That sobered them all, and Neil and Angeline nodded in grim acceptance. Marcus’s phone rang, and he stepped aside to answer it. While he conferred with one of his contacts, Trey said, “Oh, hey. I meant to tell you. Some girl stopped by yesterday looking for you and Sydney.”

“Both of us?” I asked in surprise. There weren’t many people who treated us as a duo.

“She mostly seemed interested in Sydney but would’ve accepted you too. She was human,” he added, guessing my next question. “Blonde. Glasses. No one I’d ever seen.”

It was no one I could think of either. The only human who might have an interest in both Sydney and me was Rowena, and she had teal hair (last I knew), not to mention my phone number if she really needed to get in touch. “She didn’t say anything else?” I asked. “Why she wanted us? Who she was?”

“Nope. She just said she was an old friend who wanted to catch up. When I told her I didn’t know where you were, she looked so disappointed that I offered to pass on a message if I heard from you. She said no, used the bathroom, and left with hardly another word.”

“No lily tattoo?” I asked pointedly.

Trey scoffed. “You think I didn’t look? I would’ve noticed that for sure. If she had one, it was covered up.”

I had no answers about the mystery visitor, and Marcus’s return soon pulled my mind elsewhere. Excitement practically radiated off him. “Remember when I said we might get lucky?” he asked. “We did. Death Valley. I got it confirmed. I mean, the actual location within that area still has to be verified, but it looks like we know where we’re headed tomorrow.”

“Trey and I will meet you there,” said Eddie swiftly.

“You can finish your exams,” Marcus told him. “It’ll take a couple of days to plan and get all our intel. Like I said, we have to find the place, let alone figure out how to get into it.”

Death Valley. Less than five hours from Palm Springs. I knew Marcus was right—that there really was no way I could’ve known Sydney was there—but it was still a hard thing to accept. So close, I thought. So close this entire time. Equally maddening was that although this was a huge leap in information for us, we were still powerless to act yet. The best we could do was finish coordinating with Eddie and Trey before Amberwood’s curfew split the guys and girls up for the night. When we finally logged off, Marcus made a couple more calls and then stifled a yawn.

“I’ve got to get some rest,” he said, heading for one of the double beds in the room. “Keep the TV on if you want. I can sleep through anything. I’ve learned to take advantage of solid sleeping conditions when I get them.”

I didn’t doubt it after his years on the run, but I still turned the volume off and just watched the pictures as I sprawled out on my own bed and tried to make contact with Sydney. It was past the time she normally went to sleep, but I didn’t reach her, presumably because she was off on whatever other secret errand she’d wanted to take care of tonight. TV without sound turned out to be pretty boring, and I nearly drifted off twice before finding a channel with closed captions that I could read along with. I watched it for a good part of the night, fighting sleep as I continued to make periodic checks for Sydney. The last thing I remembered was a talk show around four in the morning . . .

. . . and then I was waking to sunlight streaming in the room as Marcus emerged from the bathroom.

“Good morning,” he said. “Ready to hit the road?”

“I . . .” I stared around stupidly, trying to piece together what had happened. “I fell asleep.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Before you talked to Sydney?”

“Yeah, but I mean, it wasn’t for lack of trying. . . . I tried a dozen times to connect to her. It didn’t work.”

“Maybe she went to bed late,” he said.

“After four?” Even with the previous night’s secret errand, I’d finally connected with her before one. “I’m worried she never went to sleep.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Actually, no,” I said. “At least if it was by choice because she was doing her errands. What would be a problem is if she was asleep . . . and blocked from me again.”

CHAPTER 15

SYDNEY

TIME WOULDN’T ALLOW ME to charm all the syringes at once, seeing as I could only do it in my rare moments of privacy. I managed five at first and distributed them to Emma and the select few Emma thought we could trust.

I felt emboldened after Adrian had told me he’d gotten Keith’s address from Carly, and I couldn’t wait to talk to him tonight about further progress. Knowing he and Marcus were advancing toward their goals drove home the importance of dealing with the “emergency protocol” situation as soon as possible. Equally pressing was knowing I would make the most progress if my stolen ID card was still working. For all I knew, once that guy reported he’d lost it, the Alchemists would disable it, and sabotaging an entire system was going to be difficult if I couldn’t even use the elevator. I needed to act fast.

Emma was impressed to hear I’d been in the operations room but had little help to offer with the larger problem. “The gas controls weren’t there?”

“The controls were,” I said. “Including the power to render us all unconscious at once, anytime and anyplace. But I need access to its more basic parts—like where the gas comes from in the first place. How it gets into those pipes in the ventilation system.”

She shook her head, looking legitimately sorry she couldn’t help. “I have no idea. I don’t know anyone who would.”

I did, and I brought it up with Duncan later in art class. Whereas Emma had been perplexed by my inquiries, Duncan was shocked. “No, Sydney, stop. This is crazy. Bad enough you disabled it in your room! The entire floor? That’s madness.”

We were still working on clay bowls, our assignment now being to make a set of identical ones, which went right along with the Alchemist ideology of conformity. “What’s madness is that with a push of a button, they can knock us all out within seconds.”

“So?” he asked. “They’d only do that if there was a revolt or something. No one’s that stupid.” When I said nothing, his eyes widened. “Sydney!”

“What, are you saying you want to stay here forever?” I demanded.