Finn smirks at Alvie over his shoulder. “You know what, I always wondered what it would be like to play the part of a modern day Robin Hood.”
I can’t help it when I snicker. “Yeah, you’re a real saint Finn.”
Finn gives me the stink eye but doesn’t say anything. He’s leading us up a flight of stairs now, and the realisation suddenly hits me that we’ve got an ungodly number of steps to climb.
After about seven flights I have to sit down to catch my breath. The rest of them are still continuing on ahead, but Wolf stops and gives me a nudge with his s
nout, as if to encourage me to keep going. I pet him on the head before I hear Finn’s laughter drifting down the staircase. “Aw, are you not able for the climb, petal?” he asks in a sing song voice.
I scowl up at him. “Can’t we take the elevator from here or something?”
Finn’s leaning over the railing now, and his smirk is intolerable. “We could, but to do that we’d have to break into the main part of the building, which will be riskier in terms of getting caught.”
“Let’s try it,” Rita urges, but I think she wants to do it more for the thrill rather than because she’s sick of climbing the stairs.
Finn looks at her a moment. “You sure? We’ll be fucked if we get caught.”
Rita smiles widely. “One hundred per cent sure,” she replies.
So it’s settled. I get up and go to join the rest of them, and when we get to the next landing there’s a door identical to all the others that leads into the main building. It has a similar security system to the one that was on the door outside. Finn works his magic a second time and we all scurry down the carpeted corridor before coming to the elevator. Rita hits the button, and I feel like my heart is going to explode with nerves as the seconds tick by and we wait for the doors to open into the lift.
Finally, the doors slide open, and I let out a long, relieved sigh to see that no workers are behind them. Finn chuckles and gently pushes me forward, while Alvie hits the button for the very top floor. I watch as the numbers slowly rise. I feel that sudden weightlessness as we zoom up into the air, and then my body begins to drag as we come to our final destination. All the while I had been watching each floor go by on the screen and saying a silent prayer in my head that nobody stops the elevator and catches us in the act.
“What if the security guard spots us on the cameras?” I ask with worry. We leave the elevator and then have to climb one final set of stairs. Finn has to jimmy open the door which leads out onto a massive, empty concrete roof. I peer all around at the panoramic views.
“Let’s just hope that doesn’t happen,” Finn replies. “But if it does you might want to try summoning up those sparks of yours from the other night.”
“I don’t even know how I did that,” I tell him in dejection. If we do get caught up here, I’m definitely not going to be the one to get us out of it.
“Don’t worry,” Rita reassures me, “if anything goes wrong I know a confusion spell that will give us enough time to get the hell out of dodge.”
“I like that phrase,” says Alvie with grin as he helps Rita to set up the spell. They’re both currently pulling things out of her ruck sack. They sit down on the cold concrete ground and first set down Rita’s wooden spell board that I recognise from that time on Ridley Island. It’s funny the little details that you remember.
I pace around the outer edge of the roof, morbidly fascinated by how far up we are. Wolf pads alongside me as I glance over the low rise wall, my heart thumps when I look directly down and see how small everything seems. The world is so far below me. Two strong arms pull me back and I turn my head to find Finn scowling at me.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he asks, through gritted teeth.
I grin up at him. “Why Finn, I didn’t know you cared so much.”
“I promised I’d protect you, didn’t I? Even if it is from your own stupidity.”
I pull away from him. “Whatever.” Then I go back over to sit with Rita and Alvie, who seem to be just about ready to begin. Rita picks up a bottle of water and pours it into her spell bowl. There are various herbs in clear plastic bags, as well as a pen and paper and two L-shaped pieces of thin metal with ornately carved handles on the ends of them. I raise an eyebrow and ask Rita what they’re for.
She glances up at me. “You’ve never heard of dowsing rods?”
“It rings a vague bell,” I admit, but I can put my finger on it.
“People used them back in the olden days,” Alvie answers, then continues, “Except back then it wasn’t metal rods, they would look for a Y-shaped branch from a willow tree, hold onto each end with their hands, and the bit that points out would lead them to a location where there was water.”
I snort, unable to help myself. “And you believe in that?”
Rita shoots me a cynical look. “It worked for people for hundreds of years. You really are going to have to get over your non-believer ways Tegan. After all, you’ve got your own magic to contend with now.” She glances down at my stomach, the place where she said my magic sits, like a ball of fire. I nervously run a hand over my abdomen.
“You’ll be using those after we cast the initial spell,” Rita continues. “The thing is, I want to be able to see your dad first. I hate to be blunt, but there’s a good chance they already killed him. Once we summon up a glimpse of him, we’ll be able to determine whether or not that’s the case. If he is still alive and being kept somewhere in the city, I’ll show you how to use the dowsing rods to turn you in the direction of where he’s being kept.”
“I thought Alvie said people used them to find bodies of water, not people,” I interject.
“That’s true,” Rita replies. “But they can also be used to locate missing people and things.”