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“Another hellseher,” he said. He murmured to Tanner in the background, “Can you bring up the last one again?” Fingers drummed on a keyboard. And then Dominic said, “Male hellseher with dark hair, green eyes. Says his magic is green.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Max began as he paced next to the doors, boots thumping on pavement. “Aside from aura healing, aura magic has always been pretty unthreatening. Witches and warlocks with fire, water, or earth magic can hardly do much with it, so why would Elementals be such a big deal?” The most a standard warlock or witch could do with those types of magic was spur a ship to sail faster across the sea, or aid firefighters in putting out a burning building. Certainly nothing worth anyone getting their back up about, let alone wanting to kidnap someone and use them for…well, whatever they were doing.

“Sabrine had an idea,” Dominic said. “I’ll let you talk to her.” The phone crackled as Dominic passed her the phone.

And then Sabrine was on the line. “How’s Dallas?”

“She hasn’t woken up yet. How’s Logan?”

“I haven’t heard.” She sighed. “But I’m sure I’ll know soon enough.”

“Dominic said you have a theory.”

“I do,” she began, a touch apprehensively. “The missing people are all hellsehers.” Hellsehers—the only magic users who’d never had their magic sorted into such stark categories like this. “My theory is that the people on this Special Task Force have been modified in some way.”

“Like gene modification?”

“Maybe, yeah. The Fleet has always been super devoted to protecting the people of Terra. I wouldn’t put it past them to have researched magic and looked into what they could do with it if they manipulated someone’s gene pool.”

“I wonder if the subjects were willing.”

Her voice dipped in volume. “We’re still trying to figure out how this is connected to Blue.” It sounded like she was stepping into another room. “We know she was brought to Angelthene by people who thought she was important enough to keep a tracking device in her arm. She must have some kind of rare magic, or something that’s important to them.”

“Has Dominic tried asking her about her magic?”

“She seems pretty spooked by all of this. Tanner is looking into it more. He’s trying to see if he can find anyone else who’s gone missing.”

“No bodies have turned up?”

“Not from what we’ve heard.”

“Were you able to see if Blue is one of those Elemental people? Was she part of the Fleet?”

“We can’t find anything on her.” Not to mention that when they’d found her standing in the road, she’d had no identification on her.

The glass doors slid open, and Doctor Atlas stepped out, pausing when she saw that he was on the phone.

Max’s palms prickled with sweat. “Sab, I gotta go.”

“Let me know how Dallas is when you see her. I’ll head down once she’s awake, and I’ll see if Loren wants to come.”

“Got it.” He hung up, heart picking up to a sprint.

Doctor Atlas smiled. “Surgery went well. She’s awake.”

—

An hour after school was out, Loren found Dallas eating her weight in ice cream in her room at Angelthene General Hospital. She was lying on her stomach on the bed, feet on her pillow, white feathered wings held aloft by suspension cords that were fastened into the ceiling.

At the sight of Loren and Sabrine rushing into the room, a cloud of red balloons squeaking as they rubbed against each other on their way through the doorframe, Dallas squealed. Maximus had been nodding off in the patterned chair beside the bed, but he jolted awake at the commotion as if a bomb went off.

“Took you two biatches long enough!” Dallas laughed, tossing aside the tub of ice cream. The action sent her spoon clattering to the floor.

“You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to find these balloons,” Loren told Dallas as she plopped herself down on the side of the bed. She held a balloon still so Dallas could get a proper look.

Dallas tipped back her head and cackled. “Best Witches,” she read aloud. Loren knew how Dallas loved her puns.

Sabrine took a seat at Dallas’s other side and set a pink box that smelled of icing and cake batter by her elbow. “We also stopped at Whisking Witch and got you some of your favorites.” She lifted the lid, where a dozen cupcakes sat on a layer of tissue, the marshmallow frosting shaped like ghosts, their googly eyes made of candies.