Alex’s text to Emil had said to meet him in the den. I followed Emil inside. Alex was standing by his sideboard. He nodded to Emil, but froze for a few seconds when he saw me.

“Evie,” Alex said, his voice low.

“Hey, Thor.” I said back, noticing we weren’t alone. “I hope you’ve been shopping for my replacement chair.”

I could practically see Alex’s blood pressure rising.

“Hey, Simon,” I said. “Nice to see you again.”

He nodded. “You too.”

Tate was also there. “Did you lose your WoW tournament?” I asked.

“No,” Tate said, a little annoyed. “I got a text from Alex, so I had to leave.”

Huh. Everyone had gotten a text but me. I hoped that was because Alex was still fuming at me for the flashbacks I couldn’t control, not because he was leaving me out of the loop again.

“What’s going on?” Emil asked. “Your text seemed urgent.”

Alex motioned for us to sit down. Emil and I both sat across from Simon on one of Alex’s ridiculously elegant leather couches. “Simon wanted to talk to us.” The way he said “us” gave me the distinct impression I hadn’t been invited.

Emil turned to Simon. “Is something wrong? Is there another situation with the Rebels?”

Simon pushed his hands down his thighs like he was uncomfortable. “Well, something weird has been happening. A few things, actually. Have you noticed more Daevos members than usual in Colorado lately? Specifically Gunnison?”

We all took a minute to think about it.

“Now that you mention it,” Alex said, “yeah.”

I thought about Caleb’s Clan, and then Robert, Brian, and Hannah. Robert had said they felt pulled here for some reason.

“Do you know anything about it, Emil?” Simon asked. “Have more Daevos Clans been assigned to the area?”

Emil shook his head. “Not that I know of. But a Clan went missing in the area about five months ago. The Daevos said they might investigate, so I assumed the increase in Daevos was a result of that.”

Simon nodded and stood. “Well, I guess that answers one question, but not the biggest one.”

“What do you mean?” Alex asked.

Simon shook his head, his hands folded across his chest as he walked over to get a drink from Alex’s sideboard. “For the last couple of months when we’ve taken Daevos souls, the souls’ memories have disappeared instead of being destroyed.”

Alex and Emil shared a glance. Both of them seemed concerned. I remembered when they’d taken the souls of Caleb’s Clan in the cave. The same thing had happened. The memories had vanished instead of exploding into dust. “Like Caleb’s Clan,” I said, realizing too late Simon might not know about that situation.

“Yeah,” Alex answered, his hands clenched into fists as if aching to hit something, “like Caleb’s Clan.”

Simon continued on like he knew what had happened with Caleb. I wondered if Alex had told him, or if he’d heard it through the cosmic grapevine like everyone else. “We’ve asked the Amaranthine about it,” Simon said, taking a drink, “but they don’t have answers either. No one knows why it’s happening.”

“That’s a problem,” Alex said.

Simon nodded as he sat back down. “And that’s not all.”

We all stared at him, expectantly.

“We’ve started to notice a pattern in areas where Trackers are missing.”

They had? I’d asked Alex if anyone was looking for correlations with the Trackers. I was glad Simon had been.

“Soon after a Tracker is taken in an area, people in the area have started to get sick.”

I jerked my head up. “Sick?”

“Yeah. People are in hospitals and no one knows what’s wrong. They thought it was mono or the flu at first, but the usual treatments aren’t working.”

My mind was racing. I thought back to the line I’d seen at the nurse’s office last month, the people sick at the ice cream shop, and everything Jas had said about people getting sick on campus. “Are their symptoms headaches, fatigue, and fevers?”

Simon stared before answering slowly, “Yeah.”

Alex interrupted me. “What’s going on, Evie? How do you know about this?”

“Because it’s been happening here since January,” I said.

Alex stared. “What’s the connection?”

I shrugged. “No idea. As far as I know, I’m the only Tracker here right now, and I’m not activated. I’m not making anyone sick; at least, I don’t think I am.” I looked to Alex and Emil to see if they’d been withholding more information and wanted to add anything. It didn’t seem they did.

“We don’t know what the hell you are,” Tate interrupted. “So I wouldn’t use you for the baseline measurement.”

I glared. That wasn’t information I wanted made public, even if it was to someone who seemed to be on our side like Simon.

“So we know there’s a correlation between the sickness and Trackers,” Emil said, moving the conversation on. “What is it?”

Everyone stared off in a different direction, contemplating possible connections. Sometimes, it just takes one tiny suggestion for the mind to spark an idea. My mind snapped to something Jas had said earlier today when she was talking to me about how she and Zach couldn’t get rid of the flu they had, and I’d joked they must keep giving it to each other. Like a puzzle suddenly coming together, everything made sense. All of the energy drinks I’d seen on campus—and in our fridge, the record number of sick people who kept missing class, the sickness that got worse after Valentine’s Day. I gasped, my eyes wide as I looked at Simon. “The people who are sick—do their symptoms get worse when their significant other is close?”

Simon stopped, his mind ticking back to the encounters he’d had with the sick people. “I hadn’t thought of it before, but now that you mention it, the worst cases do seem to be among couples. I could check to make sure.”

My breath hitched and everyone’s head swiveled in my direction. “Love,” I said.

“What?” Alex asked.

“I think the connection is love.” I thought about Jas stumbling in the College Center, and looking like she was going to be sick when Zach came to pick her up from Emil’s house. Her health always seemed worse when she was around Zach. “The people getting sick are all part of a couple.”

Emil nodded a few times like he was making connections. “There are different levels of love—friendship, romantic, soul mate—but they all have energy. If someone found a way to harness that and draw from the bonds, it could make people sick.” He paused, a worried frown creasing his face. “The person drawing from those bonds would have immense power.”

Alex leaned forward in his chair. “Who would do that?”

“The Daevos,” I offered. “Caleb said the Daevos wanted more power. Maybe he wasn’t the only one experimenting?”

Simon’s face was tight with anger. “Even more reason to take the Daevos out! Not only are they taking Trackers, they’re hurting the souls the Amaranthine Society is supposed to protect!”

Alex met Simon’s eyes and held them. “We don’t know it’s the Daevos for sure, yet.”

“How much more proof do you need?” Simon yelled.

Alex shook his head. “You can’t sentence every Daevos member, Simon. It could be one Clan, or even one person. We can’t execute them all, and it’s not our place to judge them. We need more information.”

“No—” Simon started.

Alex put his hand up to interrupt Simon. “If that’s what is really happening, I want a fight as much as you, Simon. But we need to know who to fight first.”

Simon was breathing fast, his anger pulsing a vein at his neck.

“Emil,” Alex said, stress evident in his tone, “can you find out if the Daevos have also noticed the sickness and Tracker link? And if disappearing memories has been happening when the Daevos take souls, too?”

“I’ll go,” Tate said.

Emil nodded a thank you.

“In the meantime,” Alex said, “Simon and I will talk to the Amaranthine. I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. If this is really happening, we need to put a stop to it now.”

On that, we were all in agreement.