Leopold was too practical to lie, and the truth was, he didn’t want to. He remembered casting the spell in the alley—how natural the focuser had felt in his hands, how quickly and easily he’d mastered the basic technique.

  “Larry,” Emmet tried again. “These people need you.”

  Leopold’s arms prickled with goosebumps. With one last look at the TV screens across the street, he raised the phone to his ear and began to dial.

  Twenty-Six

  “This is Executive Angela Ramirez.”

  Leopold nearly dropped the phone. “You answer this line yourself?”

  “When it’s of importance.” Her tone was clipped and businesslike, but not unkind. “Is it?”

  “Yes. I, uh”—he glanced desperately at Emmet, who flipped him off—“I saw you on TV, and um—the thing is—I think I might be the channeler.”

  Emmet did a silent fist pump.

  There was a brief pause before the Executive replied, during which anxiety began to knot in Leopold’s chest. He heard papers rustling in the background.

  “That’s a bold claim.” She sounded vaguely amused. “Who am I speaking with?”

  “Uh, my name’s Larry. Larry Berry.”

  He could almost hear her smirk. “All right, Larry Berry. What makes you think you might be the greatest magical talent in recent history?”

  “I don’t,” he said automatically. “I mean—I don’t know—”

  “You don’t know.”

  Emmet frowned at Leopold, shaking his head as if to say, What the hell are you doing?

  Leopold took a steadying breath. “I just—I have a really strong feeling about it. I mean, I know that’s not, like, evidence, and I know you’re probably super busy, and I’m sure you can’t give a channeler test to every person who calls you up claiming to have a strong feeling, but—”

  “Strong feelings are occasionally admissible as evidence, Larry, but I’d prefer something less hypothetical. Have you had any violent encounters with Noxum or other outer-realm creatures?” She sounded like a slightly bored doctor checking off symptoms. “Have you been stalked by any? Killed one, perhaps?”

  “Um, no, but I think I might’ve made it rain? In Los Angeles, during a drought? And all day this flaming raccoon—well, sometimes it was on fire, sometimes it wasn’t—has been following me around—”

  The Executive mm-hmmed, her tone inscrutably neutral, and Leopold knew he was losing her. He racked his brain for more. The shiggoth woman outside the motel. His near-collision with the trolley. “Tonight I did magic behind 99 Spells. It was just a pre-cast, but it went pretty well for my first try, I think…”

  “The videos!” Emmet stage-whispered. “Tell her about the videos!”

  Leopold waved him off. If the flaming raccoon and sudden rainstorm he’d conjured hadn’t convinced her, why would his videotape collection?

  “Your first try?” the Executive said curiously. “You mean, before tonight, you’d never used a focuser?”

  “No.” Leopold felt out of breath.

  “Larry.”

  “Yeah? I mean, yes?”

  “You’re claiming you made it rain in LA without a focuser?”

  “I—I think maybe—”

  “When?”

  He paused. “Uh, this afternoon?”

  Another rustle of papers. “There was no rain forecast for today.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  After a moment she said, “The brief downpour earlier—that was your work?”

  “Um, I think so.” Emmet hit him, and Leopold yelped. “I mean, yes. It was.”

  The Executive sighed.

  Leopold waited, his heart beating out of his chest. His eyes came to rest on a lost-pet flyer pasted to the wall, the strange, furry thing pictured resembling no species he’d ever seen before. Emmet whispered, “Did she say yes?” and Leopold backhanded him in the arm.

  Finally, the Executive spoke. “Are you at liberty now?”

  Leopold blinked. “At liberty?”

  “To come and meet me. I realize it’s late.”

  “You want to meet,” he echoed, feeling dazed. Emmet’s eyes widened, a grin spreading across his face.

  “You sound a little unsure of yourself, if I’m being honest. But it’s always better to be humble than arrogant. You’re less likely to get killed that way. Also, I don’t get as many calls from would-be channelers as you might imagine,” she said, “and I’m obligated to take each one seriously. So, are you at liberty?”

  Leopold looked at Emmet, who was shadowboxing the air.

  “Can I bring a friend?”

  Twenty-Seven

  Golden elevator doors slid open to reveal an expansive, glass-walled office, moodily lit and modern.

  “Welcome, welcome,” said the Executive, peeling off black-rimmed glasses as she rose from her desk. “Come right in.” She was shorter than Leopold had expected. In and of itself this wasn’t unusual—most people were shorter than Leopold—but in this instance he was surprised, given her intimidating presence on television.

  Cautiously, Leopold crossed the polished floor to shake her outstretched hand. The last few minutes had been a blur: the long, driverless limousine that had arrived moments after he’d hung up the phone; being whisked through the neon chaos of Sunder Hill and into the tall, pyramid-shaped Department headquarters building; the dizzyingly fast elevator ride to the thirty-second floor; and now this, meeting the Executive herself.

  Angela Ramirez had a remarkably firm handshake.

  “Should I assume,” she said, eyes crinkling as she flashed a friendly smile, “that you’re the Larry Berry I spoke with on the phone?” She turned to Emmet. “Or perhaps—”

  “I’m Emmet Worthington, ma’am.” He stepped forward to shake her hand. “Not magical. Just along for the ride.”

  “Ah, well, that’s all right,” she said generously, then looked them up and down. “You’re both kind of a mess, aren’t you?”

  “It’s been a long night,” Leopold conceded. He decided he already liked her: She had an easy elegance and radiated gentle power unmarred by insecurity.

  “Should I pull some clean clothes from wardrobe?” said the man who’d accompanied them from the lobby. Leopold had nearly forgotten he was still in the room. The man in the baggy suit had introduced himself as Keeves. He had a shuffling gait and a wide, blotchy face, and there was something about his darting eyes and the way they studied Leopold that made him uneasy.

  “I’m sure the furniture will survive, Keeves. That’s all for now.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He flashed the saccharine smile of a first-class lickspittle and went out.

  The Executive ushered the boys forward. Leopold hadn’t spent much time imagining what the office of a Sunderian Executive might look like, but he would’ve expected it to contain a dripping candelabra or two and, at minimum, a stock of magical ingredients bubbling in a corner somewhere. Instead, it felt as if they were walking into the pages of some architectural magazine.

  “Not very magical, I know,” said the Executive, seeming to read his thoughts. She followed his gaze around the room. “But our designer is obsessed with the midcentury thing. We’ll probably circle back to cast iron and cauldrons next year.”

  “Right.” Leopold laughed nervously.

  They approached the windows, pausing to admire the Executive’s dizzying view of Los Angeles. Sunder Hill’s island of pink cloud stretched toward the horizon before petering out into wisps of fog. Distantly, smaller patches of golden-pink cloud glowed here and there in the dark; Leopold realized they probably lighted the streets of other sunderhoods, scattered like pearls across the tapestry of the city. He couldn’t help but wonder where the hell it had all come from—sparks, sunders, Aether, magic itself—but he told himself that he’d get all the answers he needed once he’d passed the test.

  “Wow,” he said. “You get to look at this every day?”

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” the Executive remarked. “The magical and unmagical overlapping—”

  Just then the pink clouds across the whole city flickered, and her smile disappeared.

  “The color used to be brighter, of course,” she said, “but increasingly we lack the resources to keep things going the way we once did. Though you know that already.” She cast a sidelong glance at Leopold. “In fact, it’s why you’re here.”

  Leopold nodded as if this had been his plan all along, and more than twenty minutes old.

  “Make yourselves comfortable.” She gestured to a set of sleek, modern chairs. “Can I get you anything to drink? Green juice? Herbal tea? Coffee?”

  “We had coffee earlier, thanks,” Emmet said, settling into a chair beside Leopold. “At the Brite Spot?”

  She laughed. “Then you’ll be in no danger of falling asleep. Strongest brew in Sunder. When I was doing my finals at the Lyceum, I’d stay up for days on just one cup. Tends to give you strange dreams, though.” She took a notepad and pen from the coffee table and sat down facing them. “Anyhow, it’s late, so let’s get to it. Now that I can look you in the eyes, Larry Berry, I have just one question.” She leaned forward slightly. “What did you have for breakfast this morning?”

  Leopold went rigid. “What?”

  The Executive repeated the question, this time slowly: “What did you have for breakfast this morning?”

  His mind blanked. The ease he’d felt in her presence a moment ago had vanished. What did it matter, what he had for breakfast? “Is this some kind of trick question?” he asked.

  She only tilted her head at him in response.

  His panic escalating, Leopold glanced at Emmet, who only shook his head, looking slightly lost. Leopold returned his eyes to the Executive. What could she possibly intuit from his answer? Was there a specific food only a channeler would eat? Rice Krispies? Toast with jam? What kind of jam? If he said sausage, would that mean he was a heartless animal-killer? If he said cereal, would that make him sound childish and silly? What the hell did this have to do with magic, or channeler-ness, or anything?

  His head felt warm. He was overthinking it, already messing up a question he hadn’t even answered yet. Finally, he said the first thing that came to mind, which happened to be the truth: “Yogurt. The kind you stir that has fruit on the bottom. And a banana. Well, half of one.”

  The Executive jotted something on her notepad, then looked up at him. “I see.”

  “And coffee. No milk. I usually take it black—”

  “That’s sufficient, thank you.”

  Leopold was pretty sure he was sweating. “Yeah, um—you’re welcome.”

  Her face was a study in neutrality, neither pleased nor disappointed. “That completes the mental portion of your evaluation. The physical portion will begin in just a moment.”

  Twenty-Eight

  “Wait—what evaluation? Did the channeler test start already? I didn’t realize there was a mental part—”

  The Executive was hurrying them toward the elevators, notepad under her arm as her heels clicked across the floor. “It’s a necessary assessment for any would-be channeler. You didn’t think we’d just take your word for it, did you?”

  “No—I mean, of course not, it’s just—”

  The elevator doors opened. “Your test consists of two parts,” she said as they stepped inside. She pressed the button for floor seven. “The first, which you just completed, was a quick mental examination, purely pro forma. The second will be a more intense ordeal.”

  The doors closed and they began to descend, the gravity so strong it made Leopold lightheaded. A lump had already formed in his throat. He was pretty sure he knew what she meant by a more intense ordeal.

  “He has to fight a Noxum, doesn’t he?” Emmet asked breathlessly. “Just like Max in episode four.”

  “Episode four?” The Executive hesitated. “That’s Star Wars, right?”

  “No,” Emmet and Leopold said together.

  “Episode four,” Leopold repeated, confusion briefly displacing his nerves. “Of Max’s Adventures in Sunderworld—”

  “You mean Sunder Hill.”

  “World,” Emmet corrected her.

  Leopold frowned, adding, “It’s a TV show.”

  “That must’ve been before my time,” she said, a note of impatience coloring her voice. “Now, as you mentioned on the phone, you’ve never encountered a Noxum in person—”

  “I can’t believe she doesn’t know about Max,” Emmet said under his breath.

  “Me neither,” Leopold whispered back, “but right now I’m a little more concerned that I might be about to die.”

  “Fair.”

  “Which means you’ll be limited to whatever you have with you, provided it isn’t too powerful.”

  “Wait, I’m sorry—I didn’t catch that—”

  Before Leopold could finish his sentence, the elevator came to a stop and dinged, its doors opening onto a bustling hallway. Sparks in dark-hued jumpsuits crossed back and forth, pushing heavy carts laden with equipment.

  They stepped off the elevator, and the Executive turned sharply to face Leopold. “You have your focuser with you?”

  “My focuser?” He patted his pockets, discovering with a mixture of relief and dismay that he still had the Funcast. “Yeah. Yes, I have it.”

  “But you’re going to give him a real one, right?” Emmet said. “Like a Contax or a Leica? High-quality glass?”

  The Executive’s earlier impatience was turning into irritation. “A true channeler, sufficiently trained, doesn’t need a focuser to cast spells at all.”

  “But his is just a cheap piece of garbage!”

  “Nor,” she added sharply, “does he need someone else to advocate for him.”

  “Emmet—”

  “Larry.”

  “She’s right,” Leopold said, his jaw tensing. “Whatever happens, I’m going to have to do it on my own.”

  Twenty-Nine

  “Welcome to the Department of Cinemagical Production. Touch nothing.”

  The Executive was leading them past signs that read Stages This Way and No Casting in Hall. A woman shouted, “Hot points!” as they dodged a cart piled with light stands and what appeared to be several flaming spears.

  “I don’t understand,” Leopold said as he took it all in. “You’re putting me in a movie?”

  “No, just appropriating one of the old soundstages.”

  They had to hurry to keep pace with the Executive. “This is where we produce all our filmed entertainment,” she was explaining. “A lot of the Sunderwood classics were filmed here—’Til Death Don’t Us Part; Forever and a Day; The Fire Maidens of Catalina.” She nodded at a wall lined with movie posters, all unfamiliar to Leopold but one, glimpsed in passing, which summoned an old, half-forgotten memory of a movie matinee with his mom. It slipped from his grasp as they sidestepped a man pushing a rack of costumes.

  There was a shout from up ahead.

  “Executive!”

  Keeves waited beside a heavy, soundproofed door marked Stage E. As they approached, Leopold could tell that the underling had been running himself ragged since they’d last seen him, his slicked hair mussed and his blotchy face bright red. Arrayed down the hall behind him was a retinue of besuited bureaucrats in gray: three men and two women armed with clipboards and humorless expressions. “Observers from Standards and Legal,” Keeves explained under his breath, scowling at the clipboard-wielders. He pushed open the heavy door for the Executive. “They’re nearly ready for you.”

  Leopold couldn’t say what he’d hoped to find on Stage E, but as he walked inside the faintly lit room, he realized he’d pictured more than just a cavernous, darkened soundstage. It might’ve been a thousand square feet or a hundred thousand; beyond a circle of spotlight, the floorboards fell off into featureless black. Crew members wheeled film gear in and out of the shadows. He looked up: Just visible in the rafters was a catwalk, lights and other equipment hanging from it like spider sacs. Against a wall, a row of folding chairs had been arranged for a small group of observers, who were filling the seats one by one.

  Leopold hadn’t expected an audience.

  The mounting pressure was making him break out into a cold sweat, so he focused instead on Emmet, who at that moment was improvising a pep talk—something about how he probably wasn’t going to die, and even if he did, maybe they could magic him back to life—while the Executive consulted with one of the suits.

  After a minute, she turned to Leopold. “A bit of mandatory unpleasantness.” She angled a clipboard toward him. “I’ll need your signature on a few lines here. You’re sixteen, right? If not, we’re going to need the signature of a parent or guardian.”

  Leopold drew back, he was so offended.

  He was almost eighteen. He was over six feet tall. He wasn’t made of pure muscle, but years of living under Richter’s rule had forced him onto sports teams and into the gym on a regular basis. Documented thoroughly in chapter six of Think Like a Winner, his dad’s insistence on physical fitness was one of the few Richterisms Leopold could find no fault with. The gym had given him a safe place to exorcise his anger, and in the process, he’d learned how to throw a solid punch at a sandbag, sparing Richter the need for facial reconstruction surgery.

  Now, as he prepared to confront a Noxum, he felt almost grateful for his dad’s bullshit.

  “Yeah,” he said tightly. “I’m over sixteen.”

  “Right,” she said, reading the look on his face. “Sorry, I’m required to ask.” Her eyes flicked down to the clipboard. “Mostly it’s a standard indemnity waiver, hold harmless in case of injury, et cetera. This is not a risk-free endeavor, as I’m sure you understand. But there are two nonnegotiables we have to discuss before proceeding.”