“What’s going on?” he demanded. “Who is this guy? Is Carly okay?”

“This is my friend, uh, John,” I said, realizing I probably shouldn’t cite the first name of one of the Alchemists’ most wanted renegades. As it was, he’d put on some sort of makeup to cover his indigo tattoo. “And Carly’s totally fine. We just saw her yesterday.”

Keith’s demeanor softened a little. “You . . . you saw her? She’s doing well?”

“Very well,” said Marcus. “She’s the one who gave us your address. She wanted us to come talk to you.”

“S-she did?” Keith’s eyes widened in wonder, which was actually kind of creepy, since one of his eyes was made of glass.

“Sydney’s missing,” I told him. “Carly wants you to help us find her.”

Keith looked genuinely surprised to hear this, then his expression turned to one of wariness. “Missing where?”

“She’s in re-education,” I said bluntly.

“No,” he groaned. “No. I knew I shouldn’t have let you in. I can’t have anything to do with this. I can’t have anything to do with her, not if she’s there.” He closed his eyes and sank to the ground. “Oh, God. They’ll find out you were here and send me back.”

“No one will know,” I said, hoping that was true. Until this moment, I never thought I’d feel pity for Keith. “We just need to know where Sydney is. She’s at the same place you were. Where’s it located?”

He opened his eyes and managed some kind of choking laugh. “You think they told us? They don’t even let us see the sun! We’re lucky to get light of any kind.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

A haunted look crossed Keith’s features. “It’s what happens when you’re in isolation.”

“Sydney’s not in isolation,” I said, not entirely following. “She’s with other people.”

“That’s its own kind of torture,” he said bitterly. “You learn pretty quickly what to do and not do to make your life easier.”

I was kind of itching to get more details, but Marcus pushed us back on track. “Okay, I get that they wouldn’t tell you where you were, but you did leave eventually. You had to come outside that place to get here.”

“Yes. Blindfolded,” Keith said. “I wasn’t allowed to see anything until I was far away from there. And don’t ask me to gauge distances because I have no idea. I was in different cars and planes. . . . I lost track after a while. And honestly, getting back to that place was the last thing on my mind, so I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“But you were conscious,” Marcus reminded him. “You couldn’t see, but you had your other senses. Do you remember anything else? Sounds? Smells?”

Keith started to shake his head, but then I saw a spark of remembrance flash in his eye. He kept his mouth shut, the earlier wariness returning.

“I don’t know if Carly will ever forgive you, even if you help us,” I said quietly. “But I know for a fact she won’t if you’re sitting on information that could help her sister.”

Keith looked as though I’d hit him. “I tried everything,” he murmured. “I begged. I pleaded. I even got down on my knees.”

I realized he was talking about Carly now, not re-education. “Why?” I asked, in spite of myself. “Why do you care now about her forgiveness? Where was your conscience all those years ago? Or any of the years since then?”

“Re-education did it,” he said, staring down at his feet. “I’d never felt so helpless—so hopeless—in my life as I did there. To be completely under someone’s power, with no one to turn to for help, to make someone feel like they’re at fault for you hurting them . . . I realized that was exactly what I’d done to Carly. That hangs over me every day.”

Again, I felt bad for him in a way, though he had no sympathy from me over what he’d done to her. Even I got turned down by girls, and when it happened, I dusted off my ego and moved on. I’d never considered doing what he did. He should’ve known it was wrong before the Alchemists threw him into some mind-control camp. It was all between him and Carly now, and although he did appear legitimately sorry, she would be well within her rights if she let him suffer for the rest of his life.

Spelling that out for him probably wasn’t going to help me with my task here, so I more kindly said, “It’s up to her now. But I know she’ll be grateful if you can offer us anything that might help Sydney. Any detail you remember from when you left re-education.”

Long silence fell, and that seemed to weigh on Keith nearly as much as our coaxing. Finally, he took a deep breath. “It was hot out,” he said. “Hotter than I expected. Even in the middle of the day. I got out in late November and thought it’d be cold. But it wasn’t. It was almost like I was still in Palm Springs.”

I gasped, and Marcus gave me a sharp look before I could jump to some terrible conclusion. “She’s not there. Palm Springs isn’t on the list.” He turned back to Keith. “But when you say it was like that, do you mean it was a dry heat? Desert-like? Not tropical or humid?”

Keith’s brow furrowed. “Dry. For sure.”

“How hot is hot?” pushed Marcus. “What was the temperature?”

“I didn’t really have a thermometer to look at!” exclaimed Keith, growing frustrated.

Marcus was equally impatient. “Then take a guess. A hundred degrees?”

“No . . . not that. But hot for November—at least for me. I grew up in Boston. More like . . . I don’t know. Eighties, I guess.”

My attention was on Marcus now. I secretly hoped he’d suddenly say, “Aha!” and have all the answers. He didn’t, but he did at least look as though this was useful information.

“Anything else you remember?” he asked.

“That’s it,” said Keith morosely. “Will you please go? I’ve been trying to forget that place. I don’t want to go back for helping someone try to find it.”

I met Marcus’s eyes, and he nodded. “Hopefully this’ll be enough,” he said.

We thanked Keith and started toward the door. Considering his insistence on us leaving, I was kind of surprised when he was the one who suddenly said, “Wait. One more thing.”