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RHYS CLICKED OFF HIS PHONE. “Maia, sorry, but we’ve got to go.”

“Huh? Where?”

He jogged up to the helicopter. It had been less than half an hour since we’d touched down in Brooklyn Bridge Park, staying out of the way while Howard got hauled off to the hospital and Belle helped with rescue operations on the bridge. For twenty minutes, I’d been waiting for something, anything to happen. As soon as Rhys spoke, I’d jumped to my feet, my eyes alert and my nerves shot to hell.

“Are you taking me home?” I asked eagerly.

Rhys hopped inside the helicopter, grabbing hold of the cabin railing to steady himself. “You’re still in school, right?”

“What?”

He lifted his phone. “One of my superiors just called: We’ve got to be at JFK Airport in ten minutes.”

“What?” I shifted out of the way as he headed for the cockpit, but grabbed the back of his shirt before he could get too far. “Why? How come you’re not taking me home? For god’s sake, I don’t even have any damn shoes on!” Not even Effigy speed-healing could cure my feet at this point.

Rhys’s eyes were sunken, his face sallow as he stared back at me. He looked as drained as I felt, but he managed a half smile anyway.

“Looks like you just got your very first mission.” He patted my shoulder. “Better take your homework with you. And we’ll get you some shoes.”

“Wait.” I grabbed his wrist this time, my feet cold against the metal floor. “My uncle. What about my uncle? He was at the benefit with me. . . .”

Rhys hid his face, probably so I wouldn’t notice how grim his expression got. “Nathan Finley, right? Since he’s related to you, he’s in our database. Don’t worry, I’ll get some agents to confirm his whereabouts.”

But I’m not making any promises. He’d all but said it. My hand loosened its grip and slipped back to my side.

My lips pressed into a thin line. Since my cell phone was currently useless on top of my bedroom dresser, I couldn’t call to see if he was safe. But I’d left him in a car protected by electromagnetic armor. He was a smart guy; he’d stay inside. Or get behind the platoon of police officers with all the other rescued civilians. He had to be okay. I made myself believe it.

We flew straight to the airport. I stepped barefoot onto the helipad at JFK in my battered peach dress, freezing, sore, and barely cognizant of what was happening around me. For a hot second my eyes started rolling to the back of my head, my eyelids fluttering, and I could feel the warmth of my bedcovers snuggling me into sweet dreams.

“Agent Rhys.”

My eyes snapped open just as I started to sway on my feet. A young agent in black came up from behind us and handed Rhys a duffel bag. “Your go bag, sir.”

“Ah, thanks, Phil.” He took it from him happily.

That was when an agent approached me. “Ma’am,” he said, and shoved another duffel into my hands.

I couldn’t believe what I found inside. “You were at my house. . . .”

“I had them raid your closet.” Rhys flashed a wry smile as I rummaged through the clothes. “They got a few other things too, I think.”

Sneakers! I put them on. My laptop. Not a scratch on it. And, thank god, my phone.

“You were at my house.” I looked at the agent. “My uncle.”

“What?”

“My uncle! Was my uncle there? Is he okay? Did you find him?”

“Nathan Finley? He’s okay,” answered Phil. Those two words made all the difference. My stomach flopped as if the gravity around me had suddenly changed. “He was outside the hotel with the other civilians, so it didn’t take us too long to confirm his safety.”

Good, good. Sucking in a breath, I plucked my phone out of my bag, ready to dial.

“Good, you’re all here.”

Belle approached us from her own parked helicopter, her gorgeous dress veiled by a sleek black coat. Always fashionable even in the middle of a nightmare. Normally, I would have been gushing.

“What’s going on?” I rounded on her instead. “Why did you guys bring me here? Why aren’t you taking me home?”

Belle pulled down the silver scarf covering her lips. “While the city worked on getting the Needle back online, agents and police officers patrolled the boroughs.”

“Was it—I mean, did everything go okay?” I instantly dreaded the answer.

“Nobody else was hurt,” replied Belle. “There were no phantoms to hurt them. During the crisis, no other phantoms appeared. Anywhere in the city.”

Belle wasn’t lying. The deadly serious look on her face ruled out the possibility. I clutched my bag tighter.

“That’s the report.” Rhys pulled a long jean jacket out of his duffel. “The only attack sites were the hotel and the bridge. Once Saul left, the phantoms didn’t attack again.”

“What does that mean? Who is this guy?”

My words hitched in my throat as Rhys’s jacket hurtled toward me. I caught it awkwardly by the crook of my fingers.

“Good question,” Rhys said. “Nobody can do what he’s done. It’s impossible. He’s impossible.”

Vanishing into thin air, reappearing at will. Treating phantoms like his own personal winged monkeys. It didn’t make sense. Phantoms were forces of nature, without consciousness, drive, or direction. They roamed outside the margins of our society, killing whichever poor bastard had the exceptional misfortune of straying from the protection of our technology. When they killed us, their violence was random and indiscriminate, but not this time. This time, somehow, Saul had managed to bend them to his will—weaponized them.

“He’s controlling them,” I concluded, without a single inflection in my voice, because my brain couldn’t process the information. My fingers bit into the denim. “That’s—”

“Against the rules,” finished Rhys. “Right? Reality’s not supposed to work like that.”

My thoughts were swirling. Saul’s existence contradicted everything I knew about the monsters of the world. But for someone so powerful to freeze at the very sound of a name—well, it was about as ridiculous as everything else about him.

“Nick,” I said. “When I yelled that name, during the fight I mean, it was like I’d hit him with something.”

“There are a lot of things we don’t know about him, which is why we need to bring him in.” Belle beckoned to one of the agents, who promptly produced a steel-gray computer tablet. “More than a threat, he’s a valuable asset to the Sect. The information we learn from studying him might give us more insight into the phantoms themselves. But it should be obvious by now that the three of us aren’t enough to take him down.”

With a few swift taps upon the tablet’s surface, Belle brought up the image of two faces, each taking up half the screen. I gulped. Neither needed introducing.

Belle’s sharp eyes fixed on me. “You know who they are, don’t you?”

I couldn’t be a premium-level member on the Doll Soldiers forum if I didn’t. Victoria “Lake” Soyinka and Chae Rin Kim stared back at me from the soft glow of the screen. Two final names to round out the current roster of girls who’d won—or lost—the cosmic lottery that bestowed upon us the title of Effigy.

“Orders from above,” Belle said. “Finding and capturing Saul will take an extensive operation that’ll require the involvement of many operatives.”

“Yeah,” chimed Rhys. “Which means we’re going to need all the firepower we can get.”

I could barely muster an “okay.” Information bombarded me from all sides, and my head just kept spinning and spinning.

“Right.” Rhys started dialing a number on his cell phone. “So Chae Rin and Lake are back in the game. I’ll call some agents to pick them up.”

“No.” Belle put up a hand to stop him. “We’re to pick them up ourselves. They’re Effigies.” And this time, Belle’s gaze shifted to me. “If they’re going to be called onto the battlefield, it should be by another Effigy.”

I clutched the jacket close to my chest, hoping Belle wouldn’t notice the slight tremor in my arms.

Belle turned to Rhys. “According to the reports, Chae Rin still works at Le Cirque de Minuit.”

“Maia and I’ll take that one.” Rhys rubbed the back of his neck. “Since I think Chae Rin might hate you.”

I tried to interject, but my lips felt like clay.

“Then I’ll go to Lake,” Belle said.

“You know where she is?”

It took only a couple of clicks to bring up Lake’s entire social media catalog; her pending Seventeen magazine fan signing in Glendale, California, was splashed across every site with as many exclamation points the character limit would allow.

Laughing, Rhys shook his head. “Finding her shouldn’t be hard.”

“Regardless.” Belle handed the tablet back to the agent as two shuttle buses arrived on the helipad. “Phil,” she said to the agent, “we should be leaving soon. Make sure everything’s arranged.”

“Just wait a damn second!” I’d yelled it louder than I’d meant to. It did the trick, but now that all eyes were on me and I hadn’t the faintest clue what to say next. “U-um,” I stuttered, wringing Rhys’s jacket. “Belle, can I talk to you alone for a second?”

After shooting Rhys an indecipherable glance, Belle motioned for the other agents to go ahead and enter the shuttle. I stared down at the denim as Belle stalked past me without a word. I followed.

When we were far enough away, Belle swiveled around. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

“I know.” Belle and intimidation just went hand in hand. I was too scared to even look her in the eyes.

“Well, then? What do you want?”

I thought carefully before speaking next. “It’s about the name I said back there. The one that stalled Saul: Nick.”

“What about it? Why that name?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. It just came to me. When Saul kissed me back at the hotel, I saw something . . . like a memory. After that I started hearing a girl’s voice. And names: Alice, Nick.” I pressed a hand against my forehead, squeezing my eyes shut. “For a second, it was like there was someone else living in here.”

“Memories.” Belle’s sharp gaze wandered past me, seeing something I couldn’t. “Les portes rouge . . .”

Le what?” Something told me I was going to regret choosing Spanish as my second-language credit. Which I barely passed.

“Did you see Natalya?”

The question stunned me into silence. “No. Why . . . would I?”

Belle considered me for a long moment. I could see the riddles twisting and knotting behind the blue sheen of her eyes, but before I could prod further, she looked away. “It’s something I’ll have to think about further. For now, just focus on your mission.” With a newfound sense of urgency, she started back to the shuttles. But a few steps into her stride, she stopped. “Maia.”

I jumped. “Y-yes?”

She turned. “Do your best.”

It was a curious phenomenon. Belle’s words weren’t so special; there were only three of them, and they probably weren’t even the best she could have come up with. And yet, just like that, I suddenly remembered, down to my bones, what it felt like to see her at Fashion Week, gliding down the ramp at Lincoln Center—as if she had a right to own the world she’d shed blood to protect. The awe and heartache.

Don’t let me down. That was what she was really saying. I was sure of it. And I wouldn’t. It was obvious that I couldn’t. We were finally on the same team.

Slipping my arms inside Rhys’s jacket, I readied myself for the work ahead.