Winter raised an eyebrow at her. “Is that all?”

  She smiled a little. “You won’t just be any guest, Winter—you’ll be the personal invite of Eli Morrison’s daughter, the most precious person in the world to him. You’ll likely be seated beside her and her father at dinner every night and invited to every private party after the main events. That kind of opportunity doesn’t come around every day.”

  Winter leaned back against the seat. “No, thanks,” he said.

  The woman narrowed her eyes at him. “Mr. Young, I am asking you to think this through.”

  “I am thinking it through, and now I have finished thinking it through. The answer is still no.”

  “Mr. Young—”

  Winter looked at the window. “Stop the car and let me out.”

  Sauda stared calmly at him, as if she knew this would be his response. “A butterfly flaps its wings and changes the world.” Her voice softened. “Your brother. Artemis Young. Peace Corps, right?”

  Winter froze, all sarcasm leaking out of him. “Careful there,” he said quietly. “Now you’re treading on some dangerous ground.”

  “He talked a lot about you to his colleagues,” she told him. “That he was proud of you, but that you were always searching for something bigger than what you had, some purpose, some reason to be worthy. I suspect that even now, as renowned as you are, you feel like you haven’t found it.”

  Winter could hear the words as if they had been said by Artie himself. And suddenly, he could see a ghost of his brother sitting in the car, too, leaning back against the seat and regarding him with an easy smile. To his frustration, he could feel moisture welling at the corners of his eyes, his throat tightening against his will.

  “Why are you digging up info on my brother?” Winter said, his voice hoarse.

  “Because I assume there’s a lot you don’t know about him,” Sauda answered, “or how he died. And that you’d probably like to know.”

  The world seemed to tilt. The night outside the car looked hazy.

  “Artie died during a Peace Corps assignment in Bolivia,” he said slowly.

  “Did he?” Sauda replied.

  His heart started to pound. “Am I wrong?” he asked.

  Sauda’s expression looked gentler now. “This isn’t the time or place to tell you everything. And maybe you don’t want to know. If that’s truly the case, then just say the word, and I will have you dropped at your hotel, no more questions asked.” She nodded. “But if you want to know, you’ll need to sign some paperwork with us. And to do that, you may want to consider my offer to you.”

  Nothing made sense anymore. Winter’s hands tingled; his limbs felt numb. Artie, who had always fought for something bigger than himself, who had never talked about what he did. Winter felt like he was in some sort of waking nightmare, hearing about a version of his brother distorted through a circus mirror.

  What if Sauda was telling the truth? What had really happened to Artie? How much did he not know? Why did Sauda know? Winter wanted to scream the questions at her, demand that she tell him what she was purposely withholding. His hands shook with restraint—his breath came out shallow and uneven, and his tears threatened to spill over.

  Embarrassed, Winter wiped his eyes impatiently and scowled at Sauda. “Using my brother against me is a pretty low blow.”

  Sauda looked unfazed. “I’m only doing my job. Nothing personal.”

  “It’s always personal.”

  “It’s for a greater good.” Sauda tilted her head. “Something I know you think about constantly.”

  Winter scoffed and looked away, heart stretched tight. “I’m just an entertainer,” he muttered.

  “You’re our perfect spy.”

  Winter’s frustration spiked. “I am the literal opposite of a spy,” he snapped. “You understand that, right?” He waved a hand at her. “Isn’t the entire point of your work to stay in the shadows, to never be recognized for what you do?”

  “It’s the most thankless job,” Sauda agreed.

  “Well, my entire career revolves around being recognized.”

  Sauda leaned toward him. An intense light illuminated her gaze. “What is a mission but a performance? You know how to make a scene, how to get people to look where you want them to look. You know how to work a crowd, to pivot in the moment when something goes wrong, and to transform your entire personality depending on your audience. You know how to lie on a whim. Best of all, no one will suspect you. That’s the beauty of being an unconventional spy.” She tapped her temple with one finger, the nail spring green. “Let yourself think bravely, Winter Young. You may presume that you belong in the spotlight and I operate in a secret world, but perhaps we exist in the same place.”

  Winter swallowed hard. “I can’t do this,” he whispered.

  “You’ve been staring at all the success in your life and wondering why any of it matters. You spend your nights awake, feeling grateful and guilty for your fans, wondering if you’re worthy.” Sauda leaned toward him. “I know you want to do good. To be good.”

  “I’m not my brother,” he muttered.

  “You have his heart.” She tapped her chest with a finger. “You’re searching for something. Validation, maybe.”

  “And you think I’m going to find that by working for you,” he said coldly.

  “I think you might find satisfaction in knowing that you can use your considerable stardom for justice, yes.” Sauda smiled a little, and behind that smile was something tragic. “Maybe doing a thankless good deed for a change is exactly what you’re looking for.”

  Winter didn’t answer for a moment. He stared at the rhythm of light and shadow moving through the car.

  “I hope you’re not expecting me to kill anyone,” he finally muttered.

  A hint of amusement touched her lips. She sat back. “No murders required, I promise. Now, Morrison will undoubtedly require that you use his own technicians to set up the stage for you. You will be restricted from bringing most of your own backup dancers and crew. But we can install one of our own agents with you to masquerade as your bodyguard. I already have the perfect person in mind.”

  “That so?”

  “We call her the Jackal.”

  Winter lifted an eyebrow. “She sounds nice.”

  “She’s not,” Sauda replied, just as dryly. “But she’s very good at her job.”

  A Panacea agent for a bodyguard. A limited number of his own people with him. This had to be a dream. He would jolt awake in his hotel bed, drenched in sweat, the images of this woman and this car already fading from his mind. It was all madness—why did he need to do any of this? He had a wildly successful life on paper. He could simply go back to it without agreeing to these agents’ demands. Could just force himself to forget what this stranger just told him about Artie. Nothing would bring him back, anyway.

  “You don’t have to agree to the mission right now,” Sauda said quietly, studying his expression. “You just need to be interested in hearing more.”

  Just interested in hearing more.

  Winter felt himself dangling over a precipice with a blindfold on, struggling to see beyond it. He felt that eternal restlessness in him awakening, insatiable and ravenous.

  A thankless good deed.

  “I want my mother protected,” Winter finally said.

  “Done.”

  “And if any of my staff and crew are coming with me, they better be guarded.”

  “They will be.”

  “And I want a nice car.”

  “We can start you off with a Mazda.”

  Well, it was worth a try. Winter stared at her calm, collected face. How did these people do this job? How could you stay in the shadows of the world, day in and day out, doing things that others would never see?

  “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” Winter said.

  “It’s possible.”

  Winter sighed. “How do I hear more?”

  “Sign a contract, of course,” Sauda replied. “Obviously this entire conversation is strictly confidential. You will be bound to that until such time as we feel otherwise.”

  Winter pursed his lips. “Contracts. Finally, something I understand.”

  “Then you’ll do great with us.” She smiled. “Welcome to the Panacea Group, Mr. Young.”

  3

  The Jackal

  Sydney Cossette got the call shortly after she stepped away from the bus stop across from her apartment complex, backpack bouncing, her messy blond bob blowing haphazardly in the breeze. The street was wet with drizzle and clogged with parked cars, and she made her way through them, squeezing between a van and a black sedan to reach the curb on the other side. Her lungs still hurt from her kickboxing session. She’d pushed them a little harder than she should have.

  The news ticker along the top of the bus stop was running frantically. All week, it had been broadcasting the same headlines as the billboard screens near her home.

  WINTER YOUNG TANTALIZES AGAIN ON STAGE

  INTERNATIONAL SENSATION WINTER YOUNG’S NEW ALBUM

  DEBUTS AT #1 IN STAGGERING 70 COUNTRIES

  WINTER YOUNG SURPRISES WITH AN UNCONVENTIONAL SHOW,

  SETTING BAR HIGH FOR UPCOMING WORLD TOUR

  Sydney squinted in the rain and muttered a swear in Portuguese under her breath. She wasn’t Portuguese, but she absorbed languages like Winter Young collected Grammys and found herself picking out certain ones to use on certain days based on her mood.

  Today was a Portuguese day.

  Puta que pariu, she thought now. Millions of people were suffering all around the world from one catastrophe or another, but this had been the top headline on every news service for the past week? As she looked on, the billboards near her complex played videos of Winter Young—some of him from the middle of his last performance, others of him scribbling his autograph on posters for fans. Still another played a clip from a recent interview.

  Are you aware of just how famous you’ve become in the last few years? said the subtitles for the interviewer.

  Winter smiled coyly. I don’t know, he replied. Am I?

  Sydney rolled her eyes.

  He was cute, sure. Stunningly beautiful, if she cared to admit it. Sydney appreciated thick lashes and a pretty mouth just like anyone else. And sure, his music was unconventional—the use of Chinese drums with hip-hop, for instance. A unique sound that had allowed him to sweep last year’s Grammys and inspired a hundred imitators and even a subgenre of music that people affectionately called Winterpunk. She and the rest of the world had seen him in some of the most breathtaking outfits ever to grace a stage—sometimes he danced in black leather draped in silver, sometimes in silks like a goddamn fairy prince, and one time in a gold business suit that was quite literally on fire.

  The boy loved to put on a show. He was born for the stage, that was for sure.

  But as Sydney stepped into the warmth of her complex’s lobby, she let herself take some halfhearted guesses at what Winter must be like: gorgeous and fully aware of it, maybe a shameless flirt, probably an asshole. She could see it in the smirk on his lips and the way he tilted his head, like he knew a secret about you. He was the kind of boy who probably barked demands and expected them done, and probably didn’t care by who. The kind of boy who could point to anyone in a crowd of his screaming fans and have himself a new fling.

  It wasn’t that she begrudged him his lifestyle. But musicians were the worst kind of celebrity. She’d had to shadow one once on a mission, and it’d been the longest forty-eight hours of her life. The spontaneous tantrums. The inability to function without an assistant. Treating her like an assistant. The incessant humming. She’d given Panacea an earful about it afterward. All that energy musicians fed off while onstage went straight to their heads and clogged the arteries. They loved excusing their behavior in the name of art.

  Her lungs trembled in another small spasm of pain, and she winced, annoyed. “Enough already,” she muttered at the billboards in the distance. The sooner the media stopped reporting every last detail about him, the sooner the world could get on with something more important.

  Today the front desk had put out a new display—an assortment of glass décor and a cup of pens, a bouquet for the picking. Her eyes caught on the figurines dotting the counter as Sydney flexed her hands, both of them still wrapped in white cloth from her kickboxing training session.

  The young man at the desk smiled when he noticed her. “Good afternoon, Miss Madden.” Not her real name.

  She gave him a flirtatious smile, eyes twinkling. “Hey there, George.”

  He blushed, his gaze following her. She fought the itch to walk up to the desk and toy with him, then when he wasn’t looking, slide one of those glass figurines into her pocket. It’d be so easy. She wouldn’t keep the figurine, of course—she tended to either toss or sell what she stole—but the thrill was in the taking, not the hoarding.

  Even after years of training and therapy, the urge to shoplift was always there in the corner of her mind. At least she’d gotten much better at resisting it, though, and today, she turned her eyes away from the figurines and toward the elevators.

  “See you around,” she called to George in a singsong voice.

  “See you,” came his answer, always a tiny note of hope in it that she’d ask him out or invite him upstairs.

  At the elevators, she punched in her code by the doors and headed up. Minutes later, she arrived on her floor, headed to her apartment, and stepped inside.

  For a nineteen-year-old, she was paid well: upper five figures, with more promised once she got promoted to full agent. The apartment was nice, too, as a result—a tidy, one-bedroom place with a little balcony that led out to a view of Seattle’s gorgeous skyline. A thousand times better than the dump she grew up in.

  But the inside was sparsely decorated, with the look of a place that could belong to anyone. No portraits on the walls, no personal items on display, no photo albums on the shelves. If someone broke in and ransacked the place, they would find nothing revealing about Sydney in the generic books on her coffee table or the menus from chain restaurants on her fridge. They would find no discernible personality in her closet full of clothes that could be in any girl’s wardrobe. They would find no valuable jewelry, no evidence of hobbies outside of a subscription to the New York Times (all put in a neat stack on the kitchen counter, unread), no knickknacks from vacations, no family heirlooms or keepsakes. No part of her heart left exposed anywhere.

  It made her feel safe. She was the kind of person that every intelligence agency wanted: devastatingly smart, good at keeping secrets, and with no family or personal attachments to speak of—at least, no one that wasn’t estranged. Sydney Cossette walked alone through the world, and she liked it that way.

  She headed to the fridge and started pulling ingredients out for a sandwich. Deli ham, American cheese, white bread. That was generic, too, but there was a piece of her heart hidden in there. She used to hate sandwiches because she’d eaten so many of them at the hospital’s cafeteria whenever she used to visit her mother. Afterward, though, Sydney had gotten into the habit of making herself sandwiches whenever she needed some comfort. At the very least, it made her feel like she had some control over her life.

  As she went into the kitchen and pulled sandwich ingredients out from her fridge, a notification popped up on her phone.

  Incoming Call

  Unknown

  Sydney knew, of course, that the call must be from Niall O’Sullivan. She stared at it for a moment. Panacea had given her a week off after a particularly exasperating assignment looking after a whiny criminal turned informant—and yet here they were, pinging her three days in.

  She stepped out of the apartment and onto the balcony overlooking the harbor. There, she leaned against the railing and stared out at the empty bus stop she’d come from earlier. At least her lungs felt a little better now, and she could breathe again without wincing.

  “Nani?” she said in Japanese.

  “Stop it, Syd.”

  She switched to English. “And here I thought you were going to give me a real holiday, boss.”

  “Like you were doing anything fun with your downtime.”

  “You don’t know that. I could be lying on a beach in Cabo.”

  “And are you lying on a beach in Cabo?”

  For a second, Sydney considered pulling up a random video with the sounds of ocean waves. “I’m sure you know exactly where I am and what I’m doing,” she muttered, glancing up briefly at the sky, half expecting to see a tiny drone watching her. “Isn’t that our specialty?”

  “For someone only two years in the field, you’re particularly mouthy.”

  “Forgive me. I’m a child. What’s up?”

  “A mission, of course.”

  “Don’t tell me I’m going to spend another week babysitting a minor suspect.”

  “Oh, believe me, it’s much worse than that.”

  “Is that so?” she said. “Sounds worthy of my time.”

  “But if you succeed at this mission, not only will you be promoted, but you’ll receive a healthy bonus.”

  Promotion. That caught her attention. “Full undercover operative? You’re sending me overseas again? I still need a new passport after Moscow last year.”

  “Don’t get too excited. I still question whether I should’ve hired you at all.”

  Sydney couldn’t help smiling. She’d never heard Niall sound happy about any of Panacea’s missions—the analyst seemed to believe everything was always a terrible idea. She’d started to think of his grumpy rumble on the phone as good luck.

  “You know you’re thankful every day for hiring me,” she replied sweetly.

  He just grunted. It was by sheer chance that Niall had visited her high school campus while reluctantly accompanying a CIA recruiter and seen her pick her way through a set of locked gym doors to steal some of the school’s boxing equipment. When he’d confronted her, she’d tried to convince him that she couldn’t speak English well, blurting out a paragraph in Russian so smoothly that he’d almost believed it was her native language.