Rachel wanted to call out to her, but Rika was already heading out the door with her new friend in tow. It would have been totally inappropriate in the middle of the Council discussion to shout across a room of people to the pariah of the group, but in spite of every bridge Rika had burned, Rachel wanted her old best friend back. The muttered relief from her right immediately dispelled that opportunity for the time being.
She glanced at Joshua Miller, sitting to her side with a perpetual disinterested expression. It was Rachel's deepest desire at that moment to give him a strong look of disdain and somehow shame him into accepting Rika back into their world, but she couldn't justify it. Rika had thoroughly wrecked any chance of that relationship rekindling. Her own strained and neglected friendship with Rika made them look like soul mates compared to Josh. Rika cheated on his best friend with him, then deliberately maneuvered the two of them into getting her access to the Market, all the while manipulating the two of them to spill any magical knowledge they had. Once Rika had everything she wanted, she'd ditched the both of them, with only a quick thank you and a goodbye before leaving two dumbstruck boys with a rift never to be repaired.
No, as much as Rachel wished she could rehabilitate Rika, she knew the wounds were too raw. More importantly, she had her own standing in their little community to think about. If she lost face, she'd lose the following she'd built up, and her goals would be that much more difficult to achieve.
"You could have been a bit more helpful there," she murmured to Josh.
"Hey, you're the one who insisted Will's secret weapons stay secret," he whispered back. "I'm just rolling with your game plan."
"I appreciate that, but still, you didn't need to antagonize Ryan."
"He'll be fine."
"Rachel dear, before everyone starts getting fidgety, shouldn't we continue?" Mabel prompted. Rachel nodded, taking a deep breath before standing up again.
"Now that the first order of business is out of the way, we have a few other matters to take care of, if everyone would please settle in for a little longer."
The room quieted down once more. Rachel took a quick visual survey, and her hopes sunk even further. After the excitement of the Scrap and Rika's departure, the temperature of the room was once again relaxed and ultimately bored. Several had already stepped out. Without the community's primary troublemaker or the inherent drama of their latest discovery, commanding their attention on the less glamorous matters was her true challenge. Rachel knew it was the details that would make or break their growing society. They needed to build a stable system of governance, else once they emerged into the world they'd be helpless to protect themselves and their interests from the powers that be. As it stood, the only people who continually showed interested beyond the council were Kendra Laushire, Ryan Walker, and the man she was about to name.
"We've had a new proposal for a research experiment from Julian Black, which would encompass a significant region of the east end of town." Rachel nodded to Josh, who unrolled a map of the town—with Julian's planned ritual site outlined—and stuck it to the chalkboard with a few magnets. "The Council cannot grant approval on this project, as Mr. Black declined to give the details of his experiment, but as it does not encroach on any existing territorial claims, we grant Mr. Black the floor pending a vote of audience."
Rachel gestured toward the voting board, and threw her will into the movement as if it were a tangible presence sliding along her arm and into the air. The extension of her mind reached out and scraped away the chalk dust from the previous vote, slicing cleanly between the board and the fragments that were stuck on the surface. They fell away, leaving the board far more clean than any eraser would ever achieve.
Once again, the pieces of chalk laying in the tray began to float up and indicate votes. Rachel wanted to try and read the connections in the air to see who was manipulating each piece. If she could trace those faint lines back, she could discover which among the attendees had the smooth, quick motions in the air, and which were barely managing to float their chalk, their piece barely wobbling up to the board and drawing a line before falling once more.
They'd taught every attendee the process of basic telekinesis, and if only Rachel could find out who held each piece, there was so much they could learn about the variations in people's affinity to certain types of magic, or the differences in movement techniques, or strength relative to body type and size. So much data, but in the interests of anonymity and political expediency, Rachel had to repress the urge and stick to her principles. She contented herself with the knowledge that no one else could detect such things, as it was a secret shared between a very small group. Of all the people that might ever attend a meeting, only herself and Will knew how to see the links that attached people, objects, anything with significance.
The vote was almost unanimously in favor, which wasn't surprising. Most were willing to let anyone speak, and the one or two nay votes were usually just people being obnoxious.
"Very well. The 'ayes' have it. Mr. Black, you have the floor." Rachel took her seat again.
As she did, Julian took a few steps forward from his spot on the window side of the room. He was dressed plainly in all dark colors, and he wore a brown baseball cap with the logo of the delivery company he worked for. Rachel was surprised he would give away such information so publicly, but took it as a good sign. The general air of distrust and secrecy amongst the group was bad enough already, with the measures they took to reduce spying and leaks of information. Rachel hoped they could raise the level of internal cooperation before the entire venture fell apart. Kendra's public appearance and now Julian's negotiating out in the open were a good start.
"Hi, everyone. I'm sure you're wonderin' why I'm tryin' to take over half the town," Julian started, with the toothy grin of a man who clearly should have visited an orthodontist in his youth. Still, he spoke with a quick, easy charm—one that caught Rachel off-guard. It wasn't as though anything he said was particularly charismatic, and he certainly didn't look very appealing.
Julian Black was exactly the sort of person you'd expect in a dead-end job driving around delivering packages, as well as the sort who'd probably end up stealing quite a few of those packages (not that he had any history as such. Rachel had looked into it thoroughly after receiving his proposal request). He was tall with a thick beard, slightly overweight but still in surprisingly good shape thanks to the time spent in the warehouses out of town, loading and unloading the truck.
"Now, you all know me as the guy who delivers your Amazon orders. That's fine, but between the few of us runnin' the show, we have a hard enough time keeping up with the load during the school season, and it only gets worse as the internet keeps growin'. So I'm gonna try something special, something to affect an entire neighborhood for at least a week or two. We'll basically be deliverin' packages by chuckin' 'em out with our brains. Cool, right?" Again, the toothy grin emerged.
Rachel immediately saw a major potential concern. Since Julian already seemed to be done, she decided she may as well address it straight away. "Mr. Black, doesn't that risk discovery?"
"Well, of course, miss, but we're pretty sure it won't be a problem. We'll still be drivin' out to areas before doing the actual deliveries. More efficient that way anyway. So there won't be packages flyin' over the whole town."
"What about the people you deliver to?"
"No one ever notices us delivering anyway," Julian said with a quick shake of his head. "They just check their porch later in the day to see if their stacks of textbooks have shown up yet," he added with a pointed glance at Kendra, who didn't react in the slightest.
"Still seems like a huge risk. As stated in our charter, one of the primary goals of this council is to suppress knowledge from reaching the unawakened until such time we feel ready to reveal ourselves to the world. As one of your elected Councilors I can't sign off on such a proposal without more evidence that it will not put us all in greater danger."
"Well, miss, I get what you're sayin', I just think you're wrong is all. Seems worth a trial run at least. We can deny somethin' as simple as throwin' things around if anyone happens to spot one truck."
"That's not even a ritual, though," Ryan spoke up. As irritating as Ryan could be, she was nonetheless grateful for his support. "You and your two friends are just gonna be doing simple telekinetics. You could do that without claiming up all that space. What's it for?"
Rachel held her face steady, but in her lap she clenched her fist tightly in triumph. This was exactly what she'd hoped would happen, but she couldn't have prompted a response herself without overstepping her bounds as a councilor, while Kendra would simply appear to be acting out of self-interest. Ryan was the perfect compromise.
If only he'd had pressured the man more. Julian didn't seem set back in the slightest. "Right'o, but here's the thing: throwin' heavy boxes through the air isn't exactly easy. Y'all know that just as well as me. So we've cooked up something that should make it all a bit easier to toss. Won't affect anyone else in the area in the slightest, based on our testin' out in the woods. Ask Cinza, she was there."
Heads swivelled to regard Cinza, who shrugged with a twinkle in her eye. She brushed a few strands of silver hair out of her face with a twist of her head before speaking. Rachel would have rolled her eyes if she were a less composed individual. Every tiny movement Cinza made was so obviously staged and calculated. Her hair sparkled unnaturally with the motion. How does no one else see she's a blatant fraud? Her followers seemed to believe her performance wholeheartedly.
Cinza's echoing, ethereal voice whispered through the room. "The man speaks the truth. I was there and felt no ill influence at his rituals. I see no reason why they couldn't be expanded into the town."
"See that?" Julian added. "Nothin' to worry about."
If only Cinza's word wasn't gospel to the town in matters magical, Rachel sighed inwardly as the ethereal voice cast her support. Even as Cinza lied through her teeth, the entire room was murmuring approval. Ryan was nodding, his fears apparently sated. Rachel knew better, however. Will and Rachel had long since resolved to keep an eye on her every movement, just in case. As far as they knew, Cinza and Julian had never spent so much as a minute together outside the council room.
Rachel frowned. She hazarded a glance at her two companions, but Josh seemed to have tuned out the conversation entirely with some app on his phone, while Mabel was gazing at the far wall unblinkingly. Neither were of much help when it came to proposals and disputes. For the majority of every council, Rachel ran the entire show. Under normal circumstances, she actually enjoyed it, as it gave her much greater control over the outcome. Today she felt uneasy. Was it something about Julian that was putting her off guard? Or was it Rika, re-emerging into her life after so many months away?
With no help forthcoming, Rachel turned to face the room as a whole, where the air was full of the same general apathy as her own table. No one seemed to care. After the bit of drama that directly affected them, they were all ready to leave, but couldn't on the off chance some later decision might still involve them. No one wanted to be involved in the process. No one was trying to build something. Everyone just wanted to be left alone.
Rachel felt like tearing her hair out at the sight, but she couldn't force people to do anything. She had to remain neutral. If she began antagonizing these people, or tried to force them too far away from their comfort zone, she'd lose the modicum of power she'd managed to scrape together over the last year. They'd vote her out in a heartbeat. She'd be further from her goals, less able to help everyone like she wanted to.
The world needed Rachel DuValle. She had to make some sacrifices if she wanted to keep her position.
"Does anyone else wish to raise an objection to Mr. Black's proposal?" she asked the room. There was only stony silence. Even Kendra, whom Rachel could normally count upon to help reign in such reckless moves, was silent. Then again, after her little maneuver earlier in the meeting, Rachel couldn't be sure of that alliance anymore. There was going to be a confrontation later, she had no doubt.
"All right. Vote in the usual way, please, if Mr. Black's proposal to change his delivery method on a trial basis to experiment with movement magic can proceed."
The chalk floated upward, and to Rachel's dismay, there were only three votes against. Her own dissenting vote was joined by two other neat, little white lines. The rest of the room was in favor of a proposal to which they had barely paid any attention. She nodded in defeat, before wiping away the board once more. "Passed. Mr. Black, you may proceed. May I ask that you provide me with a list of dates and times you will most likely be attempting this new system? So that the council can be prepared, of course."
He assented, the grin only getting wider. Rachel had to force herself not to flinch at the sight of his ugly trainwreck of a mouth. She could only hope Julian didn't get too reckless—or worse, provoke a response from Omega. He wouldn't take kindly to such a public display of magical ability.
Rachel brushed the fear away. Omega was still out of town, by all reports, and he wasn't allowed to return. They didn't need to worry yet about another showdown.
God help them all when that day came again.