Jeremy scrambled back off his chair as the little blue spirit floated toward him, with a vague outline of a face, like a kid's drawing. His drink crashed to the floor of the cabin. "Jesus fuckin' Christ, Lani!"

  Lani and Riley laughed in unison at his reaction. "It won't hurt you, man."

  "You don't know that."

  "I made it, Jeremy," he pointed out. Lani closed his palm with a flutter of his fingers, and the spirit vanished with a puff of blue smoke. "There, all gone."

  Jeremy clambered back onto the chair, straightening his jacket. "So what do they do?"

  "Honestly? Not a whole lot. But who cares?" Lani smiled, in that same annoyingly smug and contented look that every other Greycloak seemed to produce without hesitation. "It's magic."

  Riley smiled too, but Jeremy could see doubt in her eyes. She sure wasn't there for magic, but Jeremy couldn't quite read her. He dismissed the thought though, as Lani put his arm around her. Well, there it is. "So what else you got?"

  After a showing of Lani's repertoire, which was surprisingly wide given how long he'd been awakened (though it paled compared to Hailey's sheer power or the breadth of Jonathan Hudson's bag of tricks), they retired to the fire to warm up as night fell.

  "So what's going on with Hailey?" Lani asked, leaning against Riley on the wide chair opposite him. God, they make a cute couple. "Something about London?"

  Jeremy sighed. "...You heard about the shit that went down in Lakewood, right?"

  "Yeah." Lani shuddered. Riley nudged him slightly and put her arm around him. "That looked so awful. I was reading all the reports that came in."

  "Bureau doesn't know shit," Jeremy muttered. He explained what happened, and where Hailey blew off to. "So now we got one of the… fuck, what did she call them?"

  "Empowered eight," said Lani. "Or the Ogdoad. Ruby keeps trying to push that one. Cinza prefers 'true awakened', but everybody else went for the EE, so it stuck."

  "Right."

  "Who are they?" asked Riley sleepily. "The eight, I mean."

  "Well, there's Hailey, Hector Peraza, Kendra Laushire, Grey-eyes, and Alpha," said Lani, counting them off. "Then there's Jessica Silverdale and Jackson Smith, both deceased, and last the one that Cinza won't tell us."

  Can't be hard to figure it out though… The quiet purple-eyed elf-girl with the pet hawk seems like a pretty good pick. "Kendra Laushire who just showed up tonight with her sister?"

  "Yeah, about that," said Lani, with a sidelong look at Jeremy. "Since when do the Laushires have two daughters?"

  "You tell me," Jeremy said, rolling his eyes. "Fuck rich people, man."

  Lani grinned. "I'm really curious who the last one is, though. I'm pretty sure most people around here know. Everybody who was here back in May, at least."

  "They won't tell you?"

  "We got bits and pieces, but nothing solid." Riley smirked. "They will when we're ready."

  Lani tapped her on the head. "They will," he agreed, without the sarcasm. "Until then, we help out where we can."

  "Shit," said Jeremy, glancing at the clock. It was already well past ten, which meant it was nearly seven in the morning in London. "I gotta find out what's happening over there." He stood up, but the alcohol was settling into his brain and he stumbled.

  "No way are you driving back tonight," said Lani. "You can fly out to London tomorrow. Cinza set aside a bed for you already, so just take it."

  "Can't fly out to London," Jeremy grumbled. "Fuckin' Aderholt no-fly'd me."

  "Of course he did," said Lani, rolling his eyes. "I'm really glad I'm not working under him right now."

  "Wait…" Jeremy fell back into his chair, staring at Lani like he'd just seen him for the first time. "Lani, you could go."

  "Huh?"

  "Shit, you're even awakened now. You've got the cred, you've got magic, and you ain't grounded." Jeremy nodded emphatically. "You should go to London."

  "I…" Lani glanced at Riley.

  She shook her head. "Nuh-uh. Don't you decide based on me. I'll be here either way. I'm still figuring this whole place out."

  "After three damn weeks?" Jeremy asked, raising an eyebrow.

  "It could be three damn years before I really feel like I understand magic," she shot back, not missing a beat. Jeremy grinned. You and me both, sister.

  "What would I even do when I got there?" Lani asked, turning back to Jeremy.

  "I'll call her every ten minutes if I have to," said Jeremy. "I'll make sure she knows you're comin', and even if she doesn't, you've got authority now. Hailey crossed state lines and national borders. Everything 'til now was stuck in Washington, so things got tied up between state and federal, remember?"

  "No kidding."

  "Now you're goin' to London as the official representative of the Bureau's Thaumaturgical Division, commissioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee."

  Lani raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Is that even a real thing?"

  "Mostly." Jeremy shrugged. "Paperwork's in place and the Bureau's ready to go. Maddie's still workin' on bribin' the right senators to back her up. Doesn't matter either way. The U.K. already sent a request for assistance from our branch a few hours ago. Didn't you get the alert?"

  "Yeah." Lani glanced at his phone, sitting on the table next to the fire. The charging cable trailing away looked bizarrely out of place in this structure so clearly built without a single human tool.

  "So by the time it matters, you'll have the title, and you've got your ass covered up til then." Jeremy grinned. "There's no way they'll pass up having the first awakened agent for the new shit. You've already got it in the bag."

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  Lani nodded. "It'll be good to get back into the field."

  "So what are you waitin' for?" Jeremy plucked his keys out of his jacket pocket and tossed them to Lani. He missed the catch with his hands, but still grabbed them from mid-air before they hit the floor. The keys floated right back into his hands again. "Take my car and get goin'. If you move it, you could probably still land in London tomorrow."

  "Right now?" asked Riley.

  "Yeah," said Lani. "There's really no time to waste with something like this."

  Jeremy nodded. "Hailey's in way over her head and dealin' with a shit-ton of grief. She's also one of the most powerful people in the whole fuckin' world. That's not a fun combination."

  Lani leaned in and kissed Riley, to Jeremy's surprise. Well, that confidence problem is long-gone. Good for Lani. He got up again, a bit steadier than the last time now that he was expecting it, and walked Lani out to the edge of the clearing. As they reached the end, Makoto was waiting for them.

  "Mr. Ashe, Mr. Makaio." He nodded at them both.

  "Hi, Makoto. I need to get back into town." Lani held up the keys. "Flying to London tonight, apparently." Makoto nodded. Lani turned to Jeremy. "Send me everything you have about Hailey for the flight over. I need to know what I'm going into."

  "You got it." Jeremy paused. He glanced over his shoulder at Lani's cabin, where the fire was still glowing faint behind the outline of Riley, watching them from afar. "Riley, huh?"

  Lani smiled. "A perfect storm of coincidence. Your worst nightmare."

  Jeremy grinned, and hugged his partner again. "Get out of here, man. Call me as soon as you land."

  "You got it."

  Lani disappeared into the forest with Makoto. Jeremy watched until he couldn't see them anymore. He trudged back through the snow to Lani's little cabin and began compiling everything he had. Every note he'd taken, every memory about Hailey he had. He didn't want to betray Hailey's trust, but somebody had to do something, and he couldn't be there to do it.

  Riley brought him a cup of tea while he worked, sitting next to the fire with a laptop Cinza provided. Jeremy trusted Lani with his own life a dozen times over; he could trust the man with Hailey's life, too. Besides, Lani would do a lot better dealing with the British than Jeremy ever could. It almost felt like fate, in a way.

  Fuck that. Jeremy didn't believe in fate. It was all a string of coincidence—stupid fuckin' coincidence that keeps puttin' me in boilin' water again and again.

  Maybe I need a new job.

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

  Sunlight streamed through the cabin windows by the front door. Jeremy had nodded off in the chair, the laptop still sprawled on his chest. He mumbled himself awake, dragging his feet across the cabin to the small kitchen area and putting a pot of coffee on. Lani didn't have any black, to his disappointment, but Jeremy could live with anything so long as it warmed him up and got rid of the loginess.

  He didn't need either.

  Shouting from outside the front door. Jeremy snapped awake with a rush of adrenaline. Of course somethin' was gonna happen here the day I showed up. God-fuckin'-damnit. He grabbed his coat and double-checked his sidearm, then burst out the front door into the cold morning air.

  Kendra Laushire was sprinting across the field of snow in a dressing gown.

  Jeremy gaped at her—as did half of the other Greycloaks, in various states of dress. Cinza finally emerged from her own cabin with a bleary-eyed Ruby hanging over her shoulder. It was early, very early, and no one had really been awake yet. Jeremy, simply by merit of failing to actually make it to a bed, was the only one who looked dressed for the day. He rushed across the packed snowfield to meet Kendra and Cinza at the center bridge, just above the water.

  The woman was frantic, far beyond anything Jeremy could have imagined from an upper-class Englishwoman like her. She still stood higher than the whole group, even without the heels, but in her present state, even Cinza cut a far more imposing figure. As Kendra spluttered, Cinza finally stepped forward, stood high and slapped her across the face.

  "Focus!" she said, in an imperative tone.

  "She's gone!" Kendra bellowed in her face.

  "Who?"

  "Lily!"

  "What?" Cinza looked around at Jeremy. "What happened?"

  How the fuck should I know? Jeremy turned to Kendra. "Are you sure? Maybe she just went—"

  "She's gone! I have to find her. Immediately!"

  "Where's Riley?" asked Brittany, glancing over Jeremy's shoulder.

  Jeremy looked around. "I dunno. I didn't see her this morning."

  "Did anyone?" asked Cinza sharply. The rest of the Greycloaks had converged, a mass of faces Jeremy didn't have time to learn. No one seemed to have an answer.

  Makoto was a ways apart, checking the ground. "There's tracks. Here." He pointed at the ground. "Here, and here. She knew where she was going."

  "Where?" asked Kendra.

  "To her jeep, then south." Makoto pointed out of the clearing. "That way."

  "How long ago?" asked Cinza.

  "Minutes." Makoto started into a jog, but it didn't matter—the loud drumbeat of a helicopter answered their questions in an instant. A black chopper lifted into the sky, taking off straight to the north.

  Jeremy was on his phone in an instant, calling his branch operations center. "I need tracking on a chopper lifting out of the Olympic Forest right now. Heading ten degrees, bound for Canadian airspace. Scramble an intercept, too."

  "What's goin—"

  "Right the fuck now, damnit!"

  Jeremy heard muffled orders shouted through the earpiece. He'd startled the operator so much, the man hadn't let go of the transmit key.

  "You're not going to catch them," said Cinza.

  "Where are they going?" asked Kendra.

  "London, I'd guess," said Jeremy.

  Cinza glanced at him, surprised. "How did you come to that conclusion?"

  "Military operation in this neck of the damn woods? That's gotta be Malton's men. Pickin' up another damn guinea pig." Jeremy shook his head. "Fucking monster."

  "But—" Kendra started, rounding on him.

  Jeremy grabbed her by the shoulders, trying to calm her down. "Lani's already halfway to London, and I scrambled an intercept. Either we catch 'em here, or we get them at the other end. They aren't gonna hold onto her for long."

  "You don't understand," Kendra shouted, turning to watch the helicopter fly away. "I have to follow them right now!"

  Cinza put a hand on her arm. "We'll get her back, Kendra. Lily will be perfectly safe."

  Tell that to Jessica Silverdale…

  Kendra struggled out of Jeremy's arms, taking a few futile steps toward the departing chopper. "She's never gone this far away before," Kendra cried, her voice thick with pain. Her hands clutched to her chest, as if she were about to have a heart attack.

  ...The fuck does that mean?

  "The fuck does that mean?" asked Nikki, echoing him perfectly.

  Ruby gasped.

  Cinza looked strangely satisfied. "I thought so."

  "What the fuck is going on?" asked Jeremy, really frustrated with the whole cryptic situation.

  Cinza turned to him. "We need to get Kendra to follow them, as physically close as we can get her."

  "Wha's this abou'?" asked Rufus, looking just as confused as Jeremy felt.

  "Lily isn't real," said Ruby, as if that explained everything.

  What the… oh.

  Oh, shit.

  "What?" asked Nikki, looking between the three of them who had finally caught on.

  "She's real," Cinza snapped, and Ruby looked suitably ashamed of herself. Kendra wailed in pain. "Makoto, get the car. Right now." Makoto nodded and sprinted away. "Lily wasn't born like the rest of us. Kendra truly is an only child."

  "Wait, Lily—"

  "—was created with magic," said Cinza firmly. "Nikki, you've been allergic to Lily. She is a perfect clone of Kendra Laushire in every form, whom Kendra has been maintaining every day since Lily was born. They are one and the same."

  "We aren't," said Kendra, brushing away tears. "She is my sister."

  "She is," Cinza agreed, correcting herself, "and we will do everything in our power to make sure she stays that way." Cinza waved Makoto forward. He'd returned in a heavy-duty four wheeler that would breeze through the woods without any trouble. Cinza climbed in, followed by Kendra and Jeremy. "Ruby, keep the Greywood secure. We'll be back as soon as we can."

  Ruby nodded. She gave Cinza a kiss, then hurried away with Rufus.

  "Nikki, I'll need updates as often as possible on Riley's whereabouts."

  "Every thirty minutes if I can do it," said Nikki, though she didn't look confident.

  Josh clapped her on the shoulder. "We got this."

  "Good. Makoto, let's go."

  Makoto gunned the engine without a moment's hesitation. They shot off into the forest. Jeremy clutched onto the roll cage for stability, his seat belt cutting into his shoulder. He whipped out his phone, dialing up the closest air base for more support.

  I ain't lettin' that fuckin' chopper get away.

  Cinza turned to Kendra and clasped her hand, bouncing up and down in the jeep. "Kendra Laushire, I swear to you upon my life, we will bring your sister home. Lily will be safe. I swear it."