Casimir nodded, although the way he did it was almost a bow. “It is only other magicians who—who revere him. And I imagine the olzcar—bureaucrats put a—a blind on his name, so that it did not stand out. So that if you looked for it, it would look like—like—”
“John Smith,” I said. “And the gruuaa followed him. He believed they—his old masters, his old government—had taken all his magic, but the gruuaa followed him anyway. And hid the fact that not all of his magic was gone. He came here, to Newworld. And the gruuaa—hid him.”
I raised my hand in what had become a habitual gesture, to run my fingers gently across the slightly-disturbed-air that was Hix where she was looped around my neck.
“I believe no human has ever really understood gruuaa,” said Casimir. “But they are very loyal to those they choose.”
There was a little silence. There was no way I was going along with this magdag thing, but we still needed to get on the road after Val—before the non-magdag’s nerve broke.
“He did no magic,” said Mom. “He didn’t even know about the gruuaa—till Maggie told him. But he did no magic.”
Thanks, Mom, I thought, but Casimir was already staring at me.
“But—Takahiro—” Jill said cautiously.
Taks shook his head. “What Val did for me was just from knowing about . . . There wasn’t any magic.”
Casimir looked thoughtfully at Takahiro. “You’re a were,” he said. We all stiffened and I moved involuntarily closer to Taks as if I could protect him. The hamster protecting the mountain lion. But hamsters are more acceptable in small social groups.
“How do you know?” said Takahiro levelly, not trying to deny it.
Casimir ducked his head again. “I’m sorry. But I would like to convince you that I am on your side.”
“On the—the what?” murmured Jill. “The magdag’s side?”
“The mgdaga,” said Casimir. “Yes.”
“Why?” said Mom. “Why do you want to convince us? Why do you think it’s about sides?”
“A mgdaga only appears when there is need of her,” said Casimir calmly, like we were discussing pizza-topping choices. “I know Takahiro is a were because my mother has friends who are weres, and after they have worn their animal selves recently there are traces left on their human selves. You have been your animal self recently, I think.”
So that’s how you managed to move the plate before Majid got it, I thought, as Takahiro said, “Yes.”
Casimir nodded, and then looked around at us again. “Is Valadi not here?” he said. “He will know of the tradition of the Ukovian mgdaga.”
“They’ve taken him away,” said Mom, and she was beginning to sound angry. That was better than desperate and fragile. “The army came—and took him away.”
Casimir looked at me again. “Don’t look at me like that,” I said resentfully.
“Magdag,” breathed Jill.
“Oh stop,” I said. “Okay, Casimir, listen. We’re going after him—Val. And Arnie too. Jill’s mom’s partner. They’ve taken him too, which makes even less sense. He’s born and bred Newworld, he was never a magician in the first place. Do you want to help us?”
“That is why I came here,” he said. “I do not like this—armydar. And I hoped the mgdaga would have something I could do.”
“Stop it,” I said. “That’s my first—er—whatever. No mgdaga gomi—garbage. I know about the gruuaa, but that’s all.”
“You are joking,” said Casimir. “I was in the park with you yesterday. When you folded up a large cobey and tucked it in on itself so tightly it could not come loose while we escaped—and then called the gruuaa to hide us from the army.”
“They never have announced a cobey in the park,” Jill said. “Mags is a good folder.”
My eyes went to my algebra book, lying innocently on the coffee table next to the empty tray. Innocent except for the fact that I’d left it in the car. “I didn’t call the gruuaa,” I said. “They came. Fortunately for us.”
Casimir shrugged, his elaborate, not-Newworld shrug, very like Val’s. “They knew to come,” said Casimir. “They have chosen you. And they knew you needed them. It is very nearly the same thing.”
Mom said, “Maggie?” It was half her Mom voice and half something else. It reminded me a little of Gwenda’s voice.
“I don’t know what happened,” I said, a little too loudly, not wanting to remember the wind that felt like it could rip the earth to shreds—the feeling that the earth was crumbling away underneath me. Or the feeling of folding the torn-out pages of an algebra book, and that awful, falling-into-the-void feeling that every fold I made was creating another endless invisible line that was trying to drag me down into that nothingness. That I was trapped in a web that I was weaving—folding—myself. “Takahiro’s a better folder than I am,” I said. “Enormously better. And it was that critter you gave me, Taks, that I chose to fold—to try to fold.” The fox-wolf-dragon. Like my Hands Folding Paper critter. I was talking to Taks now, as much as anything to make everyone stop staring at me. “I didn’t know what to do, and I remembered you’d said to keep her close.”
Takahiro nodded. “I—I don’t get this, but my mother was”—he glanced at Casimir—“also a magician, sort of. She taught me origami, and she taught me about the kami, and she taught me how—stuff crosses borders sometimes.”
Like being a were, I thought. That’s a great big border crossing.
“There’s been some buggie thing crossing borders anyway,” Jill said. I already knew she’d been picking up more lately—foresight stuff—more than just seeing gruuaa and having premonitions of doom while the armydar crushed us like a boot on a silverbug. And choosing to drive the Mammoth today. She went on: “I don’t know if that’s because of the cobey—the cobeys—with the number of silverbugs we’ve had around for like the past six months—or the armydar, the last couple of days. But—it’s like the borders are getting all messed up. I can almost see—it’s a little like the way the gruuaa twinkle in the corners of your eyes. And”—she was using her you’re-going-to-pay-attention-to-what-I’m-telling-you-and-then-you’re-going-to-pass-your-math-exam voice—“I think the armydar is making it worse.”
“Yes,” said Mom wearily. “It was my mom who taught us that, us four girls, when they were first inventing the armydar. That this is what would happen, sooner or later—that the army’s technology is itself unbalanced and could, and probably would, further unbalance the dangerous situation a big cobey creates.”
There was an ugly little silence.
“Then we’d better go,” I said, still too loudly—or maybe it was the armydar making my voice echo. “Do what we’re going to do.” Whatever that was.
“Maggie—” began Mom.
“Look, I have to,” I said. My cape had scattered, but there was now a single gruuaa trying to wind itself up my unoccupied-by-Mongo leg. I absentmindedly put my hand down to help her. Him. Whatever. It curled around my arm and up onto my shoulder. There were faint furry greetings or—what do I know—gossip-exchanging waggles. I was pretty sure—for no reason—that I had been clambered on by this one before. It wasn’t the one who’d come back to tell Hix what was going on after they’d all left us at the shelter, but it still felt half-familiar. I was going to have to learn more of their names. There was the faintest—the faintest drift of something across my mind—something that wasn’t me. Whilp, it said.