“Stay behind me,” I say as we peek around a corner near what used to be some sort of art gallery. A statue is overturned in the courtyard outside what used to be a dormitory for first-year Bound students. But other than that, no one else is there. That I can see. A rumbling noise rolls in the distance, and I hold my hands up at the ready. Just in case. Bri wanders around the statue and the device in her hands screeches louder.

“Help me with this,” she says, pushing on the crumbling plaster that was the Chancellor’s head. “Someone’s under here.”

“Get back.”

Bri scurries backward.

I probe the spells covered in cobwebs in my brain until I sort the one for destroy. Hope this works. “Perdch yee’me.”

White shards fly through the air as my magic blows the statue into pieces. I jerk us into a huddle. When the dust clears, what’s left is a body. Gray skin, long hair, and an open-eyed stare. He’s about my age. I lift his sleeves, looking for onyx bubbles protruding from his wrist, but there’s nothing. Bri’s gadget beeps quieter.

“Magic was used here. Very recently.” She bangs the top of her doohickey. “But the whiffs of it are fading. Or this isn’t working anymore or something.” She shoves it in her bag with a scowl.

That march of Patrolmen… they killed him? For tagging a statue?! I can practically hear what Jhamal would say: There is no such thing as fairness in war.

His legs and arms are sprawled out like an X. In his right palm is the letter L painted in red. His lips are so dry, they’re peeling. I trace the letters M-A-C-A painted on his forehead in red.

“Maca.”

“Short for Macazi,” Bri says.

“The magicless bother no one,” I say, the injustice of it twisting nerves inside me. “They lived in community housing and those that were released from there are hardly seen by anyone.” No telling how bad it’s been for them now that the Central District is in pieces. The last time I saw a Macazi, he was no more than five years old. I was running from being captured by Patrol and I’d given him a carcass of meat. I can still remember the way his curly hair bounced as he ran off to take it to his family.

I search the dead man’s pockets for weapons. He has light scrapes on him, and his hands are dusty.

Bri sniffs them. “It’s the plaster from the statue. He must have toppled it after tagging it.”

The stuff underneath his nails says he fought hard against whoever hurt him.