“...and there shouldn’t be any problems provided that none of the corpses are too wet to burn, right?”

“Right,” I mumbled absent-mindedly, chewing on my lower lip as my eyes danced over the computer monitors.

Cheri heaved a sigh, leaning over to flick me on the forehead. I blinked in surprise, snapped out of my trance by the small, sharp contact. I frowned at the Tryhard Club’s newest member, rubbing ruefully at the spot where she’d flicked me. It wasn’t much, but it had felt like she’d put some magic into it, like a little spark of electricity had jolted through me at the contact.

“You’re not listening to me,” she accused.

In honesty, I hadn’t been. The first leg of the operation was where we had the highest chance for something to go horribly wrong, and as the person minding the monitors where everyone’s camera feeds were being streamed, it fell to me to make sure any unforeseen variables were noticed and addressed as quickly as possible. The ominous message we’d discovered on the wall of the Clubhouse last weekend hadn’t helped either. Between the chance that something awful might befall the people under my care if I let my guard down, and the new detail that our resident fugitive had someone sneaky and vaguely threatening haunting her footsteps, I was having a hard time relaxing enough to enjoy the company of my friends.

“I was so,” I lied, glancing at Cheri for a moment before my attention was drawn back to the screen. Roman’s part of the initial operation was to keep tabs on Julia, who was currently enjoying a caramel latte at a fancy cafe downtown, courtesy of one of her cronies no doubt. Julia had stood from the table around which her little clique was clustered, sending a note of shock coursing through my brain, but from the direction she was walking it seemed likely that she was headed to the restroom.

“Oh, so you’ve changed your position on drowning them and immolating their bodies to a fine ash to hide the evidence?”

I leaned back in the desk chair. My room in the Clubhouse had been emptied out, most of the furniture going into storage to accommodate the space required by two computers and four separate monitors, which I’d been staring at for the better part of the day. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands.

“Sorry, Cheri,” I said eventually. Considering that she was the one being directly threatened by an as-yet-unknown machete-wielding stalker, the least I could do would be to follow her example. She’d seemed the least concerned when we discovered the grisly message, and even now there was barely a sign that she even remembered. “There’s just so many ways this can go wrong. I’m living in a hundred different worst-case-scenarios right now.”

“Worrying about the odds rarely improves them,” Cheri said, affecting a deep, masculine voice, like she was mimicking someone she knew. It was something she did frequently, I was coming to realize. It was clear she’d had at least one mentor in her life that she really believed in. We rarely got through a conversation about magic or wizards without her quoting something.

“Wise beyond your years,” I murmured, a smile touching my face as I turned my attention to Tyler’s portion of the operation. At the current moment, he was standing watch outside the locker room at the school’s gymnasium. 

Jay had spent the better part of the previous week of school making loud, intentionally overheard comments about Augustus and his physical abilities. The wizard, though brutish and repulsive, was pretty athletic and fiercely competitive, so it took very little time and even less nuance to draw him into a confrontation. Jay had challenged him to a one-on-one game of basketball, a pastime that Augustus had been investing a lot of time in since coming to Haden High. It apparently bore similarities to some sport in Avalon, as Augustus was picking it up quickly, but Jay didn’t need to win, only stall.

Not that I expected him to lose.

The plan was originally for Tyler to sneak into the locker room while Augustus was distracted, but a surprise addition to the plan had presented an even more appropriate opportunity.

“Am I clear?” The voice came through my earpiece, quiet and calm. It was impressive and concerning at the same time, that Adela operated so easily under these conditions, but the composure she’d shown during the few interactions we’d had so far didn’t seem to buckle under pressure. Adela had approached Roman halfway through the week, asking to be brought to the Clubhouse, and the boy brought her along enthusiastically. She’d seemed less than intrigued by the explanation of our usual activities, and little more than slightly surprised when we’d introduced Cheri, but when Roman brought up the plan to get back at the exchange students she’d lit up.

When told that Tyler’s current role involved him sneaking into the men’s locker room and breaking open Augustus’ locker to steal the card he used to access the domicile, Adela had objected. It was too obtrusive, she’d asserted, to steal something from the wizard in such an instantly detectable fashion. I agreed with her, of course, but there wasn’t any real alternative. The three senior members of the Club could pick locks, but the locker room used old-fashioned combination padlocks. As a result, instead of subtlety, we’d had to build the plan around speed. A quick extraction, a well-timed handoff of the access card, and an even faster infiltration. Once we had the Ledger, I’d reasoned, we wouldn’t have any reason to be subtle anymore. We’d hold all the cards.

Adela’s introduction to the plan had offered us a little more leeway. According to her claim, she could crack the combination locks in little more than five minutes, though she’d leveled her silent glare at me when I asked her how or where she’d learned. Not that I was complaining. Tyler had been switched to lookout, and the girl held true to her word.

From his position in the bleachers, Tyler could see the small hallway that split left and right to either locker room, as well as the ongoing match between Jay and Augustus. The two were still going at it, Augustus making aggressive, strenuous movements while Jay paced himself, feigning difficulty making it past the tall wizard’s defense. It was pretty entertaining, how well the ruse was holding. Augustus had a confident sneer on his face as Jay probed him. He would dart forward, delaying what were normally almost clinically exact movements just long enough to let Augustus get in his way, prompting a slow retreat. While his opponent was red in the face, exulting in the exertion but still clearly pushing himself, Jay wasn’t even breathing hard, not a drop of sweat on him. With the slow, consistent rate at which Jay allowed Augustus to steal the ball and score a point on him before returning to his patient clock-running, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he could have kept Augustus busy for the better part of the day.

The coach of the basketball team was having a hard time spectating. Jay was one of his favorites, from the handful of seasons when my athletic friend had actually been on the team, and his frustration with Jay’s slow progress towards defeat was painfully evident. Tyler had instructions to stage a distraction at the far end of the gym if Adela needed the extra cover to leave the locker room, but with the spectacle the coach was making, jumping up and down at the sidelines howling summarily ignored advice, I imagined Adela could have skateboarded out of the locker room wearing an inflatable T-rex suit and avoided notice.

“All clear,” I responded. As soon as the words had left my mouth, the door to the locker room cracked open and Adela slid out. She was wearing a heavy jacket and a few extra layers, which did a decent job disguising her generally feminine shape, and her long hair was bundled up beneath a baseball cap, the brim pulled low over her face. A duffel bag with the strap thrown over one shoulder completed the ensemble. To anyone who was paying more attention to the locker room than the wizard versus Mundane grudge match happening on the court, Adela was just another student heading home after changing back into street clothes.

That didn’t stop me from holding my breath until she’d paced slowly out of the gym. Jay even went the extra mile, circling around the court in time with Adela’s movements to keep Augustus’ back to the retreating girl. I let out an explosive sigh of relief as the door to the gymnasium slammed shut behind her, barely remembering to mute the microphone in time to avoid deafening my operatives with the sound of the tension flooding out of me.

“Watch her back, Tyler,” I said after taking a moment to revel in the feeling that we might not be fated for disaster. “Walk her to Marika.”

Marika was waiting in her dad’s SUV, parked in the senior lot with the engine running. Once Adela dropped off the duffel bag with the access card in it, Marika would drive to the hotel where the exchange students were situated, park around the block, and begin her infiltration from there. 

Tyler shadowed Adela as she made her way to the hallway leading to the front doors. She’d removed the baseball cap and shed the outermost jacket in the time between her exiting and Tyler getting eyes on her again, which would help throw anyone who had seen her leave the locker room off the trail. I was once again slightly concerned with how easily she seemed to fall into the role she was playing. Her cold, withdrawn demeanor might be indicative of an abusive upbringing, and despite her young age it was possible she’d been involved with a gang at some point, which would help explain her proficiency at this type of illicit activity. Still, it would probably be better to ask her about it sooner rather than later.

I hissed through my teeth as trouble reared its head for the first time. My idle curiosity about Adela’s past and my thrice-damned relaxed demeanor had resulted in me failing to notice Heinrich Sommer approaching Adela from the hallway that led to the administration wing. The tall Asgardian boy, though I felt the word “boy” lost a lot of its meaning when it was applied to someone nearly seven feet tall and three feet wide at the shoulders. As per the usual, he was dressed impeccably, wearing khaki pants and a dress shirt that looked like it had been ordered at the largest available size and was still practically bursting at the seams.

He was moving casually, hands in his pockets and his head down, but from Tyler’s slightly removed point of view, it was obvious to tell that he was moving to intercept Adela.

“Tyler,” I said, “you need to stop Heinrich. Distract him.”

I hated the alarm in my voice, knowing that it would only put more pressure on my brother, but there wasn’t anything for it. He needed to act, now.

“What...what do I say?” Tyler asked as he strode forward in an attempt to cross Heinrich’s path before the wizard crossed Adela’s. I could see that he was going to be too late. Hesitation and fear warped the edges of his words, and even as I inwardly condemned his lack of commitment, I recognized how exceedingly ordinary a thing it was. Tyler was just barely fourteen years old. To expect him to have the spine to instantly throw himself in the path of Heinrich’s intimidating form while simultaneously thinking of what to say and do afterward was expecting far too much. I wasn’t sure how I would have handled it.

The gargantuan wizard seized Adela by the wrist as the girl was reaching out to pull open the inner door of the atrium. Even as my mind raced to produce a solution, one presented itself. 

A veritable crowd of students had entered the atrium from the outside, around twenty students by my estimation. Heinrich attempted to pull Adela out of their path, but the girl resisted. I’d seen him lift a varsity linebacker with one arm like he was hefting a sack of groceries, but he seemed reluctant to haul on Adela’s wrist with his magical strength, which made sense. I imagined very few things were worse for public image than having what was effectively a diplomat rip the arm off a schoolgirl. 

The tide of bodies jostled the pair as the students flowed around them, and I briefly lost sight of Adela, though Heinrich stood head and shoulders taller than most of the taller students in the school. A tense handful of seconds passed where Adela was out of sight.

The crowd of students slowly dissipated, many of them passing by Tyler to where Augustus and Jay’s one-on-one had apparently gathered attention. When there was enough space in the hallway to see by once more, I chuckled softly.

Heinrich stood alone in front of the pair of doors, frustration plastered across his face. Adela was gone, and in the parking lot beyond them, a black SUV pulled out of the parking lot.

Marika’s voice sounded in my ear.

“Another brilliant save, courtesy of the Tryhard Secretary.”

I scoffed. “When was the last time you actually took minutes, Secretary?”

“Whatever,” she answered in sing-song. “You owe each of those kids ten bucks, by the way.”

It was a good thing she didn’t have a camera on me. I didn’t want her to see the relieved grin I had on my face, even as I winced inwardly at the estimated sum. Still, if I could guarantee the success of the operation with only money lost, I’d empty out my savings in a heartbeat.

Tyler was retreating to the gymnasium along with the flood of incoming students, though I doubted if Heinrich would have stopped him if the boy had walked past him out the door. Now, provided that none of the exchange students was struck with a sudden case of homesickness, Marika should make it to the domicile with plenty of time to get into Julia’s room and find her Ledger. We’d intentionally scheduled the operation for Friday, to take advantage of the release of restless energy that even wizards seemed to indulge in after a long week of school.

“We’ve got a problem,” Cheri said, ruining what had almost been a truly luxuriant victory stretch.

Marika groaned. “I knew we shouldn’t have left you with Emily. She’s rubbing off on you.”

I muted the microphone, my eyes dancing over the monitors. Julia had returned to her seat, and Roman was back in the bleachers watching Jay and Augustus. It looked like Heinrich had left, but even if he somehow suspected that something was going down at the domicile, none of the exchange students had personal vehicles, I’d made sure of it. Julia occasionally used one of her poor slaves to ride back and forth, but the rest of the visiting wizards either bussed or walked to school.

“There’s no way he could get to the domicile before Marika does,” I said, more to myself than to Cheri, but my gut began to sink in dread even as the words left my mouth.

“How far away is it, exactly?”

I thought for a moment, trying to put the distances together in my mind. “Something like six miles?”

Cheri frowned. “If I remember correctly, his top running speed was clocked at a little under forty miles an hour. So-”

“Jesus Christ,” I hissed, unmuting the microphone. “Marika, you need to step on it. Heinrich’s headed to the domicile.”

“So?” came the response.

“He’ll be there in around ten minutes.”

“You said he didn’t have a car!”

“Marika, he’s running.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the connection. When she spoke again, there wasn’t any of her normal bluster, just a quiet concern.

“I think we’re humped, Em.”

I muted the microphone again, my mind racing. If Cheri hadn’t been sitting next to me, I’d have probably hit something. Fucking wizards. This was step one, for crying out loud. Was this a sign? Were we truly so doomed from the get-go, trying to beat magic without having magic of our…

My train of thought de-railed as I glanced at Cheri. The girl’s brow was furrowed in concern, and she looked like she was searching for something encouraging to quote. Her eyes widened in surprise as my face lit up, and she made a small squeaking noise as I rounded on her, grabbing her by the shoulders with an almost crazed laugh.

“Cheri,” I said as I shook her back and forth, “You’re a wizard.”

She looked at me like I was deranged, which I guess was understandable.

“Yes, Emily,” she said slowly, “I’m a wizard. Are you feeling okay?”

I nodded emphatically. There was a chance this was still salvageable. I rapped the button on the base of the microphone, probably a little harder than necessary.

“Stay the course, Mari. We’re on our way.”

Marika and Cheri spoke at the same time, one in each of my ears.

“We?”