Even when Rylie wasn’t around, Mark confirmed that he would be able to pull out the new glowing coin whenever he wanted to. Rylie’s powers in tandem with Traitor’s plans was making up for the deficiency he had on relying on the old magic coin. The thought left him nervous though. This meant that Traitor really did have a plan. As helpful as the new coin way, Mark had a feeling that Traitor had other plans involving it.

They went about their jobs for a few weeks. There was no update on the Shield disappearing. Every ritualist cast whatever tracking spell they could thing of. All street teams asked around and listened out for any whispers. Natalie used her connections with other Knowledge followers, but none had heard a thing.

“What do we know about the Shield?” Mark asked his sister, who was going prematurely gray in her hair worrying about the situation.

“Very little,” Hanna replied. “It gets moved around on a regular basis, but no active member of Traitors has been allowed to mess with it. Not even for research. We knew that the someone outside of the collective having it could mean bad news, so we prioritized that first.”

“So we’re potentially running in blindly?” She nodded to his question, and he sighed. Thatcher had been impossible to track down and his operation in Chicago had been abandoned. His mansion had burned down shortly after he and Lily left.

“It has to do with this ritual. We need to figure out what other artifact is in danger. I’m taking the rookie to talk to Andre.”

“Be careful with him, Mark. I know Rylie and him have become friends, and he seems decent, but until all of this is settled, we can’t trust any collective members who aren’t tried and true collaborators.”

“I get it. I’ll vet him out. We just need him for information and you know how those Knowledge people love sharing it.”

Hanna nodded, and he walked out, not able to see his sister so taken out of her element. She had been a ball of confidence since they received their powers. This was too reminiscent of their childhoods.

Andre had given Rylie the address of his home that doubled as his library. It was a regular, unassuming white craftsman style home. Once inside, you would be hard pressed to find an empty space on the wall. They were lined with shelves filled to the brim with books and tomes. The rest of the house was immaculate, but the bookshelves alone would make you think Andre was a hoarder.

“Thanks for seeing us, Dre,” Rylie said with a soft smile.

“Absolutely anything for you. I had actually been wanting to show you this article on an old Egyptian artifact that was dug up some time ago.”

“Actually, Andre,” Mark said. “We have some pretty specific stuff to ask you. It involves the Patron Artifacts and anything you may know about rituals.”

“Like standard spell rituals, or big-time rituals?”

“Big time.” Rylie said.

Andre quickly crossed the room and Mark eyeballed the guy. He had gotten into the idea of not being able to trust anyone outside of his own collective, but Andre seemed like a harmless bookworm. Plus Rylie seemed to trust him, which mattered a lot. She looked to him and met his gaze and he winked at her. The blush that she got on his implication was a deep scarlet.

“Ah,” Andre said after looking down the line of several large books, “Here we go. A former member of Knowledge focused extensively on rituals. This was around the time Plant died.”

“Who?” Mark said.

“Plant. It was a collective that focused on destroying humans to free up room for plants and trees and basically just mother Earth to flourish. Their artifact was a crown of daisies. It allowed them to control the growth of any plant, made by them or naturally occurring.”

“I knew there were other Collectives that were gone now, but this one is new to me. What happened to them?” Mark asked.

“Someone got a hold of the Crown. The prevailing theory is Victor Albright seeing as how he became a Patron not long after. Plant members were very aware of the downside to their artifact. As much as they could control the growth, anyone with the Crown who desired to could wilt and rot plants as well. This former member recalls mass drought and destruction to natural landmarks. And then Plant stopped existing.”

Rylie spoke up, “The Patron was held at gunpoint basically until they gave up their spot. But what does this have to do with rituals?”

“A contract is the most basic of rituals. It is my understanding that you guys use the Blood Bonding Pact, right?”

“Yes.” Mark said. It was common knowledge and a common ritual in all of the collections for various reason.

“That’s essentially just a contract. Since you and I are both members of a collective, we could even just use speech to form a deal that’s just as strong. And we’re just members. If you found a way to get the Patron themselves to make a deal with you, then that contract will be carried out, as I’m sure you know, Mark.”

Mark nodded. Traitor’s deal was all but instantaneous, “So, whoever took the crown held nature itself as a hostage until Plant destroyed itself.”

“Exactly. Even if whoever took was lying, Plant’s death meant that the Crown would lose its power. If we’re to say that it was Victor Albright though, I believe a deal was struck. If he promised not to destroy the flora of the world, his part of the deal would have to be held even in Plant’s death.”

Mark rolled that around in his head for a bit, “Funny you should bring that up, actually. You see, the ritual we wanted to know about has to do with someone becoming a Patron as well. I’ve got to say that’s little more than coincidence.”

Rylie shot him a look, “Are you accusing him, Mark? He’s only helped us!”

Andre laughed, “I get it. It’s generally bad practice to trust people outside of your collective. Hell, in my collective, I can’t trust any of them outside of what they know. Others, like Fiend and Strategy, can’t trust anyone.”

“How did you know what we would be looking for then?” Mark asked.

“Honestly? A hunch. I know the Guardian Shield was taken. Natalie has told me that much. That plus you asking about big-time rituals, well, there aren’t too many other options. Most rituals involving an artifact are going to be about becoming a Patron.” Andre looked Mark in the eyes during this, not backing down from Mark’s general presence.

Mark could feel the tension coming from Rylie, but more importantly, he could sense Andre, who stayed steady and true. He smirked at the man, then stuck out his hand. “Just have to make sure.”

“I know how it is, man.” Andre shook his hand. “So, that moves us on to the artifacts. Specifically, the Shield. As I’ve told you before, I’ve only ever seen pictures sent in by your guys’ organization. I can’t even be fully sure if it’s real. But…” he grabbed a manilla envelope he had prepared on his desk and handed it to Mark.

Inside were two pictures and a sheet of paper. The paper had the specification and write up Andre did about the pictures. It stated what the pictures showed. A hand held shield made up strong looking metal with a crack down the middle of it.

“That’s not much.” Rylie whispered.

“Yeah, sad to say, but I’m a perfect representation of Traitors,” Mark said. “Paranoid and not wanting to give any information away. Hanna also told me that no Guardian or Traitor has ever gotten a chance to handle it. Priority was to keep it away from any enemies.”

“So they must have used humans to transport it,” Andre chimed in. “That would be the only way to keep it out of either party’s hands.”

“Then that’s going to be a mystery until we can figure it out,” Rylie said. “What about the other artifacts that they could get their hands on?”

“Well, they have the Fiend Collar, so I’d say they’ve got a good chance to get any of them. Thatcher naturally always has some plan or some trick going on.” Andre said.

“Naturally.”

“Knowledge is literally impossible to get without a shit ton of resources.” Andre said.

Rylie looked at him sideways, “What do you mean?”

He reached into the collar of his shirt and pulled out his necklace. It was a spool of wire wrapper around a crystal, “This is my artifact. Not Knowledge’s. Andres. I can store anything I learn into the crystal. If I meet up with another member and want to share it with them, I just have to transfer that Knowledge. Most of our powers are about saving time to be able to learn more. Not too odd that our artifact does the same.”

“What’s the downside?” Mark asked.

Andre tucked the crystal back into his shirt. He looked at the two of them, pursed his lips, then smiled, “Alright. I can tell you guys. If you grabbed this crystal right now and destroyed it, not only would you erase everything I have learned since becoming a member of Knowledge, but you would also cut off the source of my power completely.”

“Holy shit.” Rylie whispered.

“I’m going to have to agree with my rookie here. What about Knowledge you’ve already passed along to others?”

“It would be erased unless they stored it in their own crystal. Which obviouisly, most of us do. Better safe than sorry and all of that. But in order to wipe us out completely, one would have to track down every single member and completely destroy the crystals. Even then, Knowledge exists in humans. In other collectives. It exists on paper and in books. I am very grateful that former Knowledge member wrote down everything, because his crystal being broken is how we learned what ours did.”

“Who did it?” Mark asked. He had felt what it was like to suddenly be without his powers. But to imagine his life’s work suddenly destroyed was something he couldn’t fathom.

“Another member. One of the bad ones, as the saying goes. His field of focus was on killing members of various collectives. A very narrow field of study seeing as how just about any of us can die from most weapons if caught off guard, but that’s how it went. He assumed it had something to do with our crystals, tested his hypothesis, and was wrong. It destroyed the knowledge, cut off the powers, but he still had to stab the poor guy.”

“Alright, what about some of the others? The Albrights, Longing, Splurge?” Rylie said. Mark looked at her in confusion and she shrugged.

“The Albrights have nothing but an impressive security force. I was almost killed several times meeting with Barnabas to look at it. It would take a lot for even Thatcher to get to it. Longing is a little more possible, though Jeanette doesn’t allow it to leave her person for any reason. And Splurge’s would be very, very obvious.”

“What about Strategy?” Mark said. “It seems like the obvious choice. Who’s to say Thatcher doesn’t have his own collective’s artifact.”

Andre sat down in his desk chair, “He definitely doesn’t. He would be a much bigger threat with it.”

Mark went to open his mouth, but felt a slight presence approaching the house. He closed his eyes and listened to the men as the spoke. Two of them were quiet, but the third was making it a very clear point to speak with emphasis and enunciation.

“Blank is coming.”

Andre hopped up, “What? Why? How do you know?”

“He can sense and hear them if they’re close enough. How many?”

“Three. One is Keith though.”

“Who the hell is Keith?” Andre asked.

Mark put up his armor and pulled the glowing coin from his chest into his hand, forming it into a hammer. Rylie was lit up.

“Keith is the bald guy,” he told Rylie. “If there’s another bald one, I will point him out some other way. Andre, stand back and we’ll handle this.”

Andre steading his demeanor, “This is my library. This is my knowledge. I will not stand back as the enemy of my people comes for it.” He held out a hand and stacks of paper flew toward him, folding in on itself and stacking on until it formed a longsword.

“What are you going to do? Give him a papercut?” Mark asked. As a response, Andre swung the paper blade onto his desk chair, which split it half upon contact.

“No, I’m going to stop them from taking what they came for.” Andre said, a steely calmness in his voice.

“And what’s that?” Rylie asked.

Andre smirked, a glint in his eye, “I stole Strategy’s Artifact.”