"Hi guys," said Hailey. She took the seat next to Josh facing Cinza. Josh looked seriously annoyed with his counterpart.

  "Hey, Hailey," Josh said offhandedly, but his focus didn't change an inch. "It's too risky."

  "They're going to awaken whether or not we send out scouts," Cinza replied icily, while her voice echoed slightly through the cabin. By now, Hailey had realized she did it totally unconsciously, and she barely noticed it anymore. It had simply become Cinza's real voice. "We should be securing more allies wherever we can."

  "We're not fighting a war."

  "What's going on?" asked Hailey.

  "Cinza wants to—"

  "I can speak for myself," Cinza cut in. Josh fell silent. Hailey felt her intensity from across the room, packed into every inch of her small body. "I'd like to propose bringing a few potential recruits to our home, as an outreach program."

  "As converts," Josh muttered.

  "Are you a convert, Joshua?" Cinza shot back. "You've lived here since the Fall. Feeling the urge to take up the robes?"

  "I'm not really here by choice."

  "You could have gone to Kent with the Silverdales, or up north with the rest of the Ghosts."

  "Josh, stop," Hailey said firmly. "You're here because you want to help, same as me. Right?"

  Josh hesitated. "Yeah."

  "Okay. So let's focus on that." Hailey turned back to Cinza. "Have you run this by the forum?"

  "I'd rather discuss it in person, and all the important agents are here," Cinza replied, a trace of arrogance in her tone.

  "What about Boris? He might have something helpful to put in."

  "While I appreciate Mr. Morozov's skills," Cinza said sincerely, "he's out of his depth in this regard. He was sent to undermine a society, not construct a new one."

  "The Laushires?"

  "Kendra has her own agenda to pursue. She doesn't care what we do." Harsh as it was, Hailey had to agree. Kendra rarely expressed much interest in helping them out, although she did read everything they posted and occasionally put in a thought or two. "Nor does Lily, except if it pertains to their ward."

  "I don't think we're ready to start taking on new people," said Josh.

  "If not now, then when?" Cinza asked. "People are being awakened, without our involvement. We can't possibly track down the copies or scraps that have been blown into the world. Even Jackson couldn't manage it."

  She practically spat his name. Months prior, Cinza declared that none of them would ever use his title again, denying Omega the respect of the name he'd chosen for himself.

  "We've finished our construction here. The farm operates at a capacity beyond Aaron's original designs. We have almost effortless electricity and water, we have a secure connection to the internet and we're totally invisible to the outside world. All that remains is to expand, and what purpose is there in expansion without people to fill it?"

  "One thing at a time. Natalie just started middle school today. If that explodes, I really don't want to be dealing with a bunch of new people at the same time."

  "You don't trust she can handle herself?" Cinza asked, raising an eyebrow.

  "She wasn't exactly discreet when she lived here," Josh pointed out. "Plus, I mean—" He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "—she's just now hitting puberty, and middle school sucks in general. Throw that on the pile of shit she's already dealing with, and yeah, I think it's possible she could crack under the pressure."

  "She'll be fine," Cinza said dismissively. "You underestimate her strength."

  Hailey frowned. "I mean, I could definitely see myself falling apart like that. I fell apart in middle school a bunch of times for way less than what she's going through."

  Josh nodded. "I'm guessing you didn't exactly have a normal childhood, Cinza." The corner of her mouth twitched upward into a smirk. Josh grinned. "A crazy childhood then?"

  "I survived. Others didn't," Cinza said simply. Ruby glanced over, vaguely interested, but Cinza changed the subject before they got anything else out of her. "Even so, Natalie is one of the bravest I've ever met. I trust her."

  "I do too. I'm just trying to be realistic."

  "She didn't have a totally normal childhood either," Hailey added. Josh looked at her like she'd stabbed him in the back. "What? I'm allowed to switch sides here."

  "Fine. What do you mean, though?"

  "Well, I talked to her dad about it once, back when I worked at the Kettle and Bones for the summer."

  "You were a bartender?" Cinza asked with surprise.

  "Had to pay the bills for me and Jessica somehow. I just turned twenty-one in July that year, and it paid way better than working at Hector's. Only kept me on for the summer though, so it was back to Hector's in the fall."

  "I'm surprised I never saw you."

  "I had to be home before dark everyday, so it was more work around the place than the bartending part," Hailey added, her ears turning slightly red at the memory. So much wasted time.

  "Back to the point, Hales," Josh cut in. "Natalie's childhood?"

  "Well, they're actually from Chicago. Natalie's mom was apparently pretty awful, to hear her dad tell it. It got so bad that Natalie almost got killed one day, and that was her dad's last straw to move them as far away as they could get. He ended up in Rallsburg thanks to a family connection and raised Natalie on his own. And since Rallsburg was so small, Natalie really only had one friend. It was just her and her dad in the middle of nowhere."

  "Keeping in mind that the man telling this story became Jackson's accomplice and murdered more than half of the town using his golems," Cinza noted coldly.

  "Uhh, yeah," Hailey said uncomfortably. "Anyway, point is, she's used to being alone, and from what I've heard she worked her way into your council meetings and stuff pretty much on her own. So I think she can handle herself, even when she's going into a completely new situation like this."

  "Does anyone know if her mom got involved in the FBI thing? When they rounded up a bunch of relatives?" Josh asked.

  "No idea."

  "She must assume her daughter and ex-husband are dead like the rest of us," said Cinza. "Even accounting for Brian's unreliability as a source, I think we can assume her mother probably wouldn't be a good person to get involved."

  "No kidding," Josh muttered.

  "But we've left the point of discussion," Cinza added. "I would like to bring a few possible candidates into our circle of trust."

  Josh opened his mouth, but Hailey cut him off. "What if we just talk to them, but we don't invite them here?"

  "Huh?"

  "It's the internet age, isn't it?" Hailey shrugged. "They don't need to come here to be involved. We can still keep this place a secret and start talking with a few outsiders. They don't even necessarily need to know where we're from. It's not like everyone's memorized the faces of everyone from Rallsburg."

  "They might know yours though, Hales," Josh pointed out. "You had a crapton of publicity compared to the rest of us. Your face was all over the news."

  "I can change how I look, though." She pointed at her hair, which she'd permanently shifted away from her natural wavy golden-blonde to match Jessica's bushy, messy brown using the ritual they'd invented a year before, along with adding freckles. "I'm a Silverdale now, remember? Jess' long-lost older sister."

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  "The Silverdales who are also supposed to be dead," Josh pointed out. "Also, no offense to Jessica, but you're still way hotter than her. You really don't look related if anyone's paying attention."

  Cinza nodded. "If we send out a scout, it would need to be someone less immediately recognizable."

  Josh sighed. "I'm not saying I'm totally on board, but this is a better first step than straight up bringing a newbie here. Who could we send out though?"

  "No one from the lists," Hailey said. "We don't want anyone to have to answer questions about how they aren't dead."

  "Cuts out me, then," Josh said. "You too, for sure."

  "I could go—" Cinza started.

  "Nope," Ruby interrupted, not looking up from her computer.

  "Why not?" asked Hailey.

  "Plenty of reasons. She's our leader and shouldn't be running around solo. She's needed here to help keep our home invisible and secure. She's still not recovered from the ritual attempt in May."

  "Still?" Hailey looked at Cinza in surprise.

  "The occasional tremor," Cinza replied. "I'm fine. It's been improving every day."

  "You're lucky you didn't die," Ruby shot back. "You channeled the power of four true awakened at full power through your body and the ritual was interrupted. Don't think for a second I'm letting the woman I love run off and do something else crazy and dangerous while she's not one hundred percent yet. You're staying right here. Write your diaries or something."

  Cinza sighed and shook her head. "She's probably right."

  "Darn right I am," Ruby added, turning back to her keyboard.

  "So who should we send, then?" Hailey asked.

  Josh spoke up. "I mean, normally on the Council when we wanted to approach new awakened, we always sent…" He trailed off awkwardly and looked away.

  "That's not an option anymore," said Cinza, her eyes softening.

  "Huh?" Hailey asked, not following.

  "Nothing," Josh replied quickly. "So who does that leave? Brittany's great, but I don't think we want people's first impression to be someone missing a leg."

  Hailey grimaced, but Cinza nodded. "That would certainly convey the wrong tone."

  "And Matthew wouldn't want to run out there solo either." Josh put his hands to his face, thinking hard. "Could we get the Bowmans back somehow? Preston has all that police experience and Neffie's great with people."

  "They dropped off the grid after they reached B.C.," said Hailey. "Last I heard, they were changing their names and going to a town further north. Guess they like the cold."

  "So no good."

  "They aren't awakened either," Cinza pointed out.

  "Do they have to be?"

  "Yes," said Hailey. She caught herself before she said 'humans'. "Normal people won't understand what they're dealing with. It has to be one of us."

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, thinking.

  A bolt of inspiration struck Hailey. "Alden could do it."

  Josh looked doubtful. "I mean, he's not an idiot or anything, but he's nothing special."

  "He's good with new people, especially reading them," Hailey continued excitedly. She knew she'd found the right answer. "He made friends with practically everyone he met in town, right? He even teamed up with Rika right off the bat."

  "She makes a fair point," Cinza agreed. "I didn't interact with him much myself, but he joined our dance one night and made a good impression."

  "Alden's been around for everything recent, he knows all of us and he actually stuck around through the fight. He knows what's at stake if we screw this up."

  "He's also actually supposed to be alive," Josh finished, nodding slowly. "If he runs into any trouble, he was never in Rallsburg anyway, so nothing gets back to us."

  "So, is it all agreed then?" Hailey asked. The other two nodded.

  "The Council has spoken," Ruby intoned from her chair in the corner.

  Josh frowned. "We aren't the Council anymore."

  "Three leaders of the community, deciding our future without anyone else present," Ruby said cheerfully. "Seems just like our old Council to me." She waved her hand dismissively at them. "Now both of you shoo. I require some alone time with my beloved so I can remind her exactly why she's not allowed to get herself killed any time soon."

----------------------------------------

  Josh sat down on one of the benches Rufus had built around Yusuf's flower garden, while Hailey took the opposite. Jessica saw them return and joined her, bringing a warm blanket from the generator and wrapping it around them snug in the cool night air.

  He sighed and leaned back, pressing his hands to his face. "I'm going crazy out here, Hales."

  "It won't be forever," said Hailey, putting her arm around Jessica. She sniffed the air and grimaced. "Ugh. Jess, you really should have let me shower before we left."

  Josh's face twisted in an odd way, like he wasn't sure how to react to that. He eventually settled on ignoring it. "How's everything going back home?"

  "Boring as usual," Hailey sighed. "I'm talking to Boris about maybe finding a way to get myself signed up for online classes somewhere. Even though it'll be under a fake identity. Just so I have something to start progressing toward, you know? Something I can use eventually."

  "Thought this wasn't gonna be for forever," Josh pointed out.

  "Well, I figure they can just merge the credits back to my real name, right?" Hailey grinned. "Special circumstances on account of being a living goddess."

  "Oh God, you're gonna let that get to your head."

  "Too late," Hailey laughed. "I need to start using my powers for good though. Is there something I can get you? Maybe make it a bit easier out here?"

  "Better TV? I wanted to watch the Laker game but the broadcast signal out here sucks balls and all the streams get shut down way too fast." Josh shrugged. "But seriously, I'm just getting exhausted spending time with all these guys. I'm the only one out here who wears normal-ass clothes."

  "Hey, those robes can look pretty cool."

  He smirked. "If you want to look straight out of a high school play."

  Hailey laughed. "Come on, at least the ones Ruby's worked on are pretty good."

  "Look, they're good for some white people wizarding shit. That's just not my thing." Josh shrugged again. "They do their ritual every night and they all follow Cinza's word without question like damn robots. It's something else."

  Something about his tone bothered her. "You don't think it's… something she's doing?"

  Josh looked shocked. "What? No. Hell no. Even if I thought something was off, they'd all be protected by Mason's Law. You can't do something like that to another person."

  "But the Law was broken once already," Hailey said uneasily. "When they used the spell to slow down Jackson so Rachel could shoot him. Plus the Law didn't make a whole lot of sense with the pocket dimensions either, right? I mean, if you can't use magic on people, but people can still go inside magic, then what's the actual limitation?"

  Josh leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. "I don't know, but it scares the shit out of me. I'm working on some theories, but it's a lot harder without Mason."

  "He was really important to the group, wasn't he?" she said softly.

  "Yeah," Josh said. "Mason really figured a lot of the basics out for us." Josh smiled slightly. "Shit, he would have loved the new one I'm working on."

  "Wanna bounce it off me?" Hailey offered. "I'm not a future rocket scientist like he was, but maybe that'll just help you get some ideas out?"

  "Sure, I guess." Josh leaned back again, staring up at the sky. A hole had opened in the cloud layer, and they could see a few stars peeking out through the sheet of black as it rolled over them. "So magic's all about intention, right? Nothing happens without someone intending it to happen, directly or inversely."

  "Inversely… you're talking about backfiring, right? Like, rituals going wrong?"

  "Not just rituals. The accident out in the R.V. was a backfiring spell, not a ritual, if what Robert said was right. It still burned the guy up, but it came out of his intention. He tried to make fire to burn someone, he lost control of it, and the fire fucked him up. There's always intention though. Even all the way back to everyone awakening. No one awakens without really wanting to, right?"

  "I guess so," Hailey agreed, a bit uncomfortably.

  Her own awakening didn't break his theory, but it was a lot different than the usual process he knew. Then again, so was everything else about the way she did magic. Even amongst the awakened, she was still the exception to the rules—along with the other few who shared her circumstances of course. Like the warm mass of compassion and fierce protectiveness curled up next to her. Hailey pulled the blanket back into place around Jessica's neck while Josh kept talking.

  "At least as far as we know. But I'm pretty sure if you shoved a Scrap in front of someone's face and held their eyeballs open, it wouldn't do anything. You have to actually intend to read it. Not that the first few of us knew what was going to happen, but still. You wanted to read it and find out, right? No reluctance?"

  "Nope. None at all. But I'm crazy," Hailey said, smirking.

  "Yeah, for sure. But here's where this shit gets real. The stuff that happened in that R.V. seems to break Mason's Law too, right? Alex tries to summon a pocket dimension, it carves him up and everything nearby. So far so good… except that it also blows through a little girl close enough to be in the blast radius."

  "And she didn't cast the spell," Hailey filled in.

  "Okay, actually, I didn't think of that, but I really doubt Jenny Wilson was awakened and also tried to make a pocket dimension in the same room while Alex was doing it too." Josh shook his head. "What's weird is his intention was carried out, like usual, and the backfire carried out the reverse of his intention, also like usual. But the backfire can hit anything it wants, ignoring the rules."

  "Like how some people died outright from the magnetic ritual we cast," Hailey said quietly.

  "Actually, no again," Josh said. "You guys didn't kill anyone directly. Cinza explained how that one works a bit more to me. Even when she and Ruby used it 'directly' on Paul Wilson, it didn't break Mason's Law because it never directly affected him. They charged up an area of particles near him and amplified how attractive they were to iron specifically somehow. I don't understand the specifics because it's fucking magic, but point is, the magnetic spell still doesn't hit people directly. More importantly, the big one wasn't a backfire."

  "But we were interrupted," Hailey said, as the painful memory of Jackson bursting into their circle at breakneck speed and laying Cinza out flat resurfaced in her mind. "That should have caused it to backfire."

  "Cinza managed to get the ritual off in time, she just had to move the target as far away as she could." Josh glanced over at her cabin as he spoke. "That girl is fucking amazing, to be honest. In that split second between Jackson showing up and decking her, she shifted her target halfway across town and released it so that the backfire wouldn't just straight kill you all. She gambled on you guys being able to hold off Jackson long enough to get him to retreat, and it worked."

  "But the target area was so much bigger than what we planned."

  "Yeah, she didn't have time to figure out if the place she was hitting was clear, so she just made it as wide as possible hoping no one would die just from the ritual. Mitigation by dispersal." Josh shrugged. "We've talked a lot about it. Post-mortem shit. It's been really helpful in figuring out how rituals and targeting works. The point is though, when we have a real backfire like the stuff in the R.V., it can apparently do anything to anyone."

  "That's horrible."

  "No shit. But it's not as bad as it looks. Magic's all about intention, right? So no one can intend to backfire a spell. You can't fool magic." He sighed. "I'm not afraid of bringing in new people. What we really need to be scared of is all the people who don't have a fucking clue what they're doing, who've got no control, and start trying the really dangerous shit. In public."

  Josh looked Hailey in the eye, grim-faced. "It's gonna be a fucking massacre."