Witch & Wizard 04 - The Kiss Read Online Free PDF

take root. “What does this mean?” a Councilman from the outer suburbs shouts.
    “It could mean many things,” Bloom says ponderously. He seems to be talking slower and more softly now that he has our full attention, savoring our dependence. “First it will mean thirst. It may eventually mean that our truce with the Desert People is broken, since we share our water supply. One day…”—he drawls so slowly I want to shake him—“it will mean war.”
    The shouting reaches a fever pitch then. Bodies are pushing, voices yelling. The fear is so thick in the air I can smell it now, seeping out through pores and infecting all it touches, but I’m not going to give in, not yet. I wrap my arms around Wisty’s shoulders protectively.
    We killed The One , I remind myself. That was the prophecy.
    “I thought he didn’t want to make us panic,” Wisty says miserably.
    There’s wild speculation about attacks from the Sand Men who live on tarantula blood and ride lizards to war, or the Ice Eaters who feast on human flesh. “We have no police force!” several voices are despairing.
    “Council members!” Bloom steps onto a bench, his doughy body rising above us. “I understand your fear. I have known that fear.” He’s still talking in that slow, serene voice, so I have to strain to hear. He draws himself up higher, and I swear he’s sucking in his gut. “Fortunately, I am a practiced strategist of war.”
    “He wasn’t even in the war,” Wisty hisses. “I heard he just hid from the New Order and managed to bury The Book of Truths .”
    But the Council members crowd around Bloom’s feet just the same, hungry for his advice.
    “Earlier, we agreed to give pardons to those who worked for the New Order but who have renounced their former loyalties,” Bloom states, to murmurs of agreement. Surprisingly, that was one of the easier votes of the day, to choose to unite our people after losing so many. “I move that these experienced soldiers be reinstated as a temporary police force,” Bloom adds hastily.
    “ What? ” Wisty and I gasp together, and I know we’re both remembering the sound of the soldiers’ boots chasing us through plague-ridden streets.
    The room is a wild chorus of dissent. Some of us are survivors of New Order prisons; others were orphaned by their bombs. It’s one thing to give a brainwashed kid soldier the chance to start over. It’s another to give every old cog in The One’s murdering machine a gun and trust him to protect us.
    Someone knocks into the bench Bloom stands on, and he clamps a hand on his head as if to hold down his gray toupee. “I understand your concerns,” he shouts over the crowd. “Unfortunately, the issues I’ve mentioned aren’t the worst of what our fair City is facing….”
    Kidnappings, he tells us. More kidnappings.
    There isn’t much information. Someone saw a couple of black armored vehicles. A few people heard screams. By late evening, more than twenty-five mothers had registered their children as missing at the Council office.
    A stunned silence finally falls over the once-raucous chamber. The news feels unimaginable, yet at the same time it feels incredibly familiar. I vividly remember the day Wisty and I were taken, ripped from our home and thrown into prison. There were lots of other kids there, too. Kids a lot younger than us.
    “This feels like the New Order all over again,” Wisty murmurs in a small voice, as if reading my thoughts. “What if—”
    “The One is dead,” I answer before she can even ask.
    My sister is so strong. She’s one of the most powerful magic makers in our world, and she defeated The One during the height of his power. Few people can really harm her. Yet I know she hears that mocking voice and sees his Technicolor eyes in her nightmares.
    The One is dead. Absolutely and totally. But if there are pockets of still-active New Order in the Overworld…
    “No former New Order sympathizer will serve as part of the Over