Your consonants, she could still remember him lecturing at her.

  She’d just shaken her head innocently at him.

  Don’t aspirate so much, he said. It gives you away. Very well done, though.

  To her surprise, she’d felt a rush of pride at his compliment. After agreeing to not tattle on her, he’d asked her some questions, sussing out the dozen other languages she had picked up on her own, and then whether or not she’d be interested in joining a training program to work for the Panacea Group.

  Is it in tourism or something? she remembered asking.

  Something like that, Niall had replied.

  I don’t care what it is. I’ll do it.

  Excellent.

  But I have one condition.

  Niall had raised an eyebrow, probably amused by a sullen teenager’s demands. Money? he’d asked. We pay our interns well.

  No, she’d answered. A ticket out of this town.

  He’d looked questioningly at her. One way?

  She’d nodded. Tomorrow. Today, if you can.

  She was still grateful that Niall had never once asked about her home situation. Maybe it was because he worked for a spy group and already knew everything there was to know about her. Or maybe it was because he’d recruited before from the kind of run-down town she came from, because he knew those towns were full of people yearning to escape.

  Whatever the reason, he’d said, We can arrange anything.

  She hadn’t believed him. Nor she did understand who we were. But there had indeed been a black car waiting for her outside her driveway by the time she arrived home an hour later. She hadn’t even bothered stepping back inside the house.

  “You sound especially unhappy today,” Sydney now told him. “It must be a very good mission.”

  “Don’t get me started,” Niall replied. “You’re headed to London. We need you to play at being a bodyguard for some parties.”

  “Sounds like babysitting to me. Who’s celebrating?”

  “One Eli Morrison.”

  A tremor of excitement and fear jolted through Sydney at the name. “You’re putting me on a Morrison operation?” she hissed through her teeth.

  “If we do it right, it’ll be the last Morrison operation.”

  Sydney could recall the CIA targeting Eli Morrison at least four times in the past, each a fresh attempt to put the man behind bars, each failing because they couldn’t get close enough or gather enough evidence or were defeated by some high-ranking official secretly in the tycoon’s pocket. Sydney had seen news footage of the man at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new children’s hospital in Hamburg at the same time his operations delivered thirty tons of cocaine through the city’s port; of him shaking hands with France’s president for a photo and then, hours later, hearing intel reports that he’d beaten a hostage to death with a hammer; of him resting in a chair, sipping wine, while his men massacred an entire family at an undisclosed location. He was the kind of man that haunted Sydney’s dreams, the type who understood how to hide his monstrosities behind a good suit and posh accent and powerful friends. The kind who knew how to slip through the cracks.

  “Mission details?” she asked.

  “We have the rare opportunity to get two operatives into his inner circle—and you’re going to be one of them. Morrison needs to see someone he will underestimate, someone he’ll relax around. You’re one of our brightest, kid, and with all due respect, there’s not much on you interesting enough to dig up.”

  “And who am I bodyguarding? Who’s the second operative?”

  Niall hesitated. “He’s a bit famous,” he finally said.

  Her excitement shifted to skepticism. “That so? Anyone I’ve heard of?”

  “Does the name Winter Young ring any bells?”

  Sydney stared blankly, then squeezed her eyes shut. She must not have heard that correctly. The billboards outside her house were still playing videos of his face.

  “Hello? Still there?”

  “You’re sending a pop star as our in?” she said incredulously.

  “Air your grievances to Sauda, not me,” he said with a sigh. “But we’ve never been successful at getting an agent this close to Morrison. Winter Young has been personally invited to put on a private concert for the birthday of Morrison’s daughter, and it’s the best opportunity we’re ever going to get.”

  “No.”

  “I know you hate musicians, but hear me out.”

  “You are putting me on a babysitting mission, aren’t you?”

  “If it helps, we had a chat with him in the car and he seemed pleasant enough, if a little sarcastic.”

  “I can’t wait,” she said.

  “It’s like you two are the same person, really.”

  “And what are we after?”

  “A single piece of evidence. If you succeed in getting it, we can take Morrison down the morning after his daughter’s birthday celebration.”

  Sydney’s gaze settled on the billboards in the distance. A few had gone dark as they prepared to rotate onto other news, but she could still see a faint burn in the screen of the boy’s profile.

  She couldn’t shake the feeling that sending in a pop star for a mission like this was a huge mistake. Eli Morrison wasn’t just a criminal tycoon. Once, he had ordered a hit job on a businessman and left behind nothing but a neat row of limbs for investigators to find. Another time, he’d figured out that one of his crew was a mole solely because of the flowers the man had chosen for a banquet’s centerpieces; the man—and his entire family—had vanished that night. Eli had eyes and ears everywhere. He was the kind of job that required infallible precision. He missed nothing. He had no qualms about killing someone with his own hands. And he always got away with it.

  So the thought of recruiting Winter Young seemed laughable. What had he ever done to qualify himself to face a target like that? Did they even have time to train him? Would he break their cover within five minutes of landing in London? Would he be the reason why Morrison ordered them beheaded? Sydney grimaced at the thought, annoyed that her death might come down to a pop star’s idiocy.

  “Well?” Niall asked. “You want the mission or not?”

  She almost laughed. Niall knew the answer would be yes. Sydney said yes to every mission. She’d fallen into the work like a fish was born able to swallow the ocean. Everything about it—the secrecy, the meticulous planning, the danger, the satisfaction of handing bad people what they deserved—took her one step away from her past and one step forward into her future, where she got to choose her path and what she risked herself for, where she got to be damn good at what she did.

  Her lips tightened. What would this mission mean to Winter? Just some fun and the future perk of being able to brag about working as a spy? If he turned Panacea’s offer down, wouldn’t he just go home to his millions and his careless life of wealth? What if he decided halfway through that he didn’t want to do it anymore, that he wanted out?

  She felt herself bristle again. Sydney said yes to every mission, but that didn’t mean she had to like them.

  “Any day now, Syd,” came Niall’s grumble.

  Sydney turned her eyes away from the billboards.

  “I’m in,” she said.

  “Figured you would be,” Niall replied without a change in his tone. “There’s already a car waiting for you downstairs. Get yourself to headquarters. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  4

  The Panacea Group

  Winter didn’t know what he expected to see at Panacea’s headquarters.

  He’d been picked up at his home inside a gated Los Angeles neighborhood, in a nondescript black car equipped with automated drive, its windows tinted with a false landscape so that no one from the outside could see him in it. He’d been shuttled quietly to a private plane at the airport’s VIP terminal, then touched down in Saint Paul, Minnesota, three hours later.

  None of his usual entourage was with him—no bodyguards, no Claire, no Leo or Dameon, no assistants. Two paparazzi that had decided to camp near the edge of his neighborhood only saw an unrecognizable car leave with no driver inside.

  He hadn’t mentioned a word to Claire about his incident two nights ago. As promised, the agents Sauda and Niall had dropped him off at his hotel after their conversation, and Winter had gotten a minor earful from Claire about leaving the stadium on his own without telling her. He’d eaten dinner with the boys and gone to bed around three A.M. Had woken up two fitful hours later for an early photoshoot, then flown home. Not a mention anywhere.

  Then, at the airport, Claire had texted him to share the news.

  Billionaire Eli Morrison wants you for a private concert, she had exclaimed. Big money! Let’s talk.

  The text confirmed that Winter’s strange meeting in the back of that car hadn’t been a fever dream. The Panacea Group was real. Sauda had really offered to make him a secret agent.

  Winter felt a little bad about keeping a secret from Claire. In all the years they’d been together, he’d told her everything, from the bad to the worst. This time, though, he’d just texted back, Sure.

  The details that Claire gave him afterward matched up with everything Sauda had told him. A daughter who was his biggest fan. A private concert in London. Ten thousand guests flown in on a fleet of planes.

  Afterward, Winter had hung up and then vomited all his nerves out in his bathroom.

  The little sleep he’d gotten since then had been plagued with nightmares about Artie. He sat alone overlooking a black ocean, the lights on the pier all turned off, and sensed a dark silhouette sitting next to him. It felt like Artie, but no matter how hard he tried to make out the person’s features, he couldn’t see anything. And even though he couldn’t remember trying to talk to the silhouette in his dreams, he woke up with a hoarse throat, as if he’d been shouting all night.

  Now he sighed, rubbing his temple, and stared out at the cityscape. Usually he found himself idly composing during the moments of travel in his life, but today, fragments of music flitted in and out of his mind, unable to congeal. None of this felt real. Maybe he hadn’t really woken up at all.

  Finally, an hour later, the car pulled inside a gated entrance and stopped at the back of a building.

  It was the Claremont in downtown, one of the newer luxury hotels in Saint Paul. He stared at the Grecian columns that framed the building’s entrance as he stepped out, then back at the main street beyond the gated entrance he’d passed through, to where other cars were dropping off and picking up passengers from the front of the hotel.

  A young associate was holding the door open for him. A gold pin bearing the hotel’s elaborate crest gleamed on the lapel of her jacket.

  “Hit some traffic, Mr. Young?” she said to him politely as he stepped in.

  “I guess so,” he answered, looking quizzically at her. “How did you…”

  She tapped the watch on her wrist. “The car was sending me updates about your location and road conditions. Follow me, Mr. Young. We don’t want to keep your team waiting.”

  His team. Just not the one he was used to.

  They walked down a serene corridor that opened into the domed atrium of a high-end dining room. Winter noted the restaurant’s name carved into the nearest pillar.

  FOOD FOR THE GODS

  Beyond it was another corridor that led out to the hotel’s main lobby, where he could hear the muffled din of the hotel’s unsuspecting guests.

  This atrium, though, was a place in the hotel set slightly apart from the rest by a gold rope, as if for private events. A massive chandelier hung from its overhead, illuminated by shafts of light coming in from the dome’s curved slivers of glass. Marble pillars lined the walls, and between them, the panels were covered with panoramas of pastoral European scenes. Dining tables and chairs dotted the space, filled with a smattering of well-dressed guests speaking in low voices. The faint scent of sugar and jasmine lingered in the air.

  Winter blinked at the scene. The occasional guest looked up at him, as if gauging who he was—a few even smiled—then returned to their conversations. Winter couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t caused a stir, not even when he went to the grocery store. He had the uncomfortable sensation of being unmoored, of having entered another dimension with no one to lean on but himself. His hand fiddled unconsciously with a leather bracelet around his wrist.

  “This way, Mr. Young,” the associate said, ushering him down another hall branching from the atrium. “You have a private room.”

  At the end of the hall was a metal detector and a security officer. The officer ran them both through the checkpoint—scanning of his bracelets and jewelry, identification checks, a series of basic questions—and then the associate guided him down a branch of the hall until they reached a small elevator. The panel beside it seemed to scan their faces. The elevator’s door slid open with a pleasant ding.

  The associate held a hand out again to Winter. “After you,” she said.

  “Panacea’s located inside a hotel restaurant?” he asked her as the doors closed.

  “A Michelin-starred restaurant,” she corrected, as if slightly offended. She folded her hands behind her back. “Sometimes the best secrets are kept out in the open, Mr. Young. By the way, your phone won’t work in here. Agency equipment only. No location trackers allowed. Sorry.”

  When the elevator opened again, they stepped out into an identical hall—except this time, the associate took an abrupt turn and pushed through a set of double doors. “This way,” she said.

  They headed into a kitchen operating at full capacity. The aroma of butter and roasted garlic filled Winter’s senses. Workers in white aprons and tall hats bustled past him—occasionally they would make eye contact and he would hear his name ripple through the air.

  They turned a corner in the kitchen and came upon a wall lined with massive refrigerators. The associate opened the door to the second fridge.

  Then she stepped inside it.

  Winter froze. Through the refrigerator door was a long hallway, where the associate had now paused to wait for him.

  “Follow me, please,” she said politely, as if this were perfectly normal.

  Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered if Winter had told Claire where he was going—she wouldn’t have believed him anyway. He stepped hesitantly inside. The fridge closed behind him.

  At the end of the hall was another door, where the associate tapped in a code to reveal a long, luxurious corridor similar to the first one they’d entered, populated with what looked like doors of polished oak, each of them bearing a brass knocker in the shape of the hotel’s crest.

  At last, the associate stopped before one of the doors. She rapped once with the knocker, the sound strangely metallic. Only now did Winter realize the door wasn’t made of wood at all, but of solid steel. The door unlocked with a click, and she ushered them both inside.

  “He’s here,” she said, then ducked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  It looked like a fine restaurant’s private dining suite, with its own chandelier hanging from a high ceiling and similar marble columns lining the walls.

  No windows.

  Winter saw three people seated inside before elegantly plated meals. Two of them were Niall and Sauda, the agents that had picked him up in the car outside the stadium. Today Niall wore a stylish suit of deep blue that struggled to contain his big, burly frame, his intense eyebrows and beard trimmed to perfection, while Sauda was dressed from hijab to shoes in a pretty pale green. Their colors stood out against the room’s muted grays. Both of them wore the same gold crest pin on their clothes as the attendant did.

  “Hello,” Niall rumbled, as grumpy as ever.

  “The hotel’s logo is Panacea’s?” Winter asked, his eyes still on the pins.

  “What do you mean?” Sauda said with a smile. “We’re just hotel staff.”

  Winter snorted. As he took note of the room again, he now realized that behind the dining façade was some unusual technology. The walls were fitted, floor to ceiling, with screens. As he stood there, bits of text drifted into existence on the screen nearest to him, spelling out his name and profile.

  Winter Young

  19 Years Old

  Birthplace: Los Angeles, CA, USA

  Ethnicity: Chinese American

  The text went on, displaying everything from his home address to his social security number, from the restaurant he most frequented to the last phone number he’d dialed. His hackles rose.

  Sauda nodded at the screens. “Avalon, our headquarters’ friendly neighborhood AI, just likes to run through the data of all newcomers to the building. But don’t worry. None of this information is new to us.”

  As Winter was debating whether this made him feel better or worse, the text on the screens disappeared, replaced with a single line.

  Good morning, Winter Young! Welcome to Panacea.

  “What if Avalon goes rogue?” Winter said before looking back at the agents.

  “You’ve watched too many movies. Sit down,” Sauda said, waving him toward the table’s empty chair.

  Winter’s stomach rumbled in response. He took a hesitant seat in front of a bamboo steamer of bao, a little dish of gleaming tea eggs, and a bowl of hot porridge, its surface still bubbling gently as if it’d just come from the kitchen.

  “My favorite brunch?” he said, glancing back up at Sauda. Just how much did they know about him?

  “What a coincidence.” Sauda smiled, then glanced at the third, unspeaking person sitting beside her. “I’d like to introduce you to Sydney Cossette. She will be your bodyguard.”

  He turned his attention to her.

  So this was the Jackal, the Panacea agent that they were sending in with him. She was a pale girl with a wavy, blond bob who looked like she must be around his own age, dressed in black jeans and a black bomber jacket with the crest pin on it, her arms folded across her chest.

  At first glance, she seemed like someone who was probably older than their appearance. In fact, if they hadn’t all been sitting in Panacea’s headquarters, he would’ve thought she was one of his former classmates. He would’ve done a double take because she had that kind of face: small and heart-shaped, almost innocently pretty if not for her eyes. Those eyes were what made him hesitate: dark blue and stone cold, brooding underneath a pair of full, furrowed brows that gave Niall’s a run for their money. There was an entire world in there—secrets and knowledge and opinions he didn’t know and was a little afraid to ask about. Five years he’d spent in front of crowds all over the world, and yet somehow her stare unnerved him. She noticed him in a way he wasn’t used to, as if she was methodically memorizing everything about him, as if he were less a person and more a pile of data.