The man was bound well, arms tied tightly back behind the chair they'd sat him on, ankles similarly wrapped up around the wooden legs. A bit rotund, though not egregiously so, and there was something about his hands that pointed to years of hard work, callused and large as they were. He dressed well just like the others, and was mostly clean even after the little chase he'd put them through, though Owl knew that would soon change.

The moment his gag got pulled to hang down around his neck, the man cried out. "My god, help me, please! Someone! Anyone!"

Sitting right in front of him, Hound pulled out the bowie knife he kept strapped to his thigh and stabbed it right into the man's knee. It slipped through flesh and thunked down into the chair below, having cut right through the leg.

The scream that now came from the man was wordless, a high-pitched wail of sheer terror and pain, straining to the ear, pulling hard against his own vocal chords until eventually something in them broke and the man fell into a rapid fit of gagging. Blood already began rolling down his pant leg, Owl noticed. The first stain.

"Where is your Captain?" Hound asked. There was no energy to his voice, no expectation or even the barest hint of a tilt. The question had been given as more of a statement, a line repeated again and again until it became nothing more than a manual recording.

The man kept gagging and screaming, tears flooding his cheeks, whole body recoiling over and over against the chair he sat on and the knots which tied him to it. Hound just stared, and Owl could almost hear him counting in his head. One, two, three...

When enough time had passed to make it clear that no answer would come, Hound simply pressed on the knife, driving it forward like the gear stick of a car. The whole room filled with a single wet pop as the man's knee was dislocated clean out its socket, and the screaming somehow became all the more panicked, the cry of a wild animal caught in a bear trap straining against death.

"Where is your Captain?" Hound asked again.

"I dunno I dunno I dunno I don't fucking know please jesus let me go my god I don't know!"

"I don't think he knows," Owl said. She stood a few feet away, leaning against a bare wall. The room was empty—mostly empty—and they'd made sure it was in a deserted enough part of town that no one would hear the screams. "I told you, this was a waste of time."

Hound grunted. "Needed to make sure."

"Well, convinced yet?"

Rather than answer directly, Hound pulled the bowie knife free, eliciting another shout, then in a blur buried its blade sideways into the man's ear. It went into his skull right up to the hilt, silencing him immediately and forever.

"You better be convinced," Owl said, sighing. "I'd rather not have to go back out for another one of these."

Hound glanced over to the space on her left at the pile of bodies they'd dropped there. Four men and one woman, all from Roman's crew, all useless and now rotting for it. None had been able to share one drop of valuable information, but at least the more of them they had the more incentive their next victim had gotten to share the truth. When it came to gathering information, nothing beat the very visible promise of imminent death, particularly when all available examples had been your friends.

"They're out in the wind," Owl said. "Maybe we'll have to wait for this wedding after all."

"Father won't be happy."

"Father doesn't care as long as the job gets done. You know that."

Hound didn't say anything, but it was clear in his stoic visage that she wasn't making him particularly happy at the moment. He was restless, impatient, totally zeroed in.

But what else could they do? Already they'd looked around that Ranger Outpost Mouse seemed to live in, and they'd even passed by all the related residences. Empty and lacking in any clues, as if that hadn't been expected already. Mouse surely knew they'd be looking for her, and by what means, so it wasn't surprising that the trail had gone this cold.

Still, Hound clearly wasn't ready to accept that. As well as he hid it, Owl knew he hated spending any more time out on the field than was strictly necessary.

"Oh, fine," she relented, "I'll pluck out a couple more. But when they don't say anything either, I'm expecting you to finally give it up. It's better to spend our time preparing for what we actually know will happen."

After a long pause, Hound nodded. He remained sitting on the chair, staring at the corpse he'd just created, eyes trailing after the blood that now seeped out of its ear and down its neck, disappearing into its buttoned collar, turning white cotton red. When he glanced back at where Owl had been, he found only empty space. Soundlessly, she'd disappeared.

Well, better get things ready, then. Hound stood, walked around the other chair, and began untying the dead man. When his next victim came, six bodies would be a better incentive than five.

- - - — MKII — - - -

Even though they sat out in a public café during the early morning, Yovanni still felt nervous. Sitting next to him, Emma helped as much as she hindered, her presence a steady rock and her gaze a constant source of unearned expectation. At least that's how Yovanni saw it; he'd never been able to understand exactly what she saw in him, but whatever it was, the promise of its existence had yet to truly inspire any real confidence.

But the real culprit here was the man who sat before both of them, the only one who'd answered their call for magical help. He looked like some kind of edgy cowboy detective, with his hat and coat and unrepentantly hardboiled jaw. Then there was also how he must've weighed twice whatever Yovanni could manage even on his most gluttonous day, a heft that seemed all pure, manly muscle.

Just one glance at him had been enough to know that, whatever he was, it did not belong in anything approximating regular society. Yovanni played with his fingers on the table, holding back a sigh. What in the hell kind of world was he exactly entering here?

At least Emma hadn't expected him to take the lead on this. The man—Vince, he'd introduced himself as, not even bothering to share a surname—nodded along as she described who Yovanni supposed were all their collective enemies. The shadow assassin, the invisible girl, the Hercules wannabe kid, and the walking armory.

"Those first two sound darn familiar," Vincent said, munching on a toothpick all the while. "The other ones not so much, but I guess they could be part of it."

"Part of what?" Emma asked.

Vincent gave them a wary look. "It's a dangerous thing to let criminals in on. Last thing I need is you joinin' in on what your competition's gettin' up to."

"We're not competition anymore."

"So you say."

It had been one of Vince's caveats. He was ultimately some kind of official if his badge was anything to go by, though he hadn't shared of what, and so he wasn't legally allowed to be working with them like this. But if Yovanni promised to back out of the Syndicate, then their arrangement wouldn't be any different from that of a cop and their informer. It was an empty promise, of course, and they both surely knew that, but Vincent himself didn't seem to be operating within the boundaries of the law either, so whatever grounds they set for collaboration only needed to work as a pretext.

"You'd be better off not knowing," Vincent eventually said, shrugging. "These people don't take kindly to gettin' found out, an' you're not exactly doin' so hot right now as it is."

Emma leaned forward, scowling. One of her arms was still in a sling, and though it had gotten a lot better the past couple days she hadn't let herself stop being angry about it. Even now she threw each syllable out like a dagger. "We've told you about the Don. We've told you about Roman, and Agrivon, and all the rest of it. If this partnership is gonna work, we need to trust each other. And you need to trust that we can take care of ourselves."

"Ah. That's why you needed a guy like me, right?"

Scowl deepening, Emma said nothing in response, letting her sole eye say everything her words couldn't. Finally, Vincent leaned back, spit his toothpick out onto the curb, and picked up the dainty little espresso cup he'd ordered.

"I guess it don't hurt to share," he said. "But don't say I didn't warn ya."

He threw back the entire cup all in one go, setting it back down with a clink of porcelain. Then he just stared at them, eyes digging into both. Yovanni looked down immediately, and even Emma couldn't retain contact. Finally, Vincent closed his own eyes, breathing deep through his nose.

"It's called the House of Endless Slumber," he said, and let the name rest for a moment before he continued. "A world-class conclave of assassins. There's not much we know about 'em, 'cept they'd all rather die than yield any information." He grit his teeth. "You ask me, even the name was a planned leak. Just them givin' us somethin' to put on all the ghost stories. All the other ones we captured either offed themselves or let us off 'em without so much as a whisper."

"World-class..." Emma narrowed her eye. "But these are kids we're talking about."

"They're all kids. Haven't come across a single grown one, at least as far as we know. Best I can figure, they're trained young and then put down like dogs. That or they all kick the bucket before they get too old."

Yovanni frowned, thinking it over. He supposed what Vincent said was possible—who was to say there couldn't be some sort of secret murder cabal if magic was a thing?—but something about it didn't make much sense. "If they're all part of the same group," he said, voice low and plodding, "then why are they fighting each other?"

Vincent raised a brow, a bit surprised to hear the other man speak after what must've been at least half an hour of silence. "Hell if I know."

"Is it possible that this... House could be going through some kind of schism?"

"Ha! You mean like your little group of outlaws?"

Yovanni had also sensed the irony in his own question, so it didn't embarrass him to nod.

Rubbing his 5-o-clock shadow, Vincent eventually shook his head. "Nah, can't see it. The few members we've managed to catch are too committed. More likely, this Roman and this Agrivon both ended up hirin' one, and now they're both carryin' out separate contracts."

"So, what, you think infighting is allowed?"

Vincent leaned forward on his elbows, looming over the other man. When he spoke, his gravelly voice turned deadly. "Listen, mister, you asked, so I'll tell you exactly what you're dealin' with. These kids ain't just some stray group of killers."

He grabbed his own fist, squeezing it with a suffocating squelch of his leather gloves. "I've seen 'em on the job, but I've also seen 'em after. The ones we captured? We kept them a while. Asked 'em questions. Tortured 'em. Tortured 'em in front of each other. And not one of 'em broke, ever. The look in their eyes... Whatever shit they get put through, it makes 'em into somethin' completely inhuman. Far as I see, there ain't no loyalty, no camaraderie that supersedes the mission. To them, all that matters is that the job gets done."

Sighing, Vince's hands softened, and he bowed his head as if suddenly tired. "So yes, I do believe infightin's allowed. Not 'cuz they hate each other, but 'cuz they got no capacity to hate or even to love. That's the problem you have on your hands. They're not just good at what they do, and they're not just ruthless. No, they're unfeelin' monsters."

Yovanni gulped, licking his lips, feeling a bead of sweat making its way down his cheek. "Sounds like you're an expert on these people."

"Someone's gotta deal with the House one way or another, and I've spent more years on their trail than anyone."

"An interesting thing to focus on..."

Vincent gave a smile that was more of a grimace. "Let's just say I've got a personal stake. So consider yourself lucky, mister, 'cuz when it comes to the House I'm the best there is, and I'm willin' to work pro bono." He pointed right at Yovanni, finger almost touching the other man's nose. "You just get me in that weddin' and I'll take care of the rest. If we get lucky, I can take one of 'em back for more questionin'. If we don't get lucky..." Now his smile turned genuine and savage. "Well, that just means I'll have to settle for an autopsy."

- - - — MKII — - - -

They could see Red out on the dock, legs spread in a stable stance, arms out and hands spread wide toward the sea. The sun glistened off a body slathered in sweat, the natural consequence of what must have now been hours of concentration, bad enough that he'd felt the need to take off the pile of damp cloth that had once been his shirt.

A white luminescence coated him. Unlike before, the Spirit clasped tightly like a second skin, no longer oozing off him like smoke. More controlled and pointed, enough that Stretch no longer worried too much about sticking close to Rebecca in case its flow happened to come at her by accident. Still, they kept their distance, both because there was always the odd chance but also because the last thing the boy needed now was a distraction.

As for herself, Rebecca did not practice anywhere near as intensely. An hour or two the day before, and an hour or two that very morning. Now she just sat with Stretch by the pool, legs hanging off the edge, feet bare and waddling in its shallow depths.

"Is there any way to grow your Spirit?" she asked.

Stretch considered the question. He hadn't really had to think about these things in a long time, but new as she was Rebecca had a knack for unabashedly asking about those things that most seasoned Ranger might have been too proud—or too embarrassed—to wonder about.

"Kind of?" he said. "It's hard to say. Some people are born with lots, and other people are born with just a little. But sometimes the ones who have a lot lose it over time, and sometimes the ones with a little end up with much more. No one really knows why."

"Maybe... it's all about your mindset," Rebecca mused. "Like, your Spirit reacts to the way you change as a person."

"You're thinking about it like it's metaphorical again." Though, Stretch had to admit, her theory made as much sense as any other that he'd heard. Not that he'd ever been particularly interested in this kind of stuff—Jason was probably a better person to ask.

"What did you call it yesterday?" Rebecca asked. "The kind of Trick Red wants to learn, I mean."

"An Outer Art. Tricks that let you affect the world around you."

"I still can't believe you guys have a whole system to categorize all this stuff..."

"Heh, don't underestimate the RC's paranologists. Mostly they don't have anything else going on, so they get plenty of time to come up with all sorts of fancy terms."

Rebecca shook her head, half-chuckling. "There's even an entire science for it." Looking up, she stared at the passing clouds and flocks of birds. A nice day again, lucky them. "It feels like... the whole world just got way bigger. It's..."

Stretch watched her fall at a loss for words. "Scary?" he asked, leaning kindly toward her. "Like you're a hamster pushed out of its cage."

"Yeah, but there's also, like..."

"A pull. You can't help wanting to know more."

"Right." Rebecca glanced at him. "Can you read minds too, on top of the stretching thing?"

Stretch laughed. "No, I've just been where you're at. Almost everyone has, man. The ones who're born into this life are way in the minority. The Veil keeps most people out easy enough."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The Veil. A wall of perception that kept the Mystic World hidden from everyone else. Rebecca still didn't fully understand it, and as usual Stretch's vague explanations were less than helpful, though she couldn't fault him for failing to adequately summarize a subject so strange. A break in history, a collective forgetting of whole realms of nature, and now a seemingly impassable cognitive barrier that could only be broken by... well, by events as crazy as those of the previous two days.

Rebecca shook her head again. Wrapping her head around the Spirit stuff was hard enough; she didn't need to pile on all the stuff about the Veil on top of that. "Could you read minds? Could you, like, if you wanted to learn a new Trick?"

"It's... possible," Stretch said, scratching his chin. "There's no rule that you can't learn more than one. But the thing is, your Spirit's like... like clay. Learning a Trick is like molding that clay, giving it a specific shape. The more you practice it, the more... solid that shape gets, or hardened, or whatever. Eventually you get as good as me."

Smiling, Stretch flexed his arm and, rather than a bulge of muscle, his bicep cartoonishly bent upwards like a miniature hill. A bark of laughter broke out of Rebecca before she could help it, making his grin widen.

"See that?" he continued. "No clapping, no concentrating. When your Spirit's been shaped well enough, you don't need to do that kind of thing anymore to activate it. The Trick sorta becomes a part of you. That's what we call mastery." He put his arm back down. "But when you try and learn a second Trick, it's like you're taking that hard clay and trying to shape into something else. It's possible, but for most people that just means you'll wind up with two half-finished Tricks instead of a single mastered one."

"Jack of all trades, master of none?"

"Pretty much. Unless you're a one-in-a-million talent, and even then I imagine it's not a sure thing."

Rebecca twirled her red hair, wrapping it tight around her index finger, face thoughtful. "The other kinds of Tricks, what were those again? There's the outer ones..."

"Then Inner Arts like mine that just let you affect something about yourself. And then there's the Relay Arts that... er..." Stretch frowned, hand coming up from his chin to scratch at his own hair "They're a little more weird, but it's basically like they let you... form a special relationship between things. It's hard to explain..."

As so much of it seemed to be. Rebecca just waited, knowing by now that he'd come up with something.

"There's someone Red fought a week back," Stretch said, finding an avenue. "It was a beastwoman—those are half-animal people—and she had this big chimera monster pet she had helping her out. The way Red described it, their coordination was something else. It's pretty common for some Magicians to form a Spirit Bond with an animal or a monster, and it sorta connects their mind, like they automatically know how to work together really well. I'd bet that beastwoman had a Trick like that, and that would be a Relay Art, see? A special relationship."

Rebecca nodded, though now her mind was on what little she'd been told about the events at the World Tree. She remembered a bit of the news stories from the weeks before, some kind of crop-destroying fungus the government had been able to contain. It had been somewhat disconcerting, the kind of vague threat that colored her perception of the world but seemed tangential enough to her own life that she could mostly ignore it on the day-to-day, like climate change or a war in some far-off country. But to know it had all been caused by a genocidal maniac whose plans for global murder had been only barely stopped in time...

If learning about the Mystic Arts was the exciting part, learning about that certainly counted as the scary part. As far as she knew, some other insane person could at this very moment be plotting something just as bad, and the whole world could be over before she or anyone else could even find out about it. Was this how her grandparents had felt, hearing an alarm and hunkering down under their desks, waiting to hear whether it was just a drill or a genuine warning of imminent nuclear annihilation?

At the dock, Red suddenly hunched over, hands leaning hard on his knees, clearly heaving with effort. It wasn't the first time—at this point, Rebecca figured she might as well start counting. The boy might've had plenty of Spirit, but its active use put the kind of strain on the mind and body that anyone would feel after long enough. At least that's what Stretch had said.

It was part of why Rebecca couldn't practice for too long herself. She hadn't yet been able to unlock her Spirit, but she had felt a... a tug. Even just reaching for it took the breath out of her, and having felt that strain she felt more impressed at how long Red could keep going at full force. A combination of natural talent and pure grit on his part, she thought, watching him draw up, breathe in deeply, and begin again despite his clear exhaustion.

It was all he'd been doing the last two days. Rebecca felt sort of annoyed at it—even with everything going on, she'd figured a whole week at her place would give them more time to get to know each other—but she also couldn't help admiring how deeply he'd thrown himself into his training. At first she'd thought him a rather manic person, like a drunken child thoughtlessly seeking one exciting thing after another, Rebecca had found in him a sense of freedom she aspired to gain for herself. But now there was something else in him, a kind of singleminded intensity, a drive, a... passion.

Where had it come from?

"Hey."

Startled, Rebecca kicked up a splash of water, almost falling in from surprise. She swerved to look at Kitty, who had apparently walked over at some point and now stood looming over at the pool's edge.

The girl had clearly not slept well, same as the day before. Her skin seemed unhealthily pale against the bright light of the sun, an almost reflective peach that lay stark against her unkempt black hair, and her twin obsidian eyes were surrounded by rings of tired darkness. She set those eyes down on Rebecca, and the latter gulped, finding it not at all strange now that these last two days it had been easier to talk with the literal mobsters.

"You need to start going to school again," Kitty said, getting right to the point.

Rebecca sputtered. "I— excuse me, what?"

Kitty's face didn't so much as twitch. "You need to go to school. It'll be suspicious if you keep skipping."

"Wh-Why?"

"Because the only thing connecting you to us is that someone from our Outpost is going to your school. There are enough other students that Owl and Hound probably won't know that we're with one of Malcolm's classmates, but they'll definitely look into anything that seems even remotely strange." Her eyes somehow grew harder than they already were, obsidian black turning into black holes of severity. "Someone in his year not coming in for two days right after they assaulted the Volantes? That's just a coincidence. But the longer it goes on the less it seems like one, and next thing you know they'll be right at your doorstep just to make sure."

Ears burning, Rebecca felt the immediate need to defend herself, but Kitty's sheer certainty made her hesitate. It seemed like a stretch, but if there was even a small chance that what she said was true...

Actually, wait. "Who the heck is Malcolm?"

Stretch snickered beside her. "Thick glasses, and looks straight-edge enough that he'll probably end up being president."

It was enough to bring up a blurred memory from her party, and once she hit on it Rebecca scowled. "Oh, that guy? The jerk who vomited all over my couch?"

Now Stretch's snicker turned into full-blown laughter. He held his sides, rolling back until he almost lay on the ground, and though Rebecca could see the humor in it she couldn't quite join in.

"It took me forever to scrub that out," she muttered. "You're seriously telling me he's one of you guys?"

"We come in all shapes and sizes," Stretch said, wiping an eye. Then, seeing Kitty glaring at him, his smile turned sheepish. "Er, anyway, I guess Kit has a point. And even without the assassin problem, I'm not sure how long Baba can keep finagling exemptions for you. At some point your parents might find out, and then you'll be in trouble with them too."

Rebecca couldn't have honestly cared less about that. "So basically, you guys invite yourselves in and then proceed to kick me out of my own house?"

"Well, when you put it like that..."

"No, don't... Ugh, fine." Sighing, Rebecca drew her feet out of the pool. "I mean, look, I get it. Things are pretty dangerous, and I guess it's not like I need to be here."

"If it makes you feel better, we definitely can't piss you off by stealing your stuff or else you'll kick us out and then we'll probably die."

"I don't think you guys'll steal anything. I trust you, weirdly enough. I just... wanna be around."

Stretch noted how her eyes went to Red, but also to her own hands, and he understood. "Hey, chin up. We'll practice every day once you come back from school, how does that sound?"

"I can't while I'm in school?"

"Absolutely not," Kitty said, arms crossed. "If Owl's prowling around there, she might sense you unlocking your Spirit. The whole idea is for you to avoid getting their attention."

"Okay, okay. Jeez." It was hard to believe someone Rebecca's own age could be this much of a downer. Sighing again, she held out a hand and put the other against her heart. "I solemnly swear I won't practice magic at school. Is that enough for you, Mom?"

Kitty bowed her head and, her orders given and followed, turned around to walk back inside.

Rebecca looked on as she went, lips tart. "She's a real bucket of sunshine."

"She's just under a lot of pressure," Stretch said.

"And we're not?"

Kitty heard them go on behind her, but quickly stopped paying attention once she came back inside. Through the sitting room where Donny still snored and slept away the early morning hours, up the stairs, and right to the kitchen where Roman and Baba had made camp.

A marble island table took the room's center, flanked by cabinets and all manner of appliances. The fridge, sleek and metal, was large enough to feet what seemed like a dozen families, and alongside it sat an authentic Italian espresso maker that Kitty knew everyone else had taken to right away.

Even now Baba looked through one of the laptops Rebecca had lying around, nursing a little cup of coffee with one hand and intermittently munching on a breakfast muffin with the other. Roman stood alongside her, leaning in to see the screen. Light streamed in from a big window behind them, and looking through it Kitty could see out down at the backyard outside, where Stretch and Rebecca sat talking still.

The girl came close, taking a seat at the table. "So?"

"I’m told the wedding'll be here," Baba said, turning the laptop around for Kitty to see before glancing at the man beside her. "Gotta say, your future daddy-in-law sure knows how to pick locations. Booking it must've cost a fortune."

Roman shrugged. "The Don lives and dies by ceremony."

Kitty sat and scrolled through the diagrams. Four floors set in a U shape with a big garden at the center. More importantly, Kitty saw through the pictures on the place's website that it was quite far from anywhere else, on a hill far on the edge of the city. "This León Estate. What's the story?"

"The Leóns founded Roxbury," Baba said, leaning forward. "Big rich family, made their money in the silver trade back during colonial times. Apparently they used to live closer to the city's center, but after enough people started settling here they decided things were getting too crowded. That's when they built their estate, as far from us plebeians as they could get without leaving their own town altogether."

"So, any descendants we need to worry about?"

Baba chuckled. "Not a single one. Turns out living so far away didn't work out when the slaves they kept down in their basement slit all their throats and ran off in the middle of the night. The Leóns kept so well to themselves that no one else realized what happened until a good week later." She shrugged, as if to say, What else were they expecting? "The estate changed hands a few times before finally getting bought by the city itself a good hundred years ago. They mostly do tours, but also rent the place out for weddings and parties if you're hoity-toity enough to afford it."

"And the Syndicate is definitely able," Roman said. "The León Estate is kind of the Don's go-to event location. Birthdays, big promotions... I've heard he's even tried to buy the place himself a few times, just for convenience's sake." He gave Kitty a meaningful look. "Agrivon will be familiar with the layout. He's been there enough times."

Kitty slowly slid the laptop back. "We'll need floor plans before we start building our strategy."

"I can get those easy enough," Baba said. "It's public property, so I won't even have to break any laws to do it."

"In the meantime, we can list out exactly what we're up against," Roman said. They'd brought some blank paper and a few pens, so now he reached for them and started writing. "The whole Syndicate will be there. Agrivon's crew makes up a good thirty, forty percent. A hundred-fifty or so strong."

"What kind of firepower will they have?" Kitty asked.

Roman leaned back, humming. "Technically we're not supposed to be armed, so he'll have to keep up appearances, at least while he's coming into the place. I don't expect any of his guys to pack much more than a handgun, maybe some low-caliber rifles. Weapons they can actually sneak in. But they will all be packing. No way Agrivon lets himself walk into this without as much support as he can afford to bring." He shook his head. "What I'm really worried about are those assassin friends of yours. I saw them in action on Sunday, but if there's anything they left on the table back there I'd appreciate you telling us now."

Kitty met his gaze, and for a second Roman thought she'd refuse him. There was an almost dangerous glint in how she stared at him, and he had to wonder if his question had somehow been too personal, but finally she looked away and Roman felt himself sigh in quick relief.

"Owl's Trick is called Silhouette," Kitty said. "It lets her move through shadows, and while she's in them she can also control them a little, make them solid. You saw those needles." She waited for Roman's nod before returning it with one of her own. "As far as I know she can't control them much more than that, but it doesn't matter. Her ability to hide in them is the real problem anyway. There's nothing that can hurt her while she's moving around in there, and she could come out of any corner before you even blink."

Roman frowned down at his paper, where he'd jotted down a few notes. "Doesn't she have any weaknesses?"

"Just one: no shadow, no Trick. The only way to beat her is to either take her by surprise or trap her somewhere without any shadow for her to use. And considering we already tried ambushing her before, I'd say our only chance now is to go for a trap."

"But how do we get rid of every shadow? Filling a room up with lights won't work as long as there are things inside that room to cast them. We'd need a completely empty space."

"Or a moving light. If the shadow Owl hides in disappears, she'll be forced right out."

"So, what? We all carry around a flashlight?"

Kitty didn't respond, face set in a pondering frown. It was hard to know exactly what to do without those floor plans, but even then she saw the problem. Any light they brought in to help fight Owl would immediately become a target they'd need to protect, exactly the kind of handicap that Kitty didn't think they could afford to place upon themselves.

The most dangerous part of Owl's Silhouette had always been how slippery it made her. Now Kitty found herself on the receiving end of that danger, and she couldn't help but empathize with all those people who'd shared her position.

"Well, let's just put her aside for now," Roman muttered. "What about the other one? Hound, right? What are his powers?"

Kitty shook her head. "Hound doesn't have a Trick."

Roman raised a brow. "But from what I saw, he's no normal person."

"He's definitely not normal, but there's no Trick to what he can do." Kitty's fingers dug into her arm, but the scratch of her nails seemed to remind her of something because she soon let go. "Even then, Hound will be the most dangerous obstacle."

"If he doesn't have any of your magic tricks—"

Again she gave Roman that look, except this time the man saw something else in her eyes. Not stress, not any stern warning. Unless he was mistaken, what Roman saw there was a hint of... fear?

"He will be the most dangerous," Kitty stressed. "You... You don't know where Scarlet and I came from, but I'm assuming you have some ideas, right?" Slowly, Roman nodded. "We were all trained well. Became the best of the best, at least at what we do. But Hound—"

Her voice hitched, just the barest pause, one she soon buried under a heavy layer of tight control. "Hound isn't like us. He wasn't trained for our kind of work. The only thing he was trained for was taking care of problems like me, or like Scarlet, or even like Owl if she ever needed to be taken care of. You get it? We were the pets, and Hound was the discipline. Trained day in and day out to come after us if we ever... if we ever deserved it." She grimaced. "He might not have a Trick, but he learned all of ours, and there's no one more relentless."

Roman listened, and though he still wasn't fully convinced he couldn't deny that the girl seemed serious enough. "What do we do about him, then?"

"Hound will be coming after me, not you. Now that he knows I'm alive, making sure I'm not is his first and only mission. I think that's what we'll have to leverage."

"So, use you as bait?"

"I don't like the sound of that," Baba grumbled.

"Just get us those floor plans," Kitty said. "Whatever we plan, it'll depend on the geography. I don't want to walk into another fight blind."

"Sure thing, but..." Baba shook her head and sighed. "If this Hound really is after you, and if he really is as good as you say he is, what do we do after Roman here ties the knot? That's a problem we'll still have to take care of."

"I can handle it."

"Are you sure? You ask me, this whole mess is just getting more and more complicated." Baba set her eyes on the girl. "It's not too late to call for backup here, Kitty. Jason will come if it's bad enough. Or if not him, let's call the Enforcement Bureau. I know it won't look good when they learn what kind of company we've been keeping." She glanced at Roman, who shrugged at the implication. "But it's better than the alternative, isn't it? Before we settle on anything, I just want you to know that we have options here. We don't have to go at this alone."

"Yes we do!" Kitty said sharply. Baba was taken aback at her tone, as was Roman, and seeing their surprise the girl closed her eyes, breathing deeply for calm. When she next spoke, her words came slowly and deliberately. "We do... I do. I already told you that Owl was my responsibility. I can't let anything or anyone else get in the way of that."

Baba's gaze, usually so unbothered, now softened behind their round glasses. "Kitty..."

"Just... Go. Get the floor plans. Please."

After a moment, Baba got up to do just that, closing the laptop and carrying it under an arm. Roman stared after her, then looked down at Kitty, and when the silence got awkward enough he coughed into a closed fist.

"I'll, ah, wake Donny up. Can't have him sleeping all day."

Kitty felt more than saw him leave too, and soon enough she sat there alone. Good thing too. She needed time by herself, just to think.

Hound aside, Owl's Trick would be the biggest problem for her goals. She still had those handcuffs up on the night table beside her borrowed bed. A few minutes with the other girl was all she needed. Enough time to explain things. But first there was Roman, who had to get safely to that wedding aisle. And there was Baba and Stretch, who also had to be kept safe. They hadn't asked for this, after all. It wasn't fair to them that they'd gotten wrapped up in her problems. Even that Rebecca girl, she didn't deserve it. And Red...

Kitty put her head in her hands. Red would need to be put under control if any of this was to work. And Agrivon, and even Yovanni, and the dying Syndicate Don. Too many variables. It all had to work.

For a single, brief second Kitty considered taking Baba up on her offer. Jason would drop everything to come, Kitty knew. He might not even get her in trouble with the RC. But no. No. Kitty forced down the helplessness that threatened to envelop her, the want for help, because Jason didn't deserve to get dragged into this either. None of them deserved it. She was the only one who did.

Her responsibility, no one else's. Scarlet's death had been bad enough. She didn't need more to weigh on her conscience, or her nightmares.

Kitty would get it done. Her, alone. It was the only way to make up for everything she'd done.