As soon as I locked my gaze on my desk, a broad smile crinkled my lips.

  I leaned in and patted it fondly.

  My back stiffened as I expected a great whirlpool of dust to be kicked up.

  But the dust, which seemed to have been magically paired to my desk, didn’t shift.

  I heard somebody take a rattling gasp from behind me. “So that’s where you’ve been, ha?” Cassidy scooted forward and patted me hard on the back. “Finally figuring out a way to exorcise the dust demon from your desk, ha?”

  I turned around, a broad grin pressing hard across my lips. “Cassidy, it’s great to see you.”

  She closed her arms firmly in front of her chest, tilted her head to the side, and held me in a knowing look. “Sure is great to see me, because you, kid, haven’t seen me in weeks. Now, where the hell have you been?”

  I pressed my lips together and swallowed.

  There was a scattering of casters, and Alice rolled her chair out from her cubicle.

  While there was a grin plastered across Cassidy’s face, Alice locked her questioning gaze on mine.

  She crossed her arms, and despite how powerful I’d become, her move was way, way stronger than mine. “Yeah, where the hell have you been?” Alice demanded in that flat, unaffected, but still strong tone that would make any magical perp shake in their boots.

  I locked a hand on the back of my neck and grinned. “Believe you me, you don’t want to know.”

  Cassidy leaned in, and the look on her face told me she seriously wanted to know. Which meant I had to control the conversation right now.

  I twisted around and made a show of leafing through the things on my desk dramatically. “I’m on a case, and you guys are welcome to join me if you want.”

  Alice made a show of looking at Cassidy. “You just got here, and there are no case files on your desk. In fact, we assumed you didn’t even work in this department anymore. Do you work in this department anymore?” she demanded.

  Though I had no intention whatsoever of revealing to Cassidy and Alice where I’d been and what I’d been doing, I wasn’t counting on the fact that Alice was the best interrogator this side of Ivan the Terrible.

  I shrugged again. Tilting back, I locked my hands on my desk and leaned into them for support. “It’s an important case,” I said, realizing I didn’t have time to go through this with Cassidy and Alice. Though seeing them was great, I still had those gates to find. I inclined my head toward the door. “It’s a critically important case, and I need to hit the streets now. You guys coming, or what?”

  Cassidy rose to her feet, her chair drifting back on its casters and finding its own way back home to her desk.

  Alice didn’t move. She remained in her seat, her arms so tightly clenched around her middle, it would have taken Vali and all his godly strength to shift them. “No, we’re not going anywhere until you tell us what’s going on.”

  There would have been a time when I would have receded at that tone. To be honest, that’s exactly what I wanted to do now. Then I reminded myself who the hell Alice was dealing with.

  I arched an eyebrow and stared at her evenly. “It’s up to you, Alice. I can do this case on my own. But I don’t want to. I trust you guys, and I want your help. So will you give it to me?”

  Cassidy looked genuinely surprised as she glanced from me to Alice. “I think the kid’s grown up,” Cassidy said with a kind laugh.

  She always called me kid, even though I was several years older than her. But yeah, I’d grown up. That’s why I found it so much easier to meet Alice’s strong gaze unflinchingly.

  She continued to stare at me, and it was clear she was testing me. So I stared right back.

  She was the first to give up.

  With a sigh and a shrug, she rose to her feet. “You better tell us where you’ve been the last several weeks,” Alice demanded.

  I met her gaze. Then I shook my head. “Nope. I can’t. Feel free to question, but I’m going to have to keep this one to myself.”

  Cassidy looked gobsmacked. Alice just narrowed her gaze.

  “Fine, I’m sure you have your reasons. Cassidy, let’s go. Our friend here needs our help.”

  There was a lot that had just happened in that interaction. Not only had Alice the seriously hardened cop backed down and conceded to me, but she’d called me her friend.

  I tried to suppress the grin that wanted to march over my lips as we walked through the open-plan office back to the door. Again, everybody’s attention was locked on me.

  An explosion could go off in the background, or Vali could jump through the window and do a little dance, and I doubted anyone would stop staring my way.

  “Jesus, don’t you guys have anything better to do?” Cassidy muttered loudly as she stared at some of the worst offenders and growled at them.

  Alice chuckled. “Cassidy’s right. You lot should get back to work. No rest for the wicked,” she quoted.

  There would have been a time when that saying would have had a measurable, awful effect on me. A time when it would have reminded me of how much I hated this world and how little I was in control. Now?

  I just frowned. Nobody here knew the truth. Not about Vali, not about the gods, and, most importantly, not about what was coming.

  But they were loyal, good people, and I wouldn’t have anyone else watching my back.

  Cassidy held herself together until we reached the basement and selected a car.

  By the time I sat in the passenger seat, she was practically squirming.

  Alice chuckled as she glanced at Cassidy. “You look like you’re about to explode, Cass. Just put it out of your head. Lilly’s got her reasons, and whatever’s going on, she can’t tell us.”

  I was sitting up front next to Alice, and Cass was in the back.

  I tilted my head around to glance at her.

  She made eye contact. There was something in that look….

  I hadn’t had a conversation with Cassidy since I’d returned from the Drift. Too much other stuff had been on my mind. Between practicing with my sword and trying to figure out how the hell I was going to save humanity, I’d neglected my friend. It was damn clear she had some questions. Some pretty good ones. I’d only been able to defeat Loki because I’d found my grandmother’s Drift sword. And I’d only found that because of the letter I got Cassidy to steal from Franklin’s office.

  As she stared at me, I knew she wanted to know what the hell had happened that day.

  She’d been terrified she would get in trouble, and I’d smoothed things over with Vali. I was damn sure he hadn’t even had a conversation with her about it, which left me in a precarious position.

  I trusted these guys, I seriously did, but I didn’t want to expose them to more danger.

  Alice, as always, drove like the clappers. She was a confident, competent driver. Even though I had to lock a hand on the edge of the seat for support, I didn’t feel like we were going to careen into oncoming traffic.

  As I hadn’t exactly told the girls what was going on, we were just cruising around town looking for trouble.

  As we all dwindled into silence, and Cass somehow found the strength to bottle her questions up, my mind instantly returned to the task at hand. How the hell was I going to find those gates? I didn’t even know what one would look like. That being said, I was relatively confident I’d be able to figure it out if we came across any. I doubted a gate back to the realm of the gods would be a subtle, understated affair. No, it would be bristling with magic. Hey, maybe that was how I would find it – by combing this city for any unusual pockets of power.

  “It sure would help if we knew what we’re looking for,” Alice said as she joined one of the large five-lane highways that led out of town.

  “Like I said, we’re just doing the rounds, searching for any magical crime.”

  I felt Alice’s eyes on the back of my neck. “Well, that’s the thing – it’s been relatively peaceful these last several weeks.”

  I frowned, making eye contact with her. “Sorry, what?”

  “You wouldn’t know this, as you’ve been… indisposed,” Alice said carefully, “but the last few weeks have been startlingly calm with far fewer crimes coming up than ordinary. It’s almost as if the magical inhabitants of this city have turned over a new leaf.”

  It felt like a stone sank into my stomach. A new leaf? Bullshit. This was it – what I’d warned Vali about. The quiet before the storm.

  Though I wanted to keep my mounting nerves to myself, I couldn’t help but clasp a hand firmly over my stomach as my fear curdled in my gut. Alice, as always, picked up on my tension and gave me a fleeting look before returning her gaze to the road.

  “It looks like it’s going to rain. I thought it was meant to be a clear day,” Cassidy said from the back seat.

  It was a throwaway comment, but it had a measurable effect on me as I planted a sweaty hand on the passenger window, inclined my head up, and stared at the sky. Cassidy was right. I’d caught a little of the weather report this morning, and it had forecast a clear, sunny day. You tell that to the clouds amassing over the city. They looked gravid with rain, as though ready to give this town a storm to remember.

  Something clicked in my head. Something Vali had mentioned in the past. Storms always accompanied great shows of magical power. All that excess force would roil up the clouds and send them scattering and marching through the sky.

  “What is it?” Alice demanded, her tense tone shaking through the car.

  “I know this is going to sound crazy,” I began, “but that storm isn’t normal. We should follow it.” I extended a finger up and stabbed it toward the broiling clouds above.

  Though Alice could have snorted at that crazy statement, she slammed her foot on the gas pedal, and we shot forward, darting through several lanes as Alice tilted her head back and tried to get a good view of the clouds above.

  “What the hell is going on?” Cassidy demanded. “Follow a storm? Why?”

  I hesitated. Seriously, how much could I keep from them, and how much could I afford to tell them? It wasn’t just that I trusted them, but I knew that that trust was a two-way street. I owed these girls, and if I genuinely wanted them to watch my back, they needed to know what they were up against.

  In a snap decision, I made my mind up. Maybe Vali wouldn’t agree, but that didn’t matter. “We’re searching for gates,” I revealed.

  Alice didn’t say a word, but she didn’t dare let her gaze tick toward the traffic, either. She watched me with her full force, waiting for me to expand on that.

  I took a tense breath, wondering whether I would regret this. “We’re searching for magical gates that,” I paused, still trying to figure out just how much I should reveal, “magical gates that….”

  “We don’t need to know the full details. Only what you want to tell us,” Alice interrupted.

  I relaxed, relieved that she’d given me a way out.

  Cassidy wasn’t as willing to work in silence.

  I felt her pull her seatbelt slack and push against it until she locked a hand on the back of my seat. “No way. You need to tell us what the hell is going on, where you’ve been, and what on earth happened two weeks ago when Franklin took a turn. Alice may be okay with you keeping this to yourself, but I’m not. I’m worried about you.”

  That little phrase did it. She was worried about me….

  I locked my fingers around the bridge of my nose and hissed through a breath. “I can’t tell you everything, because, to be honest, I don’t know how much you’ll believe. But several weeks ago… I helped… I helped Vali stop an invasion.”

  There was silence. Exactly the kind of echoing, cold silence you would expect from a statement like that.

  Alice was the first to react. “Invasion? By whom?”

  Though I was relatively confident I could tell these girls most things, I knew I would have to keep the true secret of the gods. Or at least, for now.

  “I guess you guys know that there are… other realms, right? Other beings. Like the gods. They come from other dimensional planes.”

  I must have sounded like a lunatic, like some new-age conspiracy theorist.

  Fortunately, neither Cassidy nor Alice guffawed with laughter. They just sat there in that same expectant, tense silence as they waited for me to reveal everything.

  “Well, several weeks ago, a being from one of these dimensions tried to push through.” It was a version of what had happened, but I skirted around the truth at the same time. I deliberately left out the fact I’d had a crazy excursion in the realm of the divine.

  “Anyway, these beings… they’re dangerous.” My voice shook. The exact emotion behind it was more than enough to convey just how terrifying these so-called beings were.

  “What… what are they?” Cassidy asked, her voice quiet.

  “I can’t really tell you what they are. But I can tell you they live off human energy. And that… they’re coming. Here.”

  As explanations went, it was choppy, garbled, and should have been impossible to understand. But maybe my emotion conveyed everything, because slowly Alice pulled up to the side of the road. The exact level of silence in the car was stifling. It felt like we’d never ever speak again.

  Slowly, Alice turned around in her seat and stared at me.

  She didn’t laugh at me and accuse me of making up the world’s craziest story. Her trademark calculating gaze darted over my face. It only took a second until she appeared satisfied. She clamped her sweaty fingers on her nose and shook her head. “You’re not lying to us, are you?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’m sorry, but what the hell is this? This is crazy,” Cassidy said. But her voice wasn’t accusatory. It just shifted up and down with fear.

  “I know this sounds mad.” I turned around in my seat and darted my gaze between Cassidy and Alice. “But it’s the truth. That’s why you haven’t seen me lately. I helped Vali…” I shook my head as I trailed off. “Look, it’s hard to explain. But all that really matters now is that we have to find these gates, secure them, and shut them down.”

  “So devious, evil beings from another dimension can’t push through and invade the Earth,” Alice summarized.

  I flinched. Just before I could conclude that she didn’t believe me and she thought I was just jerking her chain, she reached over and clapped a hand on my back. “I believe you, Lilly. I mean, it sounds crazy. But I’ve seen crazy. I’m an indentured magical detective, remember?”

  Slowly, a grim smile pressed over my lips. I swiveled my attention back to Cassidy, and with a tense shrug, she appeared to give up.

  “Fine, I believe you, too. I mean, I have no freaking idea what’s going on, but if Alice believes you, so do I. But what exactly do you need us to do? Where are these gates? How will we find them?”

  Back to work, ha?

  No rest for the wicked – that refrain echoed through my mind. “I don’t know. I think wherever the gates are, they’ll correspond to unusual surges in magic. If only there were some way we could scour the city for strong, previously undetected sources of power.”

  Alice frowned and tapped her chin. “That isn’t as crazy as it sounds. There may be a way to do just that.”

  My stomach kicked with excitement and hope as I stared at her eagerly. “How?”

  Alice pointed a stiff finger up at the clouds. “You were already on the ball. If there are new, unusual, strong sources of magic in the city, they’re going to be pumping more power into the atmosphere than usual. If we track the origin of the storm, we may be able to find them.”

  My heart lifted with hope. “How the hell do we do that?”

  “Time to go up high.”

  “Sorry?” Both Cass and I asked at once.

  “It’s time to do a rooftop tour of the city.” Alice grinned.

  I shared her grin, in part.

  The rest of me realized this would be no fun.

  Alice gunned the engine, pulled out from the curb, and we continued, now with a plan. And yet, as I tilted my head up at those broiling storm clouds, I wondered just how far that plan would take us. The storm, it seemed, was about to break.

  5

  I frowned at the construction work sign with a picture of a little man on a yellow background wielding a spade.

  Why was it that whenever I had significant encounters these days it was always in construction zones?

  I was getting ahead of myself, wasn’t I? I had no idea whether this investigation would end in a fight. But something told me this was no simple building, and there’d be trouble inside for sure.

  Alice had driven us around the city until we’d found this seriously suspicious building. Above it the storm raged more intensely than anywhere else. The exact angry color of the clouds couldn’t be confused with ordinary weather events. Right above the building, it looked like a slice of the apocalypse had formed. Or at least a gate into it.

  A knot formed in my gut as we made our way around the cyclone barriers and over the rubble around the rear of the building. It wasn’t anticipation, mind you, and neither was it fear. Okay, the fear was still there, but it was controlled and no longer overcame me as it had when I first discovered my magical powers. And when it came to my magical powers, I was never far from them these days. Even now, without my Drift sword in my hand, without the cold wind of the expanse powering over my skin with magical runes, I could still feel my magic coursing through my veins. It was a much subtler experience compared with the power I’d once felt whenever Vali had allowed me to take off my bangles.

  Alice shoved her hands into her pockets and kicked a bit of rubble. It skidded across and banged into the side of the building. She watched its path with narrowed eyes before slowly tipping her head back and staring up the side of the tower.

  I had no idea exactly what this construction work was in aid of, but it looked as if half the building was being worked on, and that really didn’t lead to great expectations about its stability, considering the roaring wind. Even as we stood there, one of those massive tubes they use to chuck rubble down from the upper levels swayed so dangerously, I was sure it was going to tear off the side of the building and squish me flat.