Page 239 of Scarlet Wars
It would look like mere rebellion.
And that alone could trigger the war we were trying to prevent.
Second, the Chiefs were cunning bastards, professional chess players in a world full of people still trying to find the rulebook. They’d spent months gathering their own alliances, all under the noble banner of “protecting the Magi World from humans.” And,shocker, every Collective had seemed to nod along like obedient sheep.
They had been consolidating power, ensuring when the real battle lines were drawn, every Collective would stand with them no matter who they pointed at as the enemy. It was manipulative. It was brilliant. And it was exactly why this whole thing had to be handled with the delicacy of defusing a bomb with mittens on.
Which, frankly, wasn’t anyone’s strong suit.
Not mine.
Not Caden’s.
Definitely not James’s.
We were basically the worst possible team to trust with subtlety, which is where Jackson came in and saved the fucking day.
Condensing Rachel’s incendiary speech into something more diplomatic, he spent days reaching out to his Orator contacts across the globe, many of whom were more than eager to hear about the United Chiefs’ illegitimate grip on power.
Meanwhile, Rachel fixed our third problem: Vincent Strazzo.
Leader of Kanata C.
The man who had negotiated—formonths—with the Canadian prime minister, convincing Canada to open its human borders to all magi, by promising in return to tear down the Protective Layers so that humans could walk around the Metasphere without restriction.
A historic, idealistic, groundbreaking decision…which now had to be reversed.
Because, unfortunately, the world had caught fire since then, and we couldn’t risk the Chiefs slipping across our borders like they owned the place.
The only way to stop them was to put the Layers back up, this time with translation woven so tightly the United Chiefs themselves would bounce off it like flies hitting a window.
Not exactly a small request.
Luckily, Rachel was a woman of her word, and apparently also a political sledgehammer. She advocated for us with such relentless force Vincent agreed to re-erect the Layers fast enough to give us whiplash.
And, somehow, she even convinced the Canadian Human World—the same one that had just opened its borders to magi—to back us against our own governing power.
It was absurd.
It was miraculous.
It was probably the first real crack in the Chiefs’ carefully crafted throne.
The plan was deceptively simple. Easy, even.
Step one: I’d contact the United Chiefs myself and tell them exactly what they were not expecting to hear: I’d reconsidered the deal and wouldn’t bond with James.
Step two: I’d leverage their own obsession against them. I’d force them into a new deal that would secure my freedom, would keep James and Caden out of it, and still feed their delusion they were supervising whatever pregnancy they so desperately wanted from me.
Step three: if they refused, threatened, or tried to push again, the Layers would already be rebuilt.
Reinforced.
Rewritten so they wouldn’t be able to set foot in Kanata C again, let alone strong-arm us into obedience.
And step four: in the unlikely event they managed to breach the Layers anyway, Slava was on standby and would portal in the moment I nexed them, an entire Collective dropping in like a warhead the Chiefs couldn’t possibly defeat.
It was a simple plan.
