He shrugged. “Once I feel more confident about my portal skills, I’ll come back here. I’ll make the pledge and stay at the coven… even if that means leaving you behind.” He glanced at Isadora with sad eyes. I knew those words couldn’t have come easily to him.
“I can’t make any promises about my future plans,” Isadora said, her tone understanding. “Until Katherine’s spies have been dealt with, the coven is off limits to me. If, by some miracle, they are discovered, I may reconsider.” Her eyes found mine, the two of us sharing a private moment.
“Can you stay for a while now?” I asked tentatively.
Her shoulders sagged. “We must go before that Shapeshifter decides to come after us again. I’m sorry, Harley.”
“I only need half an hour,” I pressed. “There’s so much I want to ask you about my parents.”
“I promise I’ll send you a full explanation of everything as soon as I can. I know it won’t be the same as hearing it from me directly, but I hope it will be enough.” She drew in a ragged breath. “The truth is, you might not want to hear what I have to say. It’s dark, and dark secrets are often better left unspoken. But I won’t take that choice from you... It just might take you a while to understand.”
She turned to Jacob before I could respond. “We need to leave.”
Wait, what? What secret could be so dark or bad that I wouldn’t want to hear it? Hadn’t I already heard enough bad things about my dad and my mom? What else could there possibly be?
Unless this wasn’t just about my family. Was it about me? A grip of anxiety seized my chest.
Jacob nodded. “Do you want me to make the portal?”
“No, I’ll handle that.” Shuffling along the back seat, she opened the Jeep door and got out. Jacob followed suit, the two of them walking out into the driving rain.
Wade and I leapt out after them, though I knew I couldn’t change their minds about staying. I needed to know what she had to tell me, but with spies in our midst, Isadora was right: they were safer away from the coven.
Alton was not going to like this, though. Well, if he wants this job done, he can get off his ass and do it himself. I’m not chasing them through wormholes, all across the country.
“See you later?” Jacob said, stepping forward shyly.
“You bet,” I replied, pulling him in for a hug.
Isadora came up to me next. “I promise I’ll explain everything. Take care of yourself, okay?”
“I will,” I said, my heart still anxious. We held each other for a moment, before I pulled away and dusted myself off. I’d see her again, I comforted myself. I would.
With the goodbyes over with, Isadora opened up a portal in the middle of Balboa Park, and the two of them jumped through. It snapped shut with a rush of cold air, leaving Wade and me alone in the rain. I was past caring about the water soaking through my clothes. In fact, it felt kind of nice, after all that.
“So, what are we going to tell Alton?” I asked with a sigh, as we turned and made our way back to the Fleet Science Center.
“The truth,” he replied.
“You think he’ll be pissed?” I murmured.
Wade shrugged. “I think he’ll be as thrilled as he’ll be disappointed. I mean, this way, he knows Jacob is coming back. It’s just a matter of when.”
“Yeah, I guess.” To be honest, I probably felt most disheartened by Jacob’s decision to leave. Without his help, we’d have to track down the missing kids on our own, fumbling blindly through dried-up leads. Then there were these spies to consider. If one of them was a Shapeshifter, which I was pretty sure they were, then the mole could look like absolutely anyone. They’d already tried Preceptor Bellmore on for size. Speaking of which, I wondered if the real Preceptor Bellmore was okay. I guessed we’d find out soon enough.
The situation reminded me of Finch and the way he’d morphed into Tobe, setting him up for planting the charms under the Bestiary boxes. They’d almost thrown the Beast Master in Purgatory for something he didn’t do. What if these spies wanted to set up someone else? I doubted they’d try Preceptor Bellmore again. A flashbulb went off in my mind. They know who has Shapeshifter abilities in the coven. They picked Bellmore on purpose.
We knew from Garrett that the Shapeshifters of the SDC had their own private group, keeping their secret between themselves. With the spy being a Shapeshifter, too, I guessed that narrowed down our list of suspects. I didn’t like to think of any of them being traitors, but one of them had to be. If they’d been outsiders, there was no way they’d be able to get in and out of the coven undetected. No, this was definitely another inside job.
Images of Garrett and O’Halloran popped into my head. If it’s one of you, I swear to God I’ll kick your ass. My mind refused to believe it could be one of them. Honestly, the pool of candidates was pretty big. There were at least thirty Shapeshifters within the coven, and it could be any one of them.
Yeah, but what about that big old man hand? I’d seen a masculine hand in the flicker of the Shapeshifter’s fading disguise, but that didn’t mean we could rule out the women. We didn’t all have dainty little fingers. My hands, for example, looked like they belonged to a friggin’ lumberjack.
No, right now, every Shapeshifter was a suspect.
No exceptions.
Not even those I called friends.
Thirteen
Santana
My eyes itched like there were grains of sand caught beneath my lids. I wanted to tear them out and hurl them across the room or pour one of the coffee urns straight into my eye sockets. It was taking too long for the caffeine to get into my system properly. Besides, the coven brew was garbage. It might as well have been colored water for all the good it was doing.
“Earth to Santana!” Harley’s voice conked me right on the head. I looked up from my mug and found her staring down at me.
“Huh? What? Did you say something?”
She frowned. “I’ve been calling you for, like, five minutes.”
“Sorry… I must’ve drifted off somewhere.”
I’d stayed up with Raffe and the djinn until four that morning, keeping them both company. A weird situation. Like, intensely weird. The djinn had proven himself to be an interesting change of pace, about a million miles away from the Raffe that got my heart racing. Knowing that he had the djinn inside him, twenty-four-seven, three-sixty-five, was crazy to wrap my head around, even now. Fighting that rude son of a bitch had to be hard for Raffe to keep up with, too.
“Alton wants us in his office,” Harley continued.
“Why?”
She shrugged. “No idea. He’s just called us all into a meeting—GI Joe and Jane, too.”
“Still not warming to them?” I chuckled.
“Hell’s going to freeze over first.”
I scraped my chair back and followed her out into the hallway, cradling my coffee mug like a damn lifeline. I hadn’t seen Raffe this morning, but I figured he’d be sleeping off last night’s events. Dealing with the djinn had to leave a monster of a hangover.
The coven was eerily silent as we wandered through the hallways, tracing a familiar route toward the ominous black double doors of Alton’s office. I liked Alton and everything, but his office gave me the creeps—always made me feel like I was in some kind of trouble. The brass lion heads that served as knockers seemed to roar as we passed straight through, the doors creaking when they swung wide. The spacious office beyond looked like a bomb had hit it. Papers and books were strewn all over the place, everything jumbled in a trail of hurried activity. However, the red roses still bloomed in their crystal vases, dotted about the place on decorative wall shelves.
Alton, Alton, Alton, what’s been going on here? Someone’s been doing some late-night rummaging.
Alton paced the back of the room. The others were already here. I noticed that two sides had formed in the office itself, with the LA newcomers standing on the right, while the Rag Team sat in chairs on the left. Garrett sat somewhere in the middle, which gave me a satisfying flush of irony. It faded a moment later. With all the chairs taken up on the left, it meant Harley and I would have to break ranks and sit on the right with the LA robots. Glancing at Harley, I could tell she’d rather stand in the hallway than stand with the newbies. I guess we never really get over high school, do we?
“Santana, Harley, glad you could join us,” Alton said stiffly. Someone else needed their coffee this morning. He looked the way I felt.
“Sorry, it was my fault. I only just heard this little gathering was going on,” I replied. “Plus, coffee beckoned.”
Raffe leaned over the armrest and offered me a shy smile. I grinned back. Adorable bastard. He looked exhausted, his body slumped in the high-backed armchair, his eyes bloodshot and ringed with red. Dealing with the djinn definitely took its toll. I almost felt bad for having laughed at some of the rude things that the djinn had said. That devil had zero filter.
“Well, you’re here now.” Alton perked up a little, doing a subtle jig to get his energy going. “And I’m pleased to announce that we have some good news.”
“We do?” Garrett arched a suspicious eyebrow.
The rest of the Rag Team turned in unison to look at Stella and Channing. We hadn’t patrolled last night, and we hadn’t gathered in Astrid’s room to talk about strategy. We had nothing to announce. I knew my and Raffe’s reasons, but everyone else’s excuses in the group texts had been lazy at best. Tatyana and Dylan had mentioned something about looking over books on the Children of Chaos, which meant they’d spent the evening in a veritable flirt-fest. Astrid had shared her evening in Smartie’s loving embrace. Garrett had spent his time stuffing his face in the banquet hall with the rest of his blockhead pals and hadn’t bothered to give a reason for not doing anything else. And Harley and Wade had said something about checking Waterfront Park for a magical object that Harley was curious about. BS, if ever I’d heard it.