“We have to try the machines on them, Maddy,” J.B. said. “The life they have now is worse than death.”

“Tell that to the cubs’ mothers,” I said fiercely. “I don’t think one of them would risk their child’s life, even if it is a half life.”

“We won’t try it on the kids first,” J.B. said.

“So you’ll risk some other mother’s son?” I said. “It’s okay if they’re past puberty? I found them. I’m responsible for them. I won’t let you risk their lives needlessly.”

“What do you want me to do?” J.B. said angrily. “We have no way to test the efficacy of the method. We can either try to return the memories or leave these people as they are. That’s not an acceptable option to me.”

Wade put his hand on my shoulder when I would have retorted further. “Madeline Black, you have an admirable respect for life.”

“I see enough death,” I said dully.

“But J.B. is correct. These people have had their lives and minds torn from them. We must at least try to restore them.”

“Will you risk the cubs?” I said, looking up at him.

His eyes were full of sorrow. “Yes. If it will lift the darkness that has fallen over my pack, if it will restore even one child to her mother. Madeline Black, my daughter is one of the cubs that you found.”

Saying “I’m sorry” didn’t seem to be enough. If Wade was really willing to take the chance with his own child’s life, then I couldn’t stand in the way.

“Okay,” I said to Chloe. “Do what you need to do. I’ll find the missing piece that you need.”

I was the last one to leave as we filed out. I passed Beezle to Gabriel and let the door swing shut so that it was only the two of us in the room. Chloe had already returned to her worktable, a headlamp with a magnifying glass attached to it over her eye.

“Don’t try anything unless you are ninety-five percent sure that it’s going to work,” I said to her, and she looked up. “I can’t ask for a hundred percent. I know that’s not possible. But wait until you’re almost sure.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t mess this up. Besides, everyone here knows about you. I’m not going to want Madeline Black pissed off at me.”

She smiled and winked at me. Maybe she just liked winking. I left the room before she said or did anything else unsettling.

J.B. and Gabriel were waiting for me in the hall.

“Where’s Beezle?” I asked.

“He went with Samiel,” Gabriel said. “He prefers the company of my brother.”

“Because Beezle likes to hear himself talk and Samiel can’t talk back,” I said.

“It’ll be easier to get into the nest with just the three of us, anyway,” J.B. said.

I looked at J.B. “Chloe said something weird. She said that I have some kind of…reputation here.”

J.B. looked amused. “You haven’t been spending very much time in the office. You’ve become something of a legend around here. They talk about you like they do the Retrievers—‘If you do something bad, Madeline Black will come and get you.’”

“Great,” I said. “Awesome. I am now a bogeyman for bad Agents.”

Gabriel laughed. “If they had seen you yesterday, they certainly would have believed you a bogeyman.”

“You’ve been spending too much time around Beezle,” I said crossly. “It’s giving you a smart mouth.”

“I do not want to be the only unarmed member of the family,” Gabriel replied.

“You still have a long way to go,” I said as we walked toward the elevator. “Beezle and I have years of practice on you.”

“And I have years to catch up,” Gabriel said, and took my hand.

J.B., Gabriel and I left the Agency and headed west.

“How did you find out about this nest?” I asked J.B.

His eyes slid away from me. “I asked around.”

“Asked who?” I said suspiciously. Then it dawned on me. “You asked one of the seers to tell you about the death of a human at the hands of vampires, didn’t you? J.B., you actually broke the rules?”

Agents are allowed to know the time and place of a death, but that’s about it. We’re not allowed to know what is going to happen or why or how. I’m pretty sure it’s a measure that’s been put in place to prevent us from trying to stop deaths. Like I’ve said before, it can be difficult to stand back sometimes, to let death happen even when you know that it should.

“I had to break the rules,” J.B. said. “We’ve got to find some way to cure these people. So I hid under a veil and followed a vampire after it killed a person.”

I shook my head. “You’re getting wild in your old age, J.B. One of these days you might forget to fill out a form.”

“That will never happen,” he assured me.

“What do we do if this nest doesn’t have any vampires that are using memories?” I asked.

“It had better,” J.B. said. “I’m not asking another seer for information. I could lose my position if anyone found out.”

“How do you know this particular seer will not betray you?” Gabriel asked.

J.B. was silent, and when I looked at him I saw a faint pink tinge on his cheeks. “She, um, likes me.”

I could think of a million things to say in response to that, but I didn’t. Gabriel turned his head away so J.B. wouldn’t see him smile.

We continued west and south until we hit the Ukrainian Village area. J.B. indicated that we should land, and we touched down on the sidewalk in front of a three-flat apartment building.

The snow was piled high in drifts and the sidewalk had been imperfectly shoveled, leaving lots of icy patches. And of course I promptly slipped on one and landed on my butt in a pile of snow. Since I was still wearing the peacoat, my jeans got soaked almost immediately. Luckily no one could see me except J.B. and Gabriel. As long as my wings were out I was still invisible. J.B. was snorting with laughter. Gabriel knew better.

I stood up, dusted snow off my bottom and gave J.B. an evil glare. “I thought that all the Agents were afraid of my wrath.”

“The Agents are. I’m not,” J.B. said. “I’ve seen you come to work in your slippers.”

“Anyway,” I said, not wanting to rehash one of my least favorite moments, “is this the place?”

“Yes,” J.B. said, sobering. “I didn’t have time to do a lot of reconnaissance, so I’m not certain exactly how many of them are in there.”

“But they are all, presumably, asleep,” Gabriel said. “The sun will not go down for at least two more hours.”

“Yeah, but they could have magical defenses in place in case their home is breached,” I said. “Any smart vampire has them; otherwise their enemies could just waltz in the front door while they were sleeping.”

Vampires and goblins don’t have a protective threshold like other creatures. I’m not sure why. It probably had something to do with the concept of “home.” Humans, faeries, and a lot of other supernatural creatures made permanent homes, and a home is a lot more than a space to rest your head. It takes on the essence of the people who live there, who love and laugh and fight and make memories in that space.

Vampires don’t do that. They just…exist. As far as I can tell they pretty much eat and sleep and have sex. So in order for them to be protected during the day, they either needed magical defenses or hired humans to watch over them. The slightly run-down air of the three-flat told me that these vampires could probably not afford to hire help.

The windows were all blocked by blackout shades, so we weren’t going to get any information that way. There was nothing for it except to try to ease through the defenses and hope we didn’t set off any alarms, and I told the other two as much.

“Well, let’s try to find the defenses before we go rushing in,” J.B. said.

We all went silent, each of us drawing on our power. I’d done something like this before when I detected the presence of the portal in the alley that led to Amarantha’s kingdom. I pushed out my magic, spreading it away from me like a cloak of fine mesh, and watched it settle. There were several places where the cloak bulged, and I could see the little flares of magic set at regular intervals around the perimeter of the house.

“Do you see them?” I asked the other two.

They both nodded, frowning.

“But there’s nothing on the second floor,” I said. “Stupid.”

“We’d have to break a window to get in that way,” J.B. said.

I shrugged. “So?”

He sighed. “You’re right.”

“Wow, I never thought I’d hear those two words pass your lips,” I said.

“Let us enter from the back of the building,” Gabriel said. “A passerby may notice if one of the windows seems to be breaking open with no cause.”

We flew around to the back. I took one look at the wooden fire escapes and shook my head. “No way. They’re going to have this area covered.”

I performed the same spell again and noted that the defenses were significantly stronger back here.

“It’s the front or nothing,” I said.

We all looked at one another. Breaking a window in the front definitely increased the risk that attention might be drawn to the house. But it wasn’t as though we had a lot of choice.

Gabriel wouldn’t let me break the window. I let him do it because he was stronger than me and J.B. put together. He swung his arm back and blasted his gloved fist through the glass as if it were water.

The glass made an awful noise, and we all froze except for the slightest flapping of our wings. No one was walking down the street at the moment, so it was unlikely there were any witnesses.

Gabriel cleared the frame of the remaining shards so that we could climb in safely. He swung his leg over the sill and pushed the blackout shade to one side.