The warehouse was eerily quiet as we passed through, escorted by two of what I had to assume were Marquise’s minions with the featureless white masks. One in front, one behind, while Ashika and I walked side by side. We hadn’t gotten to see the office area on our way in, but there’d been a low din of ongoing conversation clearly audible. Now, it had fallen silent.

  The offices were nothing to write home about. Two dozen desks or so with an assortment of computer monitors and peripherals, some messy, some not. Every computer was still on, the monitors rapidly flickering between different windows. Presumably, that was courtesy of the third blank mask in the black bodysuit that rendered them androgynous sitting by one of the computers. Their power signal was singing, and there was a blue power sign around their head that looked like a bubble that glowed with the same light as a TV screen.

  The mask said nothing to us as we passed by. That had been a mainstay feature of these shady operatives, so far. After passing on Marquise’s message, they’d been utterly silent, refusing to answer any of our questions in anything except a gesture of upraised palms, urging us onward.

  It was clear they were expecting us to head to the back door, where the workers had been smoking on our way in. On a whim, I turned and headed for the main door to the warehouse to see what they would do. They gave no outward reaction. No frustration or irritation. The one who’d been behind us smoothly pivoted to take the lead, while the one who’d previously been in the lead turned to follow. Neither of their signals were active right now. I didn’t know what to make of that.

  The main warehouse area was just as silent. We walked along the outer edge of the building for the third time, but when we peered into the rows of shelves, there was no one present but the people in the white masks. They were just… standing there. Watching. Some had active signals. Some didn’t.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” Ashika whispered. The shock of the sudden change in circumstances had made her go still at some point and she’d lost the charge she’d built up, but she was ramping up again as we walked. A part of me wanted to give her longer just in case, but pragmatism was telling me there was no fighting here. There were surely dozens of them, and I didn’t think they considered us enemies anyway.

  I shook my head. “Guess we’re going to see Marquise’s other type of hero in action.”

  “Why are they dressed like this? It’s so creepy.” She frowned, then looked at the one following us over her shoulder. “Why are you dressed like that? It’s so creepy.”

  The blank mask stared at her.

  “Fucking talk, you weirdo,” she snapped.

  The mask said nothing.

  I grabbed onto Ashika’s elbow and pulled before she could say anything more. It was like trying to bend steel, but she got the hint and followed.

  My head was pounding like my brain was trying to break out of my skull. I was sure I could feel my pulse in my eyeballs. It took every bit of self-control I possessed to keep my breathing relatively even, because like hell was I going to let these guys know how spiritually exhausted I felt.

  I tried to tell myself that none of it was physical, that I hadn’t actually done that much strenuous activity today. This was all fatigue on a deeper level than that, in a way I still didn’t actually understand. In a way that the woman we were about to meet could probably commiserate with.

  My jaw tightened. My hands turned to fists at my sides, and I shoved them in my pockets. I would have been happy never to interact with Marquise again. I knew that wasn’t strictly possible if I was going to attend AA, but I liked to delude myself with the fantasy that we’d somehow avoid each other entirely for the next few years. The only way that would happen, of course, was if she stopped whatever bullshit she was pulling at the school, which didn’t seem likely.

  So I had to be realistic. Chances were we were going to be seeing a lot of each other, primarily because I was resolved to ensuring that her machinations left Aegis Academy alone. How I was going to achieve that was still up in the air. I’d figure it out.

  We ended up exiting through the same doors we’d snuck in through, but I barely took a step outside before I froze.

  Rain was coming down like shrapnel. The sky had turned black as coal, starless and cloudless. All the cars in the parking lot were gone, leaving a vast and empty space where rows and columns of people were lying faced down on the floor, their legs straight, arms bound tightly to their sides by some invisible force. Their foreheads all rested against the ground, and they were perfectly still in a way that couldn’t be natural.

  I didn’t recognise any of them, but it didn’t take much deductive reasoning to figure out who these people were. Had to be the workers from the warehouse. They were all soaked through. More of the shady masked guys stood guard over them.

  Ashika sucked in a sharp breath beside me. “What is this, man?” She asked with a tremor in her voice.

  I took a fortifying breath of my own as I caught sight of the people waiting at the other side of the parking lot. “Let’s go find out,” I said.

  Ashika nodded, her expression darkening as she saw what I did.

  We circled around the captives, none of them reacting to our passing. Closer, I could see that their closed eyelids were glowing a dim red, like someone was shining a torch from behind their eyeballs.

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  I was thoroughly drenched by the time we reached Marquise. She was flanked by a dozen more of the weirdos in black bodysuits and white masks, all of them watching us. The woman herself was in a black bodysuit, but no mask.

  It was jarring, seeing her like this. She always seemed to go out of her way to never be seen in anything but her signature white pantsuit, impeccably ironed and without even the meagrest hint of a stain, like even dirt didn’t dare to touch her. Her hair was scraped back into a tight bun, and her grey eyes stared into mine as I approached. Her hands were behind her back.

  “Unlicensed and untrained individuals are not supposed to involve themselves in supervillain attacks, and yet here you are for a second time,” Marquise said once we were in talking distance. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the rain.

  “I wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing when I saw someone get kidnapped,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. It didn’t really work.

  “Don’t wanna hear someone like you lecture anyone about the law,” Ashika added with an audible snarl.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to, given what I know of your profile,” Marquise said evenly to me, ignoring Ashika. “I simply find it interesting that you don’t seem to consider the law sacrosanct.”

  “There are exceptions for situations like this,” I said.

  “Generally, those exceptions apply to self-defence, and otherwise are meant for family and friends of victims.”

  “Why are you here?” I asked her, uninterested in whatever game she was playing with that line of conversation.

  She glanced briefly at Ashika, who was bouncing on the balls of her feet to keep her charge going, then back to me. “We are undertaking an operation against a group of supervillains who have taken hostage the family of Foresight’s mayor, of course.”

  “Where are the real heroes?” I snapped. “I called in my distress beacon ages ago. They should be here right now.”

  “They are,” Marquise said.

  It took an embarrassingly long time to understand what she meant; at first, I looked around for any sign of the real heroes, but there was nothing. Then it clicked. I glared at her. My fists trembled in my pockets. “Forgive me if I struggle to believe that a bunch of spooks in matching uniforms are here to save the day.”

  “Would it be preferable to you that a group of people in brighter-coloured costumes swooped in to, as you call it, save the day? We can wait for them, if you like. I’m sure the hostages will be fine with the delay.” She nodded towards the villains’ lair.

  I looked to my right, squinting through the rain. There were dozens more of her operatives gathering outside the villains’ lair, all crouched low like sprinters at the start line, bunched together in strike squads. They were perfectly still, waiting. Surely the villains inside had to know what was going on out here? Marquise’s people weren’t even making a vague attempt at stealth, and yet there was no sign of activity within the hideout. I could still faintly feel signals coming from there, but nothing that hinted they were preparing for an assault.

  Down the street, every other building in view aside from the villains’ hideout had been emptied much like the one Ashika and I had infiltrated, the employees lying faced down in the parking lot or work yard of their respective buildings, abandoning whatever they’d been doing. Looking closer at the sky, the reason for the lack of stars became obvious—the fact it was too early to be this dark was another factor.

  We were within a giant black dome, I realised. The rain was coming straight through, and it was light enough in here to see by, but I suspected there was no seeing through the barrier from outside, let alone entering it. Marquise had completely closed off the area for her team’s operation.

  The rain pounded on my head. My skull felt like it was shrinking on my brain. It was hard to see past the water pouring down my face, but I didn’t want to bring my hands out of my pockets. I didn’t want Marquise to see them shaking. I didn’t want her to know how fucking worn out I was.

  “Why are you here?” I asked her again, my voice harder.

  “To rescue the family of Mayor Gladstone.”

  “Why?” I looked around pointedly. “Why all this? Why involve yourself directly? How did you even get here before the heroes?” I paused, grimacing. “Did you intercept my distress beacon?”

  “I generally prefer not to involve myself in such matters, true, but a number of factors led me to believe my direct intervention would be prudent. The Mayor is a personal friend, and you could say that any movement against a known ally of mine is a movement against me. This group, in particular, is aware of this.”

  “Yeah? And the other factors?”

  Marquise stared at me for a long moment. “My people did intercept your distress beacon when our systems flagged information you were providing on the ongoing situation. Your involvement took me by surprise, and I decided to come and see how you’ve progressed.”

  She didn’t sound impressed.

  “It’s been a week,” I said, immediately hating how defensive I sounded.

  “Long enough to gain some insight into what path you’re likely to take. You seem to have figured out some of it, at least, judging by the locational intelligence you’ve been relaying.” Her eyes seemed to bore into me. “You may not appreciate me saying this, but seeing the current state of your soul brings me some considerable nostalgia.”

  “You’re right, I don’t appreciate it.” I glanced to my side. Ashika had stayed oddly quiet throughout this conversation apart from her first interjection, and I found her glaring at Marquise, trembling in place. She met my gaze and scowled. Her signal was muted, I realised, but she was still clearly moving, presumably building charge. It was that same trick Marquise had pulled with Maisie, except I couldn’t feel what she was doing.

  “How are you doing that?” I asked, turning back to the vice-principal.

  “Doing what?” Ashika asked, sounding alarmed.

  Marquise needed no explanation as to what I meant. “I do believe you rejected my tutelage.”

  “Don’t be coy.”

  “Hm. Explaining such things tends to be problematic. It would be much easier to show you.”

  I frowned. I was in no state to be doing anything more with my signal right now. “Why? How?”

  “I have to admit, I haven’t put much thought into describing how I do things until now. So few people would be able to understand, it always seemed like a waste of precious time.” She paused, head tilting to one side as if listening to something. “As for how? That should be obvious enough.”

  She raised one hand and made a gesture, keeping the other behind her back.

  Something slammed into my signal sense, and the world expanded.