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WE DON’T HEAR from William right away, and the adrenaline in my veins makes it hard to wait. I pester Valec to check his texts so frequently that he ends up tossing the phone in my lap just so he can focus on the road and I can watch for William’s call myself.

The trip from Penumbra back to the Lounge takes long enough that Mariah and Zoe fall asleep in the back of Valec’s SUV, but I’m too anxious to rest.

If I’m wrong about the girls, then I’m out of ideas. If Gabriel has taken them somewhere else, then I’m almost certain we’ll never find them. They might be missing forever. Reduced to statistics in a news report. It’s not guilt that floods me now, but desperation.

A hunger to set things right, from one missing girl to four others.

After the first half hour of the drive, Nick urges me to rest with gentle words. I don’t remember agreeing with him, but my body must have had other ideas. I fall asleep with Valec’s phone clenched in my fist.

Nick nudges me awake as Valec pulls into the Crossroads parking lot, but my brain takes longer than usual to come back online. When my eyes open, I can just glimpse the layer of magic visible over the building.

“That your ward?” Nick asks. “It’s nice work.”

“Yep, that’s mine.” Valec nods as he parks the car. “Layered so thick the Crossroads could withstand a siege even from a Shade. As soon as we found out the Hunter had taken Bree, I cut the Lounge’s business hours in half and stopped doing contracts so I could retain enough energy to cast the wards. Started taking house calls so I could chase leads outside my territory.” He cuts the engine. “Figured if we found Bree, we could bring her back here. Hide her from the Legendborn and the Hunter, least for a little while. If y’all hadn’t told me, I’d have never guessed the Hunter was in the Order, much less a damn Mage Seneschal. He might return to Penumbra, find y’all gone, and trace us to the area, but the wards prevent magic performed inside the Lounge from being detected on the outside. That’ll slow him down. So will coming up with a new strategy. We’ve got a day or two to regroup, I suspect.”

“You’ve been searching for her,” Nick observes. “Trying to find her this whole time.”

“And Kane, too, though that turned into a dead end real quick. But yes, I have.” Valec catches Nick’s eye in the rearview. Holds it. “You ain’t the only one who wants to see the powerhouse safe, Scion. You ain’t the only one who wants to keep her that way.”

Nick returns the cambion’s gaze with a steady one of his own. “I’m aware.”

The door opens, letting the cold night air in. Emil takes the crown from me then helps me step down from the SUV. My legs are shaky after the drive, and he lets me lean on him while I regain my balance.

“Thanks,” I say to him quietly. “For rescuing us and helping—”

Emil smiles. “Nothing to it.”

“Nothing to holding up literally tons of earth?” I ask. Behind us, Nick steps down, followed by Zoe and Mariah. Now that we’re in sight of the Lounge’s ward, Zoe’s got Valec’s phone at her ear, trying to reach Elijah.

“Well,” Emil says with a small smile as we begin to walk, “that part’s impressive, but I can’t claim all the credit. Ancestors, y’know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

He chuckles. “Bet you do. Bloodcrafter, huh?”

I nod. “Inherited.”

He whistles. I expect him to make a comment about the sin of Bloodcraft, but he doesn’t. As we approach the Lounge, he squeezes my arm. “If your ancestor made that choice, then I’d say you’re doing a mighty fine job of making it count.”

My eyes prick. “You don’t know me well enough to say that.”

“You’re fighting to save four ’Crafter girls you don’t even know,” Emil says. “I think I know enough.”

When we pass under the ward surrounding the building, I shiver from the sensation of Valec’s magic. It’s not an affective ward, not harsh and violent the way that Erebus’s was, but it’s solid. Secure.

As soon as we emerge through the heavy curtains in the entryway into the empty main room of the Lounge, the feelings that wash over me are enough to make my knees buckle. The last time I was here, I was with people I cared for deeply. And when I left, things were different. I was different.

I wonder if, when I leave this place again, I’ll have changed again.

Emil taps my arm. “You okay to stand here? I’m gonna go check on the others.” He hands the covered crown back to me before he goes.

“Thanks, yeah.”

Just as Emil moves away, a new person approaches. “There she is, thank every goddess!” A middle-aged Black woman with gray braids steps into my field of vision. Her voice brings with it a wave of apprehension that swamps my chest. But care, too, and respect.

“Hello,” I say as the woman grasps me in a hug.

“That’s Aunt Lucille.” Mariah is at my elbow, lifting the crown gently out of my grasp behind her aunt’s back.

“She knows who I am, Mariah!” Lucille swats at her niece’s shoulder but then pulls her in with us too. “And we are gonna have a talk about you taking that Heart and putting yourself in harm’s way behind my back!”

“No, she don’t,” Mariah mutters. “And do we have to?”

Lucille turns back to me with wide brown eyes. “What’s she talking about, Bree?”

“Um…,” I say.

Mariah untangles us both. “Aunt Lu, Bree’s under a type of spell—”

“A spell?” Aunt Lu’s eyes widen.

“Bree?” A shorter Black woman wearing a shawl walks toward us. “Oh, thank God.” She wraps me in a hug too, folding me into her chest. I stiffen in her arms, if only because I don’t know her name. But her voice and face—and this hug, oh my God , this hug—send warmth deep into my bones.

“Hi,” I greet her, voice muffled.

The woman releases me immediately. Her eyes are alert—and darting all over my face, my body. “Something’s not right with you. Are you injured?”

“No, I…”

“Hazel, she’s been hurt,” Lu says. “A spell.”

“Whose spell?” Hazel asks me. “What do you need?”

“She needs sleep and a warm meal, but she’s going to put up a fight on both fronts until we hear the girls are safe,” Nick informs the woman, saving me from having to explain when he steps beside me. “I’m Nick, by the way.” He extends his hand.

“Of course you are,” the woman says. She stares up at him. “Who else could you be but Nick Davis?”

Nick flushes. “Ma’am?”

“Call me Hazel.” She looks over her shoulder back toward one of three darkened hallways made of shipping containers attached to the building. Each hall is labeled above by a glowing neon sign: RESPITE. DESIRES. DELIGHT . “We have a spare bed where Bree can rest.”

“Not yet.” Valec moves to stand next to Hazel. “While we wait to hear from William, I think Bree and I should have our little chat.”

“Why can’t your ‘little chat’ wait?” Hazel demands.

Valec looks down at me. “You got an answer for that, powerhouse?”

I don’t. I’m not tired, as much as I know I should be.

“What’s going on, Bree?” Concern is written in the fine lines of Hazel’s brown face.

“I…” My chest tightens at the thought of disappointing her. “I feel that you’re someone I know and trust, but our interactions, our conversations…”

Nick steps in when Hazel looks alarmed. “I can explain.”

“I’d like to hear an explanation myself,” Valec says, “but from Bree , not you.”

“I don’t like your tone,” Nick says sharply to the cambion. “Something on your mind?”

“A lot of things,” Valec shoots back. “Thanks for asking.”

“I’m not sure I like your tone either, Valechaz. ” Zoe steps in closer to the circle. She’s got Valec’s phone in her hand, but the anxious way her nail taps the plastic case tells me that Elijah must not have picked up when she called. On the car ride over, we guessed that he’s got at least a day before Erebus returns to his home, but I know she’d rather talk to her brother now.

“Oh, what is this ?” Valec turns to her, eyes amused. “Don’t tell me a cambion pup thinks she can talk down to me in my own domain? Within the boundaries of my ward?”

Zoe smirks. “This pup doesn’t really care whose domain it is. What’s your problem, Grandpa ?”

“Something’s not right with the powerhouse. We can all feel it.” Valec’s eyes flash red in anger and his voice dips an octave. “And my patience is finite. So somebody better—”

“I don’t know you!” I shout, stopping him short.

His eyes widen, then sharpen. Before he can ask for more, I speak again. Push everything out in a shaking rush. “I don’t know who you are! I don’t know my own father. My own friends. I could pass them on the street and—I don’t even know people’s names, their faces. Why I like them, why I love them.” I swallow audibly, eyes burning. “How and why they like or love me.”

The room quiets as I speak, until I can hear my own rattling breath.

“He did this to me,” I state. “ Stole something from me. And I don’t know how to get it back.”

A beat of silence. Valec crosses his arms. “Do you want it back?”

I answer without hesitation. “Yes.”

A smile spreads over Valec’s face. “That’s all I need to hear.”

Forty-five minutes later, after Hazel insists we eat a full meal and after I insist that the crown be secured in a warded safe behind Valec’s bar, I find myself sitting on a stool under the bright lights of the empty Crossroads Lounge stage while Valec circles me with a hand on his chin.

“Is it going to hurt her?” Mariah asks. She, Nick, Hazel, Zoe, Lucille, and Emil are standing in a row at the bottom of the stage.

“Nah.” Valec comes to a stop across from me. “Just gonna take a little tour inside our powerhouse’s metaphysical body.”

I startle. “Metaphysical—”

“Believe it or not, we’ve done this before.” Valec gives me a cheeky grin. “It’s how I discovered your bloodmark. What I do is like taking a peek at your magical inventory.”

“Like reading my aura?” I ask.

“Aura is somethin’ folks emit , not somethin’ they carry within. I can sense a few elements inside somebody, including the abilities and magic they were born with, and I can also find magic they’ve taken in over time. Like an Oath or bargain”—he pauses, a haunted expression rippling across his fingers before passing—“or a mesmer laid in someone’s mind without their knowledge or consent.”

There’s more to this comment about nonconsensual mesmers than Valec’s revealing. I can see it in his eyes. I want to ask more, dig into him the way he wants to dig into me, but when his dark brown eyes refocus on mine, they are shuttered tight. The message is clear: the intimacy of this moment goes one way and one way only. He can see me, but he won’t let me see him.

That doesn’t seem fair. My lips tighten into a frown.

Valec senses my protest before I voice it. “We gotta stay focused, yeah?”

I release my questions—for now. “Yeah, okay,” I concede. “Well, I can already tell you this isn’t a mesmer.”

“I haven’t taken a look yet, but I suspect you’re right.”

“If you find what the King did”—I glance to Nick, remembering the constructs and spellcraft he can See and undo—“can you figure out how the magic works?”

Valec shakes his head. “Just because I can read the ingredients on a box of cake mix doesn’t mean I can tell ya how to bake the thing.”

Nick’s lips press into a frustrated line, and I’m sure he’s thinking the same thing I am. Valec can’t do to magic what Nick can; he can’t See the deeper layers of magic, its inner workings, and attempt to deconstruct it, but he can sense and locate magical elements in ways that Nick can’t.

I shift on the stool. If Valec can’t uncover and undo what Erebus has done, will letting him sift through my metaphysical insides really get me any closer to restoring the part of me that’s been taken? Or will I just know more… and not be able to do a damn thing about it?

Sensing my discomfort, Nick steps close to the stage and lowers his voice. “Bree, you don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” I say weakly.

His jaw tenses at the uncertainty in my voice. “Maybe it’s better if we take a beat.”

I straighten in the chair, drawing confidence up for him and for myself. “I want to do this, Nick.”

“Yeah, Scion,” Valec calls to him. “She wants to do it. I say let’s go.”

Nick’s eyes are only for me. His fists clench on the stage, a silent signal that he’ll back me up if I walk away.

“I’m ready,” I say to him, to myself, to Valec.

“So am I,” Valec murmurs, stepping closer. “Maybe this time, don’t blow me across the room?”

I raise a brow. “No promises.”

Valec smirks. “Noted.” He steps closer again, his palm open. “Same warning. This won’t hurt but it ain’t gonna feel great either.”

I brace for not great—then there’s a heavy bang on the door.

“They’re here!” Lucille says.

Valec’s head whips over his shoulder, eyes narrowing as his hand falls. He calls to Emil, “Get ready, in case they brought company.” Emil nods and jogs to the door. Nick follows, asking the older man for information as he matches his longer stride.

“We’re gonna have to postpone this.” Valec steps back, then makes eye contact with Zoe. “By her side, pup.”

“I know what to do!” Zoe snarls and snaps at him, red eyes flashing. “And stop calling me that.” She blurs up the stairs to stand next to me just as Valec leaps down to follow Emil and Nick.

There’s silence as the three of them step into the entryway, and Zoe hugs closer to me. A second later, Valec calls out, “All clear!” Both of our shoulders drop. “Need several hands, though!”

Zoe checks in with me, then runs to the door. Mariah and I follow her just in time to see the rustling curtains part. “Bree! Mariah! Come here!” Zoe calls, and Mariah and I jog faster to meet her and the new faces at the door. “They found them! They found the girls!”

Emil enters first, aiding a thin Black girl in loose jeans and a T-shirt as she walks hesitantly into the Lounge, her eyes glowing bright. A Rootcrafter, mid-casting.

The soft magic flowing from the girl’s hands and eyes is canary yellow, flickering with streaks of shiny chrome. One of the four root colors in the vials the Regent Gabriel sought with his winning bid. Her round cheeks are light brown with red splotches from the winter air. As the crowd parts between us and Mariah rushes through the curtains, the girl catches my shocked expression and waves weakly, full lips around silver braces. “Hi.”

She is so young. Barely a teenager. My eyes burn. “Hi.”

At her side, Emil looks up. “Hazel? She’s shaking. We need to get her new clothes, a blanket…”

Hazel is already bustling close to us. “We have the rooms ready, Emil, right down this hall.”

Emil follows her down one of the metal hallways, and the young girl looks back over her shoulder at the tall, empty bar and lit stage before she’s escorted away.

Zoe comes next, guiding an older girl with deep brown skin. The girl’s hair is in long braids that start out dark at her roots before flowing into loose brown and blond strands that land at her hips. Her gaze is sharp, darting around the new environment of the Lounge even as exhaustion pulls at the circles beneath her wide glowing eyes. The root within them also flows from her face and fingertips. It’s another color I recognize: a sparkling honey gold. By the time they pass me, I am crying in full but trying to hide it. Lucille swoops in and helps the taller girl walk when her knees buckle. “We need to close down your casting,” the older woman whispers. “Then you’ll feel better. We’ll get some food on your stomach, something warm to drink…”

Mariah walks inside with her arm wrapped around a third Rootcrafter girl. This girl’s root is rich yellow, the color of home-churned butter. She leans heavily on Mariah, eyes only open to thin slivers of light. Her hair is cropped close to her temple in tight black coils. The girl’s fingernails dig deep, desperate circles into Mariah’s forearms—something I doubt she even realizes she’s doing—but Mariah doesn’t complain or ask her to let go. When Mariah offers her a quiet word, the girl’s face opens up into a brilliant smile, revealing a sweet gap between her two front teeth and too many dimples to count. As they pass me by, I make eye contact with her, and the girl smiles at me, too.

The rescued girl’s smile spurs me into movement. I rush to the door to help with the last girl—hoping I recognize her too. Not just by her magic, but by her face. Praying that she is safe, that I didn’t fail her—

Then, just as I pull back the curtains, I come face-to-face with the girl who’s lived in my mind for weeks now. The girl I first saw on the floor of a dirty dive-bar bathroom. The root swimming in her eyes is golden, nearly the color of a sunset. She gasps. “It’s you!”

“I—” We step toward each other, and before I can ask her if she’s all right, she wraps her arms around me.

My vision blurs. Her shoulders shake. I hold her tighter. “I’m sorry,” I mutter at the same time that she says, “Thank you.”

I gape, stepping back. “I didn’t… I didn’t do anything.”

The girl shakes her head, wiping at her eyes before she answers. “Yes, you did. They told us a Rootcrafter girl sent them to find us, and I wondered if it was you.” She squeezes my hands in hers. “You didn’t forget me.”

I don’t have an answer for that. How could I have forgotten her? With every person who has gone missing in my own mind, with parts of myself going missing too, holding on to her felt easy… because it was right.

“Of course not.” I swallow, my voice cracking. “I should have gotten to you faster. Should have chased you down.”

She shakes her head again, a weak smile shining through her tears. “I told you not to.” She laughs. And I laugh. And I can tell that it’s been too long for both of us.

“I don’t even know your name,” I say.

“Nora.” She smiles again. “Nora Green. What’s yours?”

“Bree,” I say. “I’m Bree Matthews.”

“The other three are Joy, the little girl who came in first. Then Melanie and Amber.”

Nora. Joy. Melanie. Amber. I commit their names to memory.

I wrap an arm around Nora’s waist, and together, we take slow steps into the Lounge. Mariah exits one of the hallways lit by neon signs and shakes her head when she sees us. “Neither one of you is fit to walk on your own; what are you doing?” She steps in beside Nora and wraps her arm around the other girl’s waist. “Let’s get you to a room, help you get out of your working.”

“Can we sit first?” Nora asks. “Everything happened so fast. I just need a minute.”

We pause at the bar. Mariah makes sure Nora is comfortable before excusing herself to go help her aunts with the others.

“I suppose you want to know what happened?” Nora asks.

I nod. “If you don’t mind telling.”

“We were all taken at different times, but every one of us was taken by a warlock while in the middle of a working,” she says, swallowing thickly. “They fed us, didn’t hurt us, but wouldn’t let us leave or contact our families or shut down our connections to our ancestors. They wanted the channel between us and the dead active and open. Insisted on it. Nearly killed Joy. She’s so new to the craft, you know? So young.” Her dark brows knit in memory. “They, uh, kept us on the move in motels. Then, late last night, a man in a suit showed up. We were blindfolded. The warlocks and the man walked us outside to a field and put us into a helicopter. Maybe an hour or two passed in the air? I couldn’t tell. But we landed outside some sort of compound. Almost a nice hotel vibe, but creepy? I heard the pilot talking. He called it the… the…”

A chill runs down my spine. “The Institute.”

She nods quickly. “Yeah, that was it! Weird people delivered food. The man in the suit and a doctor came to the room and”—she rotates her arm upward to show me a small bandage at the bend of her elbow—“they took our blood.”

“It was Gabriel,” a new voice says. A white Merlin boy I don’t recognize stands at the doorway behind us. He is tall with an auburn undercut, a hairstyle that I recognize as part of the Mageguard uniform. “Gabriel hid them at the Institute, Bree, just like you said.”

I don’t know what this boy wore when I last recognized him, but today he’s in a dark navy peacoat. A pair of gloves peeks out of one pocket. Below the long coat he wears loose black pants and worn leather boots.

“I don’t know…,” I begin apologetically.

“Who I am?” the boy says, his Scottish accent thick even in just these few sentences. He smiles. “Aye, I know. Nick explained outside. It’s all right. I’m Lark. And we can catch up soon.” The Merlin steps closer to Nora, offering his arm. “Will and Hazel would like to make sure you’re okay, if you’re still up for being looked over? I think there’s a homecooked meal waiting for you, as well?”

Nora takes his arm. “That sounds excellent.”

Lark guides her away. “Valec’s calling your folks. They’ll be here soon.”

Nora’s smile widens. “Thanks.” She waves over her shoulder. “Thanks again, Bree.”

I wave back, but it takes every ounce of strength not to collapse in agony when I do so.

The Regents wanted the girls’ blood, but Erebus said that hunting Rootcrafters to take them alive is unprecedented in Order history. The implication being that the Order had never held any interest in Rootcrafter power the way that demons do. The Regents didn’t think Rootcrafters were a threat valuable enough to capture alive, much less study in a lab somewhere. Erebus didn’t know why the Regents would turn their attention to Rootcrafters now, after dismissing them for so long.

But I do.

I know exactly why the Regents want Rootcrafters now when they never have before.

Me. They want them because of me.