The Wilmore office wasn't at all what Alden expected. He triple-checked the address to make sure he had it right. Sure enough, this dilapidated, empty box squeezed in between an apartment complex and a coin-op laundromat was the address Lily had given him. Alden pulled the door open, and a half-crumpled sheet of paper tumbled out. He picked it up, but it was just an advertisement for a rave held in the building years ago. The place was totally abandoned.

  He went inside anyway.

  To his disappointment, the interior was even more depressing than the façade. Trash littered the floor—someone had clearly been living in one of the back rooms—and there wasn't a sign of life to be found. Alden couldn't imagine anyone working here, much less the prim-and-proper Laushire twins.

  Probably didn't actually work here, Alden realized with a small smile. Who needs an actual building anyway when you've got portals?

  He turned to head back outside. The Wilmore office was a bust, but Alden was already feeling a little better. The exercise and the sunlight, probably, but he didn't care. Anything to lift him out of his slump.

  A rock clicked against the door.

  Alden froze. Nobody else is in here. How did that rock move? I didn't move it…

  He crept toward the door, squinting through the dirty glass window. Someone seemed to be moving on the other side of the street, but he couldn't be sure. There wasn't any other way out. Isn't this like, breaking a fire code or something? I thought there were supposed to be multiple exits. Alden put his hand on the door, tensing. The figure across the street wasn't moving, but it was definitely human-sized.

  He opened the door. A man was across the street, dressed in rags, leaning on a shopping cart packed full of plastic bags. Alden let out a huge sigh of relief. Nothing. Just a tired old guy.

  The man looked directly at Alden. He was holding something in his fist. His mouth opened wide.

  Oh god.

  Alden bolted. The man shouted something unintelligible.

  Someone else popped out of an alley, just in front of Alden. Another man, built like a linebacker. Alden had too much momentum to slow down, and the guy shoulder-checked him. Alden tumbled to the street, wind blasted out of him. The world spun above him as Alden desperately tried to reach into his pocket for his gemstones. No wonder Cinza wears hers on a necklace…

  "Where you goin'?" the huge man growled above him.

  Alden groaned, rolling over—and getting into his pocket at the same time. The ruby settled into his hand. He tensed, waiting for the perfect moment, pulling as much energy as he could in the short time he had. The man reached down to grab him. Alden waited until the last possible second.

  A burst of fire erupted above him. Flames slammed into the man's face.

  He staggered backward, shouting. His hair had caught fire.

  Alden scrambled to his feet. Another man had appeared at the opposite end of the street, emerging from another alley. They staked this place out… they knew someone like me might come here. Crap. What do I do?

  He ran. A slapping sound echoed behind him, like a wet towel on skin. Alden chanced a quick look over his shoulder. The old lookout had beaten out the fire, and the third guy was pounding down the road toward him.

  Alden looked frantically for help, but this was—probably deliberately—a pretty run-down and abandoned part of Seattle. If anyone was even around, odds are they wouldn't want to get involved. Alden just had to hope he was faster than them. He turned into one alley, then the next. Curves flashed by, the gray city walls blurring together as he rushed through the streets, but the man was still right behind him.

  He needed something else.

  Concentrating hard again, Alden grabbed at his whole body with his mind, just as he'd learned all the way back in Rallsburg. As the next turn came up, Alden spotted a fire escape—low enough for him to reach, but just out of anyone else's jump, if he was lucky. He leaped, releasing the magic as he did and hurling himself even higher at the apex.

  His hands caught the bottom of the escape ladder. It immediately began to slide downward.

  Oh, crap.

  Alden scrambled upward anyway. It was too late to change course, and he obviously wasn't going to outrun this guy. He banged on the first window he reached, and the second, and the third, flinging himself up the steel structure while the guy had to slowly round the staircases. It gave Alden a bit of a lead, but not enough to really escape, and nobody seemed to be answering inside.

  What do I do?

  Alden reached the roof, scrambling onto the gravel. The guy was only a few stories behind him, and his friends had just arrived in the alley. Alden looked around, but he didn't see any easy way off the roof. There was a door, chained shut. Alden threw a spell at it, a trick he'd learned off Jonathan Hudson, but it didn't click open.

  The gravel shifted behind him. The guy had arrived.

  A groaning metallic sound had them both looking away. The fire escape leaned dangerously outward. The two in the alley way shouted in alarm, and Alden heard the loud slap of feet on concrete as they sprinted away. The stone wall tore open, chunks of rock flying outward as the metal broke away.

  The entire fire escape detached from the wall, crashing to the ground with a sickening tearing sound—one that brought Alden immediately back to Rallsburg.

  Visions of buildings rising into the sky and tearing themselves to pieces.

  Fire and smoke filling the air and choking everyone for miles.

  Golems emerging from the darkness, ripping Collins and Christina Albrecht in half, flattening Mabel Walsh into the pavement.

  Focus. This guy's gonna kill you if you don't.

  "Give me a name," the man growled, advancing on him.

  "What?" Alden asked, surprised. He hadn't expected the guy to speak.

  "Someone else who's one of you. Give me a name, and you get to live."

  No way is that true. He'd just kill me after I told him. I need to get out of here… somehow. What do I do?

  Wait… is this how they knew… oh God. Harold… He didn't know my real name, so he brought them there. Harold gave me up.

  Alden opened his mouth to speak—not to give him a name, just to stall somehow—but nothing came out. It worked anyway. The man stopped, waiting for him to speak.

  "We're going to find them sooner or later," he said, with less of a growl than before. "You give me a name, you go on the list. We let you live."

  Was this guy in the bar that night? I don't… I can't… Memories were still flooding back to Alden. He remembered a few faces, but they were blurry, indistinct. They faded out behind images of a gun barrel, pushed into his face, seconds away from pulling the trigger.

  Until Hailey saved him.

  The guy started sprinting forward. Alden shouted, an indistinct word, a burst of rage and frustration. His mind reached forward, finding the area around the man, creating a corridor of space in front of him. Alden found the strings, found the tiny vibrations in the air, and threw energy into them. However, Alden didn't weigh them down to slow them, as he usually did. There was another trick to play, where the strings could be set spinning wildly, throwing off all the typical rules of the area. The topaz in his hand shattered as Alden took one step to the side.

  The man sped up. Time itself fooled him into believing he could change directions, that Alden was still in his path. He shot forward, all the way across the roof straight past Alden. It was almost comical how he flung himself forward, tripping over the lip and into empty air.

  Comical, until Alden's spell released. The man screamed all the way down to the ground.

  Oh my god…

  Alden collapsed to the gravel, panting. He'd never used that spell on such a wide area before. He'd never used any time magic on someone since… since…

  Alden threw up.

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

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  It took a long time for Alden to pull himself together. Nobody else tried to get up to him, to his relief. The alley on the opposite side of the building seemed clear. It didn't have a fire escape, though, so Alden was forced to take a leap and catch himself with magic. Terrifying, but it slowed his momentum enough to land with only a bit of pain in his limbs.

  He hurried away from the building. He didn't want to think about what he'd just done, and what he'd done in the past.

  Alden glanced around, but he had no clue where he was at this point. Still in Seattle, sure, but he didn't recognize any of the street names. He was south, that was the best he could determine—and worse, his phone wasn't working. The screen was badly cracked, and the power button didn't seem to be working. He wasn't sure if it needed battery or it was truly dead, and he didn't have anywhere to plug in and check.

  A store. Maybe a coffee shop. Somewhere will have a public outlet.

  Not for the first time, Alden wished he'd gotten one of the Laushire bags. Kendra had promised to make him one, but they apparently took a great deal of energy and special materials to create, and they hadn't had the opportunity with so much else going on. He didn't blame them, but with the sorts of lives they now led, not having one was becoming a real burden for him.

  Alden was back to wandering again, though with far more caution than the morning. He stuck to the shadows, and every single time some random passerby glanced at him, he was ready to run. Even so, he doubted anything would happen in these neighborhoods.

  This was a nicer part of Seattle, something like halfway between suburbs and the city proper. People were actually out on the sidewalks, along with the occasional car, giving him a much stronger sense of security. Sure, he still got the odd glance, but it was more of a typical "get out of my way tourist, I'm too busy for you" sort of city look. He could deal with that. It was refreshing, even.

  Alden had never really liked cities much, but he certainly preferred the bustle of people to the painful silence of the empty streets. He finally stopped walking, taking shelter in a small shaded part of the wall near a coffee shop, which hadn't had any outlets to his great disappointment. They recommended an electronics store nearby, but between the spells and the running, Alden was getting very winded.

  I've been training every day. I shouldn't be this tired after those spells. Even with the Time magic, that wasn't that much.

  It wasn't just exhaustion though, and Alden knew it. It was fear and adrenaline and trauma, rolled up into a painful brick weighing down his whole body. He was physically okay, and if another fight came, Alden would be fine. But between those bursts of energy—when survival was on the line and it was life-or-death—he was more crushed and hopeless than ever before.

  Something in the sky caught his eye. A bird, soaring high above. Alden watched it curiously. It didn't look like a seagull. It dove lower, and Alden found himself missing Hailey more than ever. Flying with her had always picked up his spirits. Even on the last night he saw her, after Ruby got them away from the bar, Hailey's flight home was where he finally started to pull himself together.

  Now she was in jail, somewhere on the other side of the country. What was Alden doing? Wasting his time chasing a girl he barely knew, who he hadn't seen in months, on the vague idea that she could answer questions he already knew she couldn't.

  The bird dropped lower. Alden squinted closer. That bird looked familiar—too familiar. He'd seen it before… somewhere.

  He got to his feet and ran. The bird kept circling. It seemed stuck to a particular spot, and he was pretty sure he could figure out where. Sure enough, as he crossed each street, it hadn't moved in the slightest. He was getting closer. The buildings in the area weren't tall enough to block his view, and he was closing in pretty quickly.

  I'm going insane. It's just a bird. Meg is gonna get a real kick out of this one. I'll never hear the end of it.

  The bird peeled off suddenly, diving for a nearby park surrounded by apartments. Alden hurried to catch up. The park seemed totally deserted at first. A swing swayed in the gentle breeze, the playground was totally empty. It didn't seem forlorn, exactly—the grass looked healthy and the plants were well-kept—but there was still an eerie sense of danger hanging over everything.

  Alden crept forward cautiously, checking every direction. There was a small enclosed area toward the back, just around the corner. He could hear voices—pretty young voices.

  One sounded familiar.

  "...she's terrified of you, Jenny!"

  A boy laughed. "Yeah, you should have seen her face today."

  "You should do Lydia next!"

  "Dude, she's not gonna go around scaring everybody for fun."

  "I know that!"

  "Can we just hang out without talking about school?"

  "You guys aren't supposed to be out. We're not supposed to be out, either."

  "It's fine," said that voice, the one Alden knew he knew. "Percy's been watching out. Nobody scary's nearby."

  A brief squawk from the bird—the hawk. Alden froze. Percy. Squawking sounds.

  "What?"

  "Hang on," Another squawk.

  A girl suddenly appeared, staring Alden right in the eyes. It took him a few moments to realize it was, in fact, Natalie Hendricks looking at him. She'd changed so much, and there was a massive twisting scar marring her face, but it was the same girl he'd first seen in a candle-lit college room back in Rallsburg.

  His mouth fell open. Hers did the same.

  "...Hi," Alden finally choked out.

  "Jenny?" someone whispered.

  "Shh," Natalie hissed over her shoulder. "It's okay." She beckoned Alden forward, into their little hideout.

  It wasn't much to look at, in all honesty, but it had a few comfy folding chairs and a beaten-up old couch around a table with a card game Alden vaguely recognized. A cooler full of drinks and snacks sat nearby, along with a pile of boxes and some sports equipment. Four other kids around Natalie's age were sitting around the table, all gaping up at their friend and Alden.

  He raised his hand slightly with an awkward grin. "Uhh…" he started.

  Natalie winced. "This is Zack. He's…" She glanced at him oddly. "A friend?"

  "Yeah," said Alden. "Something like that."

  "Cool," said one of the boys, looking impatient. "Don't you have a dumb game to finish? I thought we were gonna do you-know-what soon."

  "Shut up, Mitch," said the girl sitting near him. She slapped him on the back of the head. "This is the only time we can get together. Let them play."

  "It's your turn, Jenny," said the boy leaning over the table. He started coughing violently and pulled out an inhaler.

  Natalie went back to sit down next to another boy on the couch, leaning forward over the game. "You wanna sit, Zack?" She pointed at the last empty chair. "Steven's not here today, so we got an extra."

  "Sure." Alden took the seat, feeling distinctly out of place. Not that he didn't like seeing Natalie again, but this whole meeting was feeling very weird, and he had no idea how much her friends might know.

  Then again… Percy's literally sitting on her shoulder. As if to accentuate the point, Natalie turned to him and spouted a full sentence in her strange animal language. Percy squawked in protest. Natalie giggled, then spoke another short burst at him. He flew away, and she settled back onto the couch—very pointedly a few inches away from the boy beside her, but Alden could instantly tell there was something between them.

  "So uhh…" Alden started.

  Natalie nodded. "Yeah, they know. It's cool."

  Well… she seems to be doing okay… or not. How did she get that scar? What happened to her?

  "What did you say?" asked Mitch eagerly.

  "Told him off for not warning me about Zack coming." Natalie frowned. "He probably figured it was okay since they met way back."

  "Hawks can remember that long?" asked the girl.

  "Mine can," said Natalie idly, leaning forward to pluck a card out from one of the piles. "Linnethea reveals herself and ambushes your metal mine with her two bodyguards."

  "Tough break," her friend added, smirking at the cards revealed underneath. Natalie's opponent looked frustrated, but didn't say anything, staring as if he were willing the game to burst into flames.

  Are any of them… Alden wondered, but he didn't need to. Natalie answered his unspoken question right away. "Sorry, Zack. This is Quinn," she started, pointing at the boy next to her, "Tyler, Mitch and Kelsey. And none of them are awakened."

  "Not for lack of trying!" Mitch shot back. He turned to Alden quickly. "Are you?"

  Alden made a split-second decision, nodding. He flicked his hand just slightly, and a soda zoomed out of the cooler into his hand, right over the table in the middle.

  "Wow…"

  Kelsey rolled her eyes. "Dude, you've seen Jenny do that like a hundred times. She did that like ten minutes ago!"

  "You're just jealous you can't!"

  "No shit I am. You are too, moron."

  "Can you, you know," Mitch started, turning to Alden, "awaken people?"

  Alden shook his head. "Nope. Sorry." Although I know plenty of people who have Scraps nearby. Hailey and I came up here a few times for new awakened. I always wondered how she found out about people in Seattle though… Maybe Natalie was telling her?

  "Aww…" Mitch crossed his arms. "I'm gonna find part of the book soon. Just you wait."

  "Didn't the diary say they only came to people who believed in the goddess?" Kelsey smirked. "Better start praying."

  Alden raised his eyebrows. "You guys have read Cinza's diary? How?"

  "Internet," said Mitch simply.

  "I found a torrent," said Tyler, still glaring at his cards like they'd betrayed him.

  If they've read the diary… am I in it? How far did it go? Cinza posted on the site that it was everything through Jackson's death, and I was there when he died. I don't think Cinza knows I can use Time magic or that I trapped him… but still. If she named me…

  He shook his head. Cinza never knew his real name. Besides, there were so many more important people in those books than him. He was a blip, a tiny footnote in the Rallsburg tale.

  Tyler drew two cards from his deck, and let out a huge sigh of relief. Natalie frowned, as he laid them out on each of the castles near his side. "I summon Qazatakatlstimizilian using all my resources. He burns all your forests and farms in the first two rows on entering the field."

  Natalie sighed and leaned back. "You win again."

  "You're not going to play it out?" he asked, sounding disappointed.

  "It's already over. I know when to surrender."

  "You almost had me this time. You'll win eventually."

  She rolled her eyes. "Whatever." Her watch beeped. "...It's time."

  "Time for what?" asked Alden.

  "To go home," said Tyler sadly, beginning to gather up the cards. "If we don't want to get in trouble."

  "Yeah, we all snuck out," added Mitch.

  "Hey, I didn't!" said Kelsey indignantly.

  Quinn smiled. "Your parents are cooler than ours."

  "Nah, they just don't have a clue who you people are," said Kelsey, grinning. "Or that I'm hanging out with one of the awakened." She laid on so much emphasis and sarcasm that Alden laughed. "Okay, two awakened," she amended, grinning wider.

  "Would your moms care?" asked Natalie, suddenly nervous.

  Kelsey shrugged. "Probably not. I mean, Mitch's mom doesn't care either, right?"

  Mitch glanced at her. "You think I told her? Do I look that stupid?"

  "No, you look way stupider than that."

  "Hey!"

  "Nobody knows outside this group and Quinn's parents," said Natalie, glancing back at Alden. "Plus Steven. He's just not here 'cause it's a lot harder for him to get away from his mom. She's really scared."

  "Well yeah, after what happened with his brother—" started Mitch. Kelsey smacked him on the back of the head again. "Stop that! You're lucky I don't hit girls."

  "'Cause you know we'd beat you up?" said Kelsey.

  "My mom taught me never to hit a girl."

  "My moms taught me never to hit anyone, but if they come after you, take 'em down."

  "Yeah," said Natalie, her tone far from jovial. "You gotta defend yourself."

  The rest of the group continued to joke and tease as they trooped out. Natalie calmly packed up the rest of her things into her bag—another Laushire bag, Alden noted with jealousy. As they set off into the streets, Natalie led the way with Quinn. Alden volunteered to bring up the rear, after Natalie explained how they were supposed to watch out for anything suspicious or dangerous.

  She said it a little casually, and the rest of the group obviously didn't take it too seriously, but Natalie caught his eye. He nodded in return.

  They both knew exactly how serious she was.