Jonathan was the first new awakened to sign onto the site Rachel had set up for them. Originally, it had been a heavily locked down private message board, like those from the height of the bulletin board days before social networks took over. Hailey vaguely remembered hanging out on a few of them, but she'd readily admit to being a member of the Facebook generation. Returning to the old format wasn't really nostalgic so much as it was tedious. The site originally had no methods to notify them of new messages, or subscribe to things. It couldn't even send email. All in all, Hailey was a bit underwhelmed—until Cinza got ahold of it.

  Rachel had given her full access, so Cinza had brought on a friend who she claimed to trust explicitly, though none of them had any clue who they might be. This 'Tezofarl' had explained over chat that Rachel had deliberately selected an old version well before the data mining revolution, to be sure the software wasn't phoning home in any way to report on their activity. Unfortunately, that meant the site also lacked for a few basic modern comforts like notifications.

  Tezofarl restored those features, and following Cinza's requests, also provided a tiered system of private areas by which they could still communicate privately amongst the so-called 'Ghosts of Rallsburg', and a second tier for the new 'second generation Awakened', as Ruby had taken to calling them.

  Hailey immediately resolved to find a better name for them before it stuck, like so many other names Ruby coined.

  As for the mistake with Jonathan, they agreed it was a necessary risk at the time, but that it couldn't be repeated. Alden and Cinza practiced his approach to new recruits, making sure he wouldn't slip up again, and Hailey stuck to the invisible shadows with Jessica. They managed two more in the following week—Katie Nelson, a mother of three who'd found a Scrap stuck to her birdhouse in the backyard, and Drew Jacobs, a young electrician's apprentice—tracking them both down through videos in the local area on social media. Anything slightly suspicious they followed up on, either by a message from Rupert or Alden, or a direct visit if they weren't hard to find. It was exhausting work, and it kept their schedules packed, but it felt right. It felt satisfying.

  After two weeks, the helicopters finally gave up and stopped circling the town. The park rangers continued their sweeps, but the excitement died down again. The news stopped covering Rallsburg, with no further developments past the discovery of Jerry's body. It was business as usual, and that meant Hailey could finally make it there unnoticed in a normal glide, without having to do a high altitude suicide dive every time.

  She kept doing them anyway.

  As they came down for another wind-shrieking landing, Joe waved them in. He looked he wasn't eating well, even though their garden was producing more than enough food as fast as they wanted it to, in or out of season. Hailey let Jessica loose and walked over to sit with him on the benches they'd built around the stream.

  The camp in general was looking more developed every day, but Hailey appreciated the sensibilities Cinza had applied to the landscape design. While they continued to construct benches, walkways, arches and a few extra cabins to house them more comfortably, the construction never interrupted the natural flow of the region. If anything, it looked like it was always meant to flow that way, with the benches made of smooth wood that seemed like real trees had simply bent that way naturally, and the cabins perfectly settled into the ground and connected to the trees nearby.

  "It's Yusuf's thing," Joe explained, as Hailey asked about the way the bridge seemed to be a growth of wood right out of the ground, despite clearly being engineered. "I mean, Cinza and Ruby do the actual construction 'cause he doesn't have the affinity, but he touches up the designs. Makes 'em seem all natural. It's really cool to watch."

  "I would have thought Ruby did the designs." Hailey pointed at the door to Cinza's cabin, where Ruby was currently seated, making an adjustment to one of the eight panels on the front representing the affinities.

  "Different styles, I guess." He shrugged. "Anyway, what's up? You guys weren't due in today, were you?"

  "Just in the neighborhood," Hailey said casually.

  Joe snorted. "Some kinda neighborhood. Cinza's inside, if you were looking for her." He glanced around forlornly. "Nobody out here but me today."

  "Something wrong?"

  "Nah. Go on, you guys probably got important business." He clutched the hem of his silver robe and pulled it tighter as the autumn wind swept through the clearing. "I'm just out here enjoyin' the weather and trying to remember what blue looked like."

  Hailey clapped him on the back, feeling a bit worried for him. She tried to play her part. "If you need anything, let me know, okay?"

  He nodded. Joe had gone through a lot back in Rallsburg. To be honest, Hailey hadn't really liked him much—he'd attached himself to Ryan as the definition of a lackey, and she'd mentally filed him away as a space-filler.

  Still, when the chips were down, he'd stood up for Cinza and her people against a legitimate angry mob, and that counted for a lot. He'd stuck around through all the chaos, including his family's murders, and he now wore the grey robes proudly. Hailey wasn't so sure about his commitment to Cinza, but she didn't doubt at all his foremost motivation for staying.

  That motivation was seated inside Cinza's cabin with the owner, discussing the particulars of magic as Hailey walked in. She greeted Ruby as she passed, but Ruby only gave her a brief mumble before returning her focus to the door paneling.

  "I'm just saying, it should be possible," Nikki was saying. Cinza waved Hailey inside to one of the chairs. She sat cross-legged in her chair, chin resting on folded hands.

  "Is it a line we're willing to cross?" asked Cinza gravely.

  "What did I just walk into?" Hailey asked nervously.

  "Sources of magic," replied Nikki.

  "Can I get a bit more context?"

  "We were discussing gemstones," said Cinza. "Nicole is very curious to discover how they can power our magic. We already know for certain that we can share energy between one another, but it's a voluntary process. One cannot extract magical power from another person. It must be given. Intentionally, as Joshua would say."

  Hailey nodded. "But gemstones aren't alive."

  "Indeed."

  Cinza picked up the necklace from her chest and held it up. Each segment of the star had a small compartment—nine in all—where she could insert a gemstone to complete the pattern. With the star laying on her skin underneath her robes, Cinza could easily draw on any of the nine at any time to power a spell. She'd folded the metal herself using magic, making the design perfect and flawless.

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  "Yet they still follow similar rules. I cannot draw power from these without making contact, in the same vein that I cannot pair with Ruby unless we touch. Clothing seems to be exempt as always, but the rule remains."

  "So where does the power come from?"

  "It's always been there," Nikki put in.

  "You mean magic's always been there?"

  "Not magic, merely energy." Cinza pointed at the centerpiece to her star, a perfect sparkling diamond. "Most diamonds were formed over one billion years ago through natural earth processes. We're theorizing that energy was pressed into them at the time, and since the gems are burned out as we use them and eventually shatter into nothingness, we must be drawing out that stored energy."

  "And I think we could use other things," added Nikki.

  "Other things like what?" Hailey thought briefly. "Gasoline and fossil fuels? Same idea, right?"

  "We did try that, actually, but there was no result. Perhaps we weren't doing it right, I cannot be certain. Ruby had quite a day trying to clean out the smell, though," Cinza added with a smile.

  "You could have helped, instead of sitting around cracking jokes," said Ruby from the doorway.

  "Reap what you sow, my love," Cinza called back. She turned to Hailey. "Nicole still believes we could expand to other objects. Possibly living ones."

  "But—" Hailey felt a slight chill on her spine. "I thought it couldn't be taken if it wasn't intended."

  "From people," Cinza corrected, though she also looked uncomfortable at her own words. "We're assuming this is just a natural extension of Mason's Law preventing such an action. Think about the sensation of sharing your energy with another."

  Hailey nodded. "It's like you're pushing it outside your body completely."

  "And therefore outside whatever arcane protection the Law grants us," Cinza concluded. "But consider something else. There is ample evidence of complex magic being performed on other living objects that aren't human."

  Hailey glanced around the cabin. "I'm not sure this counts. You shape the tree bark and trunks after they've fallen. Besides, have you ever felt any energy you could use inside a tree?"

  "I wasn't speaking of myself," Cinza said. "One of the Five."

  "Natalie," Hailey realized aloud.

  She nodded. "Natalie may know something."

  Hailey shook her head. "Even if she casts spells on animals all the time, that doesn't mean you can somehow get energy back out of them."

  Nikki frowned. "We have to know."

  "Why?"

  "Because someone else will figure it out, sooner or later. Do you want to be the ones who can't do it, if it comes down to that?"

  "You're talking about a hypothetical war now," Hailey said exasperatedly. "Who says it'll come to that?"

  Cinza sighed. "It always come to that."

  "That's like a self-fulfilling prophecy." Hailey glanced at Nikki. "I don't remember you being so gung-ho about something crazy like this."

  "Hailey, my parents are dead. Everyone I knew is dead. Aaron and Morton are dead," she said, her voice choking up. "And that was just one guy. His friend is still out there."

  "But—"

  "It's hypothetical, like you said," Cinza said firmly. "There's no evidence it can be done. We're certainly not about to start trying it on Natalie's friends."

  Hailey stood up. "I gotta head out."

  "Was that everything?" Cinza asked. "I assumed you came to talk about something more specific."

  "It can wait." Hailey had meant to tell them about Rupert finally, but she didn't want to be in the same room as them for a while. Everything they were discussing didn't fit with what she wanted—the image she'd been creating of herself. She left, calling Jessica to her, with only a quick goodbye to Joe before they vanished back into the sky.

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

  "I get why they wanted to talk about it," Hailey explained, "but god, it just sounded like they were going to be doing experiments and torturing them. I mean, what else is drawing energy out of an animal going to do to it?"

  "I don't know," Beverly replied, sitting with her back up against the chimney a few steps above Hailey.

  Hailey twisted around to look at her. "I thought you knew the whole book back to front."

  "The Grimoire never covered that specifically." She looked away wistfully into the night sky. "I read all about how you can move it between people, but you guys already figured that out. It never said you could use animals, but it never said you couldn't."

  "So the book didn't cover everything." Hailey lay back and watched the stars twinkling far above. Beverly blinked away, leaving Hailey alone to ponder the revelation for a minute. When she returned, Hailey spoke up again. "You think there might be more out there you don't know?"

  "I just kinda assumed there was." Beverly shrugged. "It's just one book and magic is so big. I never thought it could all be written in there."

  "But then maybe there isn't," Hailey said, half-wishing it were true. "Have you ever sensed anyone casting a spell that wasn't specifically in there?"

  Beverly took a minute to think before she answered. "Yes."

  Hailey waited, but she didn't continue. "Well, don't leave me in suspense here. What was it?"

  "...Your wings."

  "Huh?"

  "I have no idea how they work," Beverly said. She looked embarrassed. "I watched you two do the ritual but I had no clue what you were doing."

  Hailey raised an eyebrow. "You watched?"

  She glanced away. "I was keeping an eye on you."

  Hailey sighed. "It was a team effort. Jess designed it, but you'd have to ask her how it worked. She made the connections when we actually cast it. And, well…"

  "...Yeah." Beverly looked back at her, biting her lip slightly. "Hailey, why'd you agree to talk to me again?"

  Hailey shrugged, leaning back again to look up at the sky.

  "I did something horrible and unforgiveable to you."

  "More than just me," Hailey reminded her. "You messed with everyone's heads."

  "...So why? You don't even know who I am. Not… Not really. Not anymore."

  "A scared girl my age literally teleports into my bedroom and asks if she can stick around because she has nowhere else to go." She shrugged again. "I'm not gonna just kick her out."

  "I don't have to stay here. I can find another place."

  "One with an actual bed?" Hailey pointed out. "You're lucky Jess is never gonna use that room. Keep using it, unless you want to go the Rachel route and just take away your need to sleep?"

  Beverly shook her head firmly. "Making myself able to see everyone using magic was bad enough. I don't want to try to change my mind any more. It scares me."

  Hailey got to her feet, having spotted Jessica climbing into bed and turning off the lights one by one. "Bed time, then."

  "Good night, Hailey. See you again next week?"

  Hailey was about to reply, but something nagged at her mind. "What's stopping you from doing it again?"

  "Huh?"

  "Going into our heads. Messing with our minds. If you could do it before, why couldn't you do it again?"

  Beverly hesitated. "There's a kind of magic that none of you have been using. Only a couple people ever used it, actually. Rachel was the best at it."

  "I thought Rachel wasn't good at any magic."

  "She had the Mental affinity. It's not good for much, and she didn't have much talent in magic anyway, but she could use that one type really well. It let her cast a spell to see… connections. Relationships between people. They exist outside you, so I guess they aren't protected."

  "And these connections—"

  "Are what I broke," Beverly explained, looking down at the rooftop. "It was the hardest thing I've ever done, and I did it all wrong. It went too far. I ruined Alden's life."

  Hailey frowned. "But what's to say you don't do it again? Or what if someone else figures it out?"

  Beverly shook her head. "You'd need something incredibly powerful. I had to use an asteroid to do it."

  "You went out to an asteroid?"

  "I think? Or would it be a comet? I forget the difference. Either way… it's uhh… it's gone now."

  Hailey laughed weakly. "All right, I'm a little less worried now."

  "I'd never do it again," she added quietly. "It was the stupidest thing I've ever done."

  Hailey sighed. She stood up and walked up the roof to where Beverly sat against the chimney, taking a seat next to her instead of feet away. Beverly looked startled, but didn't pull away. Hailey put an arm around her gently, fully conscious that she was giving a one-armed hug to probably the most powerful person on the planet and beyond.

  "We've all done stupid stuff."

  Beverly shook her head more forcefully, but Hailey didn't let go. "I'm really sorry, Hailey."

  Hailey realized what she'd never said. She wasn't sure she meant it, but it felt right. It was what a hero would say. "I forgive you."

  A few tears dropped from Beverly's eyes. She shook her head once again, before vanishing in a tiny slip of the wind. Hailey waited, but after she didn't return for ten minutes, she gave up.

  As she climbed into bed and Jessica hugged her close, Hailey whispered, "See you later, BB."