And how would that have made them look? Of course, if you need a demonstration…"

He nodded at Luka, and stepped back. Luka was careful to keep his expression neutral, so he wouldn't give away Garrett's bluff. He called up his magic, and it swirled around his hands, casting the dim room in a red glow. He stepped closer to the man, and reached for the exposed skin at his neck.

"No!" the man cried, before Luka even touched him. The red glow faded, and Luka stepped back.

Garrett gave him a look, and nodded towards the Agent. He was letting him take the lead. Luka suppressed a sigh.

"Phillip, isn't it?" Luka hadn't had enough time to memorize the files, but he had taken note of their faces and names. The Agent nodded.

"Okay, Phillip. I know you didn't follow me here, so how did you find me?"

Phillip shook his head. "I didn't. I…" He faltered, but Luka waited. The kid hadn't signed up for this. "I was given the coordinates."

"Hadley Thomas gave them to you."

Phillip nodded. Luka clenched his fist, and red swirls of magic glowed around his fingers.

"What were you supposed to do once you got here?"

"W-wait until you were alone, and then t-take you in."

Luka let the magic dissipate, but his fury lingered. It hadn't been about intimidating Phillip, but the kid was already terrified. He couldn't believe Hadley had sent someone so green after him. Did he think he wouldn't get away from this kid? Really? He probably thought he had given him an easy job, that Luka would cooperate, but he shouldn't have made that assumption. He shouldn't have made the assumption that he wouldn't be captured by Garrett's people. He shouldn't have sent his Agents into something they couldn't handle. The Academy was supposed to protect them, but instead they treated them like they were expendable. Again and again.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Garrett headed outside, gesturing for Luka to follow. Once the door closed behind them, Luka was ready to attack, the words already forming on his lips. Garrett held up a hand.

"Not yet," he said.

They walked across the road, and Garrett let him into the house. It wasn't like the other places he had taken him. It was furnished, well cared for. Someone actually lived here, but he doubted it was Garrett. The furniture was old-fashioned, some of it antique-looking, nothing at all like Garrett.

"Go ahead," he said, leaning against an ancient, creaky dresser topped with family photos and flowers.

He had prepared to yell, but he was too stunned to get past the interior of the house. "What is this place?"

"Oh," Garrett looked around. "Don't worry. The owners are on vacation."

"Right," Luka shook his head. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the details. "Okay. Now explain to me what the fuck you think you're doing."

"I want you to understand that they're tracking you."

"I know they're fucking tracking me." He had suspected a tracker since leaving the hospital. Hadley would have expected him to leave, and he wouldn't have risked him falling off the grid again. Luka just hadn't thought he would actually be tracking him unless he did something that stupid again. Which, to be fair, he supposed he had. "I want to know why you think you can tell an Agent that I work for you? That I'm a Blood Mage?"

"Aren't you working for me?" Garrett asked, lifting an eyebrow.

Luka sighed. "Thomas will have his suspicions about me by now. He will likely have figured out I was the one who infected him, but there was at least a chance that I could salvage that, and then you pull this."

"You know there's a very simple solution to that problem."

"I'm not killing him," Luka growled. "And neither are you."

Garrett shrugged. "It's your decision. But if you let him run back to Hadley, you definitely can't play double agent anymore."

He wasn't even sure he could do that now. The guy had been sent to take him in, but he would at least have liked the chance to talk himself out of it, rather than be marked a traitor.

"You know they don't trust you," Garrett said. "This proves it."

"I know," Luka said, frustrated. He had walked himself into this situation, but it was falling apart faster than he expected. He wasn't sure he could get out in time. Not anymore. He was cornered, and Garrett knew it. "Is this what you wanted?"

"I didn't plan for it, if that's what you're asking," Garrett said. "But I don't need you on the inside, Luka. I never did."

Luka nodded, and silence fell between them. Garrett might think he was contemplating his choices, trying to pick a side, but the thing Garrett failed to understand, was that Luka didn't belong to him, or the Academy, or the Council. He remained loyal to the dying mages. No one else. But he could admit that he had gotten too caught up in playing the game. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. Getting upset about what Garrett had told Phillip was pointless. He hadn't seen it at first, and perhaps he hadn't wanted to, but he was done with the Academy, he realized that now. He couldn't go back.

"Let me tell you a story," Garrett said, breaking the silence. He leveled his eyes on Luka. "Once upon a time, there was a boy. When he was a child, his parents abandoned him. When his magic appeared, the Academy condemned him. After he graduated, the Council rejected him. So, he went rogue."

At first Luka didn't understand, but there was only one person he could be talking about. "Is that why you're doing this?" Luka cut in, frowning. He was telling his story, but why? "Because no one wanted you?"

Garrett narrowed his eyes. It seemed like he had hit a nerve.

"He went rogue," he continued. "Only to discover that the Council was still trying to control him. So he decided things needed to change, that the Council needed to be taken down a notch."

Luka nodded. Not because the story resonated something in him, but because he realized why he didn't recognize him.

"How did you find out about Mutiny?" He asked.

Garrett shrugged. "I asked. Now hush. I haven't gotten to the good part of the story yet."

Luka gestured for him to continue.

"When my magic manifested I was living with a foster family. One day, I became incredibly sensitive to electricity. It was like it was calling to me, and I somehow managed to pull it out of the walls, out of the wires, the sockets. It was terrifying and captivating all at once. By the time someone found me, the air was so charged with it, you could see the sparks flying."

"The one who found you…" Luka said, worried about where this was going.

"My foster brother. And no, he didn't make it. The Agents were fifteen minutes late. Fifteen minutes were the difference between life and death. They had to put a suppressor on me to stop it. I was fifteen years old, and suddenly a murderer."

"Shit," Luka said. It wasn’t unusual for Strays to kill people, when they manifested, but it was a tragedy all the same.

"Shit, indeed," Garrett agreed. "I spend my years at the Academy trying to do everything right, but none of it mattered. The Council told me they didn't let murderers join. The Academy told me I was too unstable to become an Agent. It didn't matter to them that it was their fault, that if their Agents had been faster, none of it would have happened."

"Strays have killed before."

"Yes, but you never see any of them on the Council, do you?"

"No, but only Legacies end up on the Council."

"I am a Legacy."

"Really?" Luka asked, incredulous. "How do you know?"

"I know who my parents are. They named me before dropping me off at the children's home. Garrett Warren Bailey. Then all they had to do was wait until I enrolled at the Academy to approach me. I suppose they didn't want to have anything to do with me, until my magic manifested. Of course, by then, I didn't care about them."

"Warren Bailey," Luka repeated, mostly to himself.

"Of course you know my father," Garrett said, smiling. "You would, wouldn't you?"

Warren Bailey was the headmaster at the Academy. He was a man with cruel eyes and crueler hands, as Luka had learned the hard way. He had never been one for following rules, and Warren Bailey had a no tolerance policy for rule breakers.

"Why are you telling me all of this? Do you want sympathy?"

"What would I ever want with your sympathy? You wanted to understand me, Luka. You wanted to know what kind of person you're siding with, even if it is reluctantly."

Luka said nothing. There was nothing to say. Where he came from, whatever had happened to him, none of it excused taking the life of innocents. It never would.

Garrett tilted his head, and smiled. "The world is a cruel place, Luka. I'm afraid you have to be cruel to survive in it."

"We all have a story, Garrett. Not all of us use it as an excuse to kill people."

"I gave them plenty of time to save that boy. The way I see it, all I did was prove that the Agents are, once again, too slow to make a real difference." He spread his hands at the inevitability of it all.

"So, the rat." Garrett said, changing the subject like he hadn't just spilled his most important secret. "Have you decided what to do about him?"

He put his hands in his pockets, and the casual gesture bothered Luka. He wasn't wary of him anymore. He thought he had him, that he would switch sides so easily.

"The rat?" he asked, trying to make sense of the words. Then he realized, he was talking about the Agent. "Let him go, Garrett. He's no threat."

"Yes, sir." Garrett said, mockingly. Based on the tone of his voice, he thought he might have saluted, if Luka was still looking at him. He walked out, hoping Garrett would do what he was told, and went to take care of that tracker.