“So what are you thinking?” Rylie asked as the pair continued their walk back to Traitors headquarters. They had been walking for a while, sharing theories though nothing seemed to add up.

“You know, I trust you to read my mind if you ever need to,” Mark responded.

Rylie laughed, “I won’t though. Not unless it’s ever truly needed.”

“Fair enough,” Mark came to a stop, “Before we go into this, I’m wondering if we should tell the others. Obviously, no one really had much experience with these Patron rituals. The only one that was successful that we know about was mostly a stick up with a loaded gun. But I know the last one was stopped.”

“You think if we stop it before it happens, we’ll give them too much opportunity to get away and regroup.”

“Exactly,” Mark said. “If we get the bracelet from Longing, we delay until they get one of the others. Now, I don’t know about you, but Thatcher is smarter than me. His Strategy powers only make that worse. He will outsmart and outclass me as he did last time. That being said, if we figure out a way to stop the ritual as it’s happening…”

“Then if they get away again, we have more time to prepare.”

“And five years to track them down and kill them.” Mark said.

“The problem with that is if Thatcher is really helping this person,” Rylie said. “If he’s as cunning as you’re saying, then they’ll probably manage to succeed. Then we’re even more fucked.”

Mark rolled that around in his mind for a minute, before realizing she was right. Thatcher wanted wealth and power, and if helping someone else become a Patron came with favors, then he would definitely cover all possibilities.

“So we tell the others. We try to get to the bracelet before he does. And if we don’t, then we play it by ear,” he finally said before taking off down the sidewalk again.

When they arrived to the building, Mark could feel terror emanating from inside. He took off up the stairs and toward the feeling until he came upon the conference room. Inside, Jay was on the table writhing as Lily held his hand and Hanna held him down as best as she could. He charged into the room.

“What the hell is going on?” He yelled, taking over for his sister.

“He randomly decided to send his mind to a new world he found. We were discussing it with him, and he said he would take our concerns to heart, then made the jump anyway,” Hanna responded.

“Is it usually like this?” Mark asked Lily, whose terror had brought him here. Rylie burst into the room and watched the scene.

Tears were streaming down Lily’s face, “No. He’ll suddenly have gray hair or be distant for a while, but it’s usually pretty quick.”

“What do we do?” Mark shouted to the room as a whole. Nobody answered him.

“He’s stuck.” Rylie whispered. If it wasn’t for his hearing, he would have missed it.

“What?” He turned to his partner. She spoke up louder.

“He’s stuck. I just checked his mind. He went there and came back, but something is holding him. He can’t finish it.” She slowly walked up to the table. She placed her hand on his chest and his writhing stopped instantly.

Jay’s breathing, which had been ragged smoothed out, as if he were sleeping. Rylie closed her eyes, and cracked a smile.

“He says you can stop holding down his shoulders, Mark.” Mark let go and Rylie went quiet again. Her brow furrowed and she nodded a few times as if responding to something.

“Who told you about that?” She finally said, then laughed, “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Thanks for not bringing it up. Do you really think it’ll work?” She stopped, then nodded.

Suddenly, the light of her magic shone from her palm. The light spread across Jay’s body. Mark leaned into his senses, feeling her being as delicate as possible. With Lucy, she had been quick and careless. This time, she worked with precision.

Mark could feel something separating itself from Jay’s powers and moving toward Rylie. It was a thrashing, wild magic that tried to attach to hers, but she managed to hold it to itself as it left Jay’s body.

He gasped, sitting up quickly and yelled, “NOW!”

Rylie removed her hand from his chest, then punched him with the wild magic she had kept stored. Jay deflected it with an expertise and preparedness, and it fizzled into nothingness.

“Holy shit, it worked.” Rylie said. Lily grabbed her into a hug, then bounced to Jay, knocking him back on the table. Mark looked over at his partner, who was smiling proudly.

“I think I speak for most of us,” Hanna said, “when I ask, what the hell was that?” Mark nodded, and even Lily pulled herself away from Jay with a curious look.

“I have a power I didn’t report,” Rylie said. “I would prefer it not leave this room. I’m able to removed magic from people and disconnect them from their Patron.”

“What?” Hanna asked loudly.

“It’s true,” Jay said. “It’s what happened with Lucy. Modify didn’t abandon her. Rylie shut down the contact. I felt a smidge of Traitor magic left over and guessed it.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Hanna asked.

“The same reason I assume those two kept it secret,” Jay said. “Rylie came in to work in the field, not to be a ritualistic guinea pig.”

Hanna was growing angrier, so Mark stepped in, “So, then what exactly just happened?”

“The poison in his magic got a hold of him as he was jumping back,” Rylie said. “So, I grabbed it. And very carefully removed it.”

“Then, all we had to do was get rid of it before it latched on to hers,” Jay said.

“Wait, does that mean it’s gone?” Lily asked.

Jay nodded, “Sure is. Now I won’t be held back from finding where I’m suppose to be.”

Mark could feel the sadness pour off of Lily as Jay’s emotions turned hopeful. Even with the poison gone, his mind was still fractured. The only difference is that now he would be able to use his powers more freely.

The five of them stood awkwardly, not knowing what to say before Rylie jumped in and explained what had happened at Andre’s, save for Keith. She spun it as more of a hunch from the researcher.

“So, you want to find Longing, talk to their leader, and what? Take the bracelet first? Do you think they’ll let you without a fight?” Hanna asked.

“All of the collectives know what we do here, Hanna. They know that we’ll protect them if we have to. If they’ve stayed between the lines and kept their nose clean. I’m hoping it goes more that way.” Mark said.

“And if it doesn’t?” Jay asked.

“Then, we fight. But before we do any of that, we have to find out where they are. Are we able to bring Lane out?”

“You’ll have to go to her,” Jay said. “The cells block their connection to their Patron. If they’re taken out, then they’ll either be overloaded by the withdrawal they’ve had and go ballistic, or their Patron will take the opportunity to strike them down.”

Mark nodded, then walked out the door. Rylie followed after being thanked by the rest of the team. She followed him as he went down to the basement level of the building, and one of the guards let him pass through to the cells. Hers was on the end.

“Hey, Lane,” he said to the woman who was sitting in the corner reading some romance book.

She looked up at him, her eyes wild, and smiled. He could feel the build up of lust in her as she eyes both him and Rylie. She stood up and made her way to the bars of the cell.

“Hey there, Mark. Looking really good. I did tell you I hate being a member of Longing right? I was hoping you would be able to help me, not make it worse. But if you want to come in here and alleviate some of that, I wouldn’t mind.”

“It’s the best we have, Lane. I’m sorry about that. But I do have a way to finally disconnect you, if you’re still interested.”

“Of course I am! I want to go back out and live a normal life. I don’t want to have magic powers that demand me to feed off of people’s desire. I don’t want to be stuck in a cell that makes me want to do that, but not allow me to.” She was screaming at him, slamming her hands against the bars.

“Good, then I need some information.”

“Oh, go to hell. I didn’t do anything wrong, and you’re treating me like a criminal.” She spat at the floor.

“Just tell me where your group is. Where Jeanette is.” Mark said.

She flipped him off as the extension of Rylie’s powers reached out for her. His partner spoke up, “There’s an abandoned farm outside of the city. They’ve repurposed and old silo.”

Lane turned to the rookie, “How the hell?”

“Same as always,” Mark said. “Magic. Now come here. Rylie, you okay with this?”

His partner nodded. They had agreed to this on the walk back to headquarters, but he wanted to make sure.

“Good. Lane, come here.”

“Screw you.”

“If you want to be free, just come here.”

Lane whined, but slowly made her way back to the front of her cell. Rylie reached in with glowing hands and touched the woman’s shoulder. The light spread across Lane’s body, fully engulfing it before slowly making its way back to Rylie’s hand as point of contact. Once the light was fully gone, Lane collapsed.

Mark called for her cell to be open, then scooped the woman off of the ground. She was light, and as he cleared the ritual pattern inscribed on the floor of the cell, he could feel that her connection to Longing was gone.

“It worked.” He said.

“What should I do with the magic?” Rylie asked. “It’s not as bad as Lucy’s. It’s kind of nice and tingling.”

“Hold on to it. We might need it where we’re going. If it gets to be too much, we’ll think of something,” he said.

She nodded as they walked out of the basement and up the stairs. Hanna watched from her office and met them near their desk.

“Didn’t Jay say not to do that?” Hanna asked, then a look of realization came across her face, “Ah. Good work, Rylie. Are you sure you don’t want to help with those things? I’ll leave it fully up to you.”

“I don’t like doing it. Unless I truly have to. I would prefer not to.”

Hanna nodded, then walked back to her office. Lane started stirring in Mark’s arms. He watched as she slowly opened her eyes.

“It’s gone,” she groaned as a tear fell down across her temple, “I’m free.”