It's been an hour and they're not here.

Amanda and I sit in the heart of the Veins, in the room Shiloh's prepared for us. We're both slumped up against walls, looking pretty and doing next to nothing. Amanda is flicking some compartment in her brush, which causes the color of her paint to change. She casts me a look, and I pass it down to Shiloh, who is pacing.

"You got his... number? The one you input into the telephone?" Shiloh asks.

I fold my arms. "He said he'd be here."

I feel like someone's pulling my hair. As I reach for my ungripped hair, I realize that it's Shiloh straining on our connection. His purple eyes, usually dollike in their lack of emotion, have become intense and almost human. He sees my look of abject concern and the connection drops. He stumbles back on his goat hooves. "I apologize, sincerely," says Shiloh, reestablishing himself in a sitting position. "I understand that my difficulties may have repercussions down the line of command."

"It's okay," I say. "Things will work out. I promise."

Shiloh doesn't look reassured in the slightest. I lie back against the wall, thinking of the way Karen looked at me after I gave my speech. My heart prickles with a feeling that isn't quite guilt.

Karen busts down the door. Her hair springs out in curls around her, heralding her arrival, and Garrett walks in behind her. She walks straight to Shiloh and bends down. "So we're going to go get the lay of the land?"

"You're late," I say.

"I just got off my work shift," Karen says. "That's all."
"You've got a job?" asks Garrett.

"Sort of," Karen says. "I've been taken in as a kind of protege. You're probably never heard of the place, anyways, not really your business. So. What's the matter?"

"Where?" asks Garrett. "What kind of an institution takes in 'proteges'?"

I can't tell if Karen is flushed under the mask, because I would be dead by now, but her eyes teem with ice-cold disinterest. "I'm trying to speak with the ferret, Garrett. If you would be silent for a second--"

"You are correct," offers Shiloh. "Usagi will know where the Diosite is. You are free to attempt retrieval, but it will likely go poorly. Reconnaissance might be a better option. There will not be room for negotiations. Do not attempt them."

At first I think I've been hit with a snowball, then I realize Karen is just staring at me, and the glare she's giving me is like ice up my spine. Did she get that as a superpower? Garrett is looking at me, too, but he's kind of leaned against the wall, not standing hands-on-hips and leering into my soul. My head spins.

"Let's... go, then!" I say, pointing my shield towards the nebulous shadows of the exit. The group swarms moves around me like water moves around a rock. I feel whatever tangibility I was maintaining drop as once again, Will Rosenbloom becomes invisible.

We emerge in a copse of trees. Up the hill from us are the backs of suburban houses, most of which are unfenced. I have been to Shady Oaks before-- one of my friends lived here, when I was little. It's the kind of neighborhood with nice enough houses, yet people always seem to be moving in and out of it. It's a place for diplomats, renters, and people passing through to the city, unsettlingly liminal.

Karen begins stalking up the hill. "I hope you have a plan for what a bunch of fully costumed kids are going to do in suburbia," she calls back down to me, from a severe vantage. "Because otherwise, we're going to draw a lot of attention."

"Are there security cameras in the neighborhood?" I ask, sprinting up after her. My feet feel lighter, and as a kid who usually has to walk laps at the gym, I manage to catch up without breaking a sweat. "You have the electrokinesis right? Could you short them out?"
"The cameras are the people, who will definitely start paying attention when we short their power out," Karen explains. "Have you ever looked around a neighborhood before? Do you know how polite society functions?"

I open my mouth to contest this. Nothing comes out except for a disappointed sigh.

"Where is it?" asks Amanda. She's also managed to bound up, and Garrett's been dragged along by the law of social magnetism. "The Diosite."

I almost say 'I don't know', but Shiloh saves me, because I realize almost immediately that I do know. I point leftwards, slowly adjusting my hand, until it pauses at one of the houses further down the curve. "We should stick behind the houses," I say. "Swing around to the front, knock on the door..."

"We're going to ask nicely?" Karen confirms.

I nod. "I think whoever they are, they deserve a chance, right? Plus, I get the feeling you're not certain about their moral ambiguity either. If you guys don't feel good about that, we can take it to a vote."

"Shiloh says we can't negotiate with him," Garrett says.

"Do you trust that?" asks Karen.

"No."

"Better than breaking into his house," Amanda says. "I say we give it a try."
"Sure," Garrett agrees.

"Alright," I say. "Okay."

We stand in the woods longer than the moment warrants. I gather strength from every fleck of Diosite embedded in my uniform, then bring my hand up to the clasp near the top of my rogue-esque uniform. There's a stone there that must be most of my Diosite supply. It's smaller than the moonstone usually is, but I can feel it pulsing like a second heart. I wonder if Shiloh's watching us through it, and then my heart pangs with that old insistent fear. At this juncture, I can never tell if I'm concerned about something legitimate or entirely banal.

"Are we ready?"

Karen gives me a stiff nod. Amanda's grinning ear to ear, and Garrett-- Garrett's fine, probably. I'd imagine we both look nervous.

"Garrett, do you have the portals under wraps if we need them to retreat?" I ask.

Garrett cuts a line in the air. "I sure hope so."

"It'll be okay," I say. "I mean, we're not hallucinating all this, so, there has to be at least a kernel of truth in all of it. Maybe he's just a normal person, too."
"Let's just go, Will," Karen says. This time, both of us take the helm, and we move towards his house. It's small, with no back patio or even a pool like some of the other houses' backyards proudly boast, but there are pots full of plants scattered all across the backyard, down to where it slopes, and it seems like no one has told the beaming blossoms that summer ended a while ago. I sneak forwards, to where the single-floor house's back door is, and peek inside. My heart seizes up again, but there's nothing there but gray-green rooms in an average house, messy with coffee mugs and pages of paper (the latter of which are also strung up around the walls). A flash of wild ginger hair streaks past as I duck, so that just my eyes peer over. The hair's owner is a tall man in glasses, who is watering succulents at another window.

I look back to my companions. We're all just out of sight beneath the window, looking bewildered. I gesture for us to move around to the front of the house, where we emerge onto an exposed cul de sac.

The costume suddenly weighs a hundred pounds. I would be more comfortable naked in front of the whole world. (Not that I would be comfortable naked. I would probably still be having a borderline panic attack.)

"So," Karen says.

I close my eyes and step onto his stairs. My hand is shaking as I knock, and I jump back when the man opens the door. His ginger ponytail rests around his shoulder, and his white t-shirt is speckled with ink and paint. He adjusts massive, Megan-size spectacles, and says, "Please don't bust down my door. Are you kids interested in tea?"

Garrett's mouth hangs slightly ajar. Brandishing her oversized brush, which is currently tipped with white paint, Amanda says, "What do you mean by 'tea'?"

"Earl... Gray?" he asks. "It's from Safeway. I don't keep much food around the house, save for ramen, so, I usually put on tea when I have visitors. I mean, I figured you'd have to come eventually, but I was right in the middle of something, so I'm hoping that we'd get this over with as quickly as possible." He moves out of the way of the door, for us to enter. We hesitate. "I promise I have no ill intent. However, my neighbors will see you out here in costume, eventually, and they're going to have a lot more questions than I do. Consider this part of my maniacal plan to escort you all inside."

We are escorted inside.

"Sit down," he continues as we enter his living room. It's got those cute rows of succulents lined up on the radiator, and a few couches on one side, facing away from the house, and a hearth on the other side facing inwards. "I'll go put the tea on. If anyone wants coffee, I can do that, too... I'm going to brew myself some medium roast."

"At seven PM?" asks Amanda.

A weak laugh echoes up from the kitchen, where the man is already preparing a pot.

"I'll have tea," I say.

More death stares. Even Amanda's giving me the hand-sliding-across-the-throat gesture. The man in the kitchen doesn't respond. The tea kettle begins to whistle cheerfully.

"See, it's just... it's just a man!" Karen hisses under her breath. "How are we supposed to fight some random-ass man?"

"I don't know," I say, numbly. "I don't know where he's keeping the Diosite, either."
"Can't you see it?" asks Garrett.

I close my eyes. The Diosite appears to be... down. I hear a distant scraping noise, like someone hollowing out a watermelon, coming from the basement door. I stand up. "It's..." I begin.

The man stands over me with several cups of tea. He's got at least half a foot on me, and costume or not, shield or not, every nerve in my body starts stinging like I rubbed it against a cheese grater from the force of my own fear. "If you want to negotiate, I'd really prefer we did it in the living room," he says.

Numbly, I sit down in the living room. A ceramic tea cup is placed in front of me, steaming hot. I contemplate the chances he's poisoned the water. He sits down across the room from us, sipping his coffee. "Ignatius," he says as he places the emptied cup down. This man can drink like a camel.

"What?" I ask.

"We haven't introduced ourselves yet. I'd prefer if we at least introduced ourselves. I assume you had some way of finding me, so my personal information might as well be on the table. My name's Ignatius Faust."

We remain silent. I can feel myself pressing into the back of my chair, which, comfortable at is, does nothing to assuage that nervous whine of electric tension in the air, shriller than the whimpering tea kettle.

"You keep sounding like you knew we were gonna be here," Garrett says. "Do you have future vision or something?"

"No," Ignatius says. "But I figured I wasn't alone, and it only follows, after that, that someone would be hunting me down."

"So you know we want your... it began with a D..." Garrett puzzles.

"We want the rock," Karen says. "Hand it over, and there's no trouble. You go back to your normal life, we go back to ours."

Ignatius shakes his head. "I can't do that."

"Why not?" asks Amanda.

"It's a font of inspiration," he says. "I want to propose a deal. I'll do nothing damaging with my Diosite, which is the correct term... am I right? In return, you can monitor me all you want, but you don't take it. That way, you don't have to aggress a stranger in the middle of peaceful suburbia, a stranger who might call the police on you, and I can continue my work."
"Your work?" Amanda presses. "Is that what all the paper's for?"

Ignatius nods. "Just a second. I can demonstrate."

He walks past the basement. There are still muffled noises coming from down the stairs, slinking, clicking, inhuman ones. Either he doesn't notice them, or he intends for us not to. Amanda gestures violently with her arms for me to get to the basement. I hold my shield up and make a run for the door.

"I'm a concept artist, you see. Environment design. The stone allows me to--" Ignatius pauses as the door creeps open.

Green teeth glint back at me from the pale light my costume emits in the dark. Where normal stairs would descend onto a landing, these descend onto heaps of plant matter, partially obscured from view. Vines turn over each other, writhing in the shadows, and a few exotic blossoms spring up from the mass, red as flesh.

"What is that?" I ask.

In a hushed voice, Ignatius says, "You know, I had really hoped we could talk this out."

Karen's fingers crackle with electricity. Amanda has her paintbrush raised.

Vines erupt sideways out of the basement. Plant matter erupts around Ignatius, shielding him from the two of them, and I have to jump forwards to reunite with my teammates. The shield protects me from the brunt of the foliage, and I feel it grow colder than ice beneath my grip. When I resurface, Amanda is slicing through vines with a dash of red paint, which causes them to seethe and burn. "What the heck is this?" she yells. (I can't tell if she's terrified or ecstatic.)

Karen's eyes are wild. "I don't know. I don't know!" One vine catches her around the hand, and she struggles against it.

I dive in to cut the vine open with the edge of my shield. It cuts her free, but several more tendrils are already wriggling free of the stump, I can't see Ignatius through the brush, but over the chaos, I yell, "Calm down. I--I don't want to fight!"

"Judging by the company you keep?" Ignatius responds.

Another vine reaches for my neck, and I throw the shield up. Garrett is against the floor, and our whole group, save for Amanda, is semi-incapacitated. A hole appears in the ground, dragging Garrett with it, and Karen says, "That's our escape route. Damnit!"

"Then we go with it," I say.

Karen nods. She's gone in seconds into the fading hole Garrett created.

"Fall back," I yell, and Amanda twirls her brush (which is far too large for the amount of precision she seems to be able to swing it with) in a full arc in front of her, spraying a red paint everywhere, before backing up. Amanda grabs me by the hand, and the pair of us disappear into shadow and arrive not into the Veins but into a dark, grassy plain, with another ominous building beside it. I've been here for recreational soccer games before, but out of all the places I could have mysteriously apparated, this has to be one of the strangest. Garrett sprawls against the grass, and Karen sits besides him, still breathing heavily. My legs give out, and I meet them on the grass, lying backwards and looking up at the stars.

My family's watching a movie tonight. I was so excited for our first mission, I was bouncing out of the car when we pulled up at Amanda's house. I should have realized from the moment we started that everything could just as easily go wrong again.

"Is that what you needed to see to prove he's a bad man, Karen?" asks Amanda. As the only one of us not grounded, she's a terrifying, foreign presence, dark as the outline of the trees. "Because if anything was going to tip you off that he's dangerous, I'd think that would be it."

"I don't think he's a bad man," I say, but my words peter out into smoke.
Karen looks absently down the side of her body. "We shouldn't be mixed up in this. You know that, right? All of us suck at this. Garrett, you almost got us all killed by leaving without us. Will, the tea would have killed you. Looking downstairs almost killed you. If Amanda and I hadn't been there to protect you--" She punches the grass. "It looked so easy."

"I was so scared," I mumble. "I thought that I could be brave, as long as I was in the costume, but I don't think I can manage it, even then. I thought that I could lead you guys, but I don't know what to do even when we do get direct orders from Shiloh. I can't feel anything but fear, no matter what I do."

"We're alive," says Amanda. She settles down beside me. "Alive and inexplicably outside of Emerson Middle. Doesn't it at least feel good to know that? That we have another chance?"
"I portalled us outside of Emerson Middle. It was all I could think of," says Garrett. "Probably... a long way from all of your houses. Er, I guess we could walk home, but that would be a little... hm."

The night above grows starless and dips into the ground, coating the field at harsh, geometric angles. Any one of these is a portal home. "You won't have to," I say.

"Does that bother any of you?" Karen asks. "The portals?"

Garrett laughs, harshly. "I had to go downstairs because one cut off my bathroom."

"They're kind of fun to avoid," Amanda says. "It's not like they're ever that obtrusive. Don't you all remember hopping over sidewalk cracks when you were little? It's like that again. A game we're playing with the universe."
"That's one way of putting it," Karen says, hoisting herself to her feet. "One unreasonably optimistic way of putting it. Anyways, I'm going... home. Will, can you handle Shiloh?"
"Handle him?" I ask. For the first time tonight, the death eyes are soft, more like a silent plea. Maybe they always were. "I mean, of course I can talk with him. There's not much to say."

"Thanks," Karen says. "And you should stick to the optimistic speeches. I think we all need them."
She disappears.

Garrett mutters a "Sorry," before leaving, too. He turns back, halfway through the field, and looks up at the empty Emerson Middle building. All the lights were shut off hours ago, so there's nothing to look for. Then, he looks to us, and says, "I think we could be a pretty good team."

"We'll get him next time," says Amanda, punching me on the shoulder as we, too, approach the void. "Now we know what we're in for."

I look into the darkness, thinking of the right way to explain to Shiloh.