Finding Tessa turned into a taxing ordeal faster than Lysander anticipated. It didn’t help that all of his resolve manifested deep at night, far past when the council office closed for the day. After dropping Bingley and the cats with the Martinezes, he came to the stunning realization that he had no idea what to do next. Lexi still obstinately refused to leave without Tessa and her mysterious powers, so Lysander decided they would have to try to ambush her on her way to work the following morning. He paid a quick visit to Miria to tell her he wouldn’t be in to work, which was hard for multitudinous reasons, not the least of which being the minute pinch of her forehead as he told her, a sure sign he was stressing her out.

And then they retreated back to his apartment, essentially achieving nothing after rushing out earlier in the day. He hated that he was opening more opportunities for Anthony Campbell to catch Lexi and Noah sneaking into his place, but they had little recourse. Bringing them to his parent’s old house hardly felt like an option, given its location near so many other residences and thus more camera coverage, and this way he would be seen returning to his home where hopefully Anthony would assume he was going to stay.

As he let himself and Ramon in, the flood of adrenaline abruptly drained out of him and he felt heavy, as though the air itself had turned to iron weights bogging him down. It didn’t help that all of the life that usually inhabited his apartment was gone without the frantic energy brought by his menagerie of pets. Instead, the place crushed him with a staleness he hadn’t felt since moving in and seeing all the barren walls and wondering how he could ever fill the space.

“I guess we should try to sleep, eh?” Ramon muttered, breaking Lysander from his exhausted reverie.

“Yeah. You can take my bed, if you want,” he offered, pointing to his bedroom.

“Nah, it’s cool. I can fall asleep anywhere, and it’s your place,” Ramon refuted. A pensive expression crossed his face before he continued, “Do you know anything about this Tessa chick? Like why Red wants her around so bad?”

“Not really. She’s Noah’s twin sister, but Lexi seems convinced she can help us survive out there somehow,” Lysander admitted.

“Here’s hoping she’s right, I guess. To be real with you for a second, I don’t know how to feel about all this. Mostly I’m scared shitless. I lost my aunt and two cousins out there, man. I don’t know why some people live, but fuck if I don’t hope we’re two of ‘em.”

A stone settled deep in Lysander’s gut. “Yeah, me too.”

“It’s not like I’m much better off here with Barrier Patrol sniffing around my business. At least this way I have a bit of a say in what happens to me.”

Lysander didn’t have much to add, and he ended up just nodding lamely. After Lexi and Noah arrived, he forced all of them to settle for the night. If this was the last night he had under a safe roof, he wanted to take full advantage. Which was all well and good as a concept, but his body refused to play along, even as his head thrummed with tiredness. A new concern kept cropping up in his brain, refusing to stay silent, and before he knew it, morning sunlight crept across the dull gray carpeting of his bedroom.

Groaning into his pillow, he forced himself up and bid a fond farewell to his bed. When he exited his room, a flurry of activity stopped him momentarily. All three of his houseguests were awake and moving around each other in the small space. Lexi tugged the curtains closed, casting the room in shadow, and Ramon squeezed around her to pick up one of the couch pillows Lexi had cast aside to sleep on the sofa. Noah shouldered the last of the cardboard boxes back into the attic before waving away the dust that had puffed into his face from the action.

Seeing Lysander frozen in the doorway, Ramon spoke up, “Thought you’d like to come home to a clean place.”

“I’m hoping the curtains discourage further investigation into what’s going on in here while we’re gone,” Lexi added, “I’ll handle the ones in your room now that you’re up.” She pushed past him and began to do just that.

“Well, thanks, I guess,” Lysander muttered, restlessness settling over him once more now that they were moving, “We should probably leave so we can catch her before she gets into work.” He had no idea what time she regularly arrived to work, but he hoped she wasn’t like him and went in absurdly early.

“Since we have no idea which direction she’s gonna come from, I guess we’ll have to split up. Lysander, you take Ramon and scout the east side and Noah and I will handle the west. We’ll meet back up at nine in the parking garage around the corner. Just hang out on the ground floor. Lots of squatters hang out in the lower levels, and we don’t need to deal with any of that,” Lexi commanded. The group nodded–though Noah looked vaguely ill and hadn’t made any scathing commentary yet, so Lysander figured he only agreed through duress.

They had to take the train again, which meant they would have to stop back at his apartment again before leaving for appearances sake, but it was the only practical way to get into the city. The council offices had taken over the City Hall building where the mayor offices once resided. The closest station deposited them inland several blocks away and they had to walk toward the lake. The imposing structure of the building came into view quickly, the granite surface blending in with the concrete of the rest of the city, but the Neoclassical style of the architecture setting it apart. Several seagulls squawked overhead, wheeling in circles as they followed their trajectory northward.

The early morning sunlight reflected off the pitched skylight on the roof, the comforting pinks and oranges of sunrise making Lysander feel almost dreamy with the sound of the lake’s waves crashing being the only sound for miles. No one stirred in this part of the city this early, which was good for their plan but made Lysander’s skin prickle all the same. He felt too exposed out here, especially when they broke apart at the T junction just before the sidewalk that led up the steps to the domed entrances of the building. If Tessa was a normal person, they still had hours before they could reasonably expect her to show up. From the outside, City Hall seemed deserted, but it was difficult to tell given the sheer size of the place.

Ramon and Lysander hunkered down on the expanse of grass on the east side of the structure, trying to look as natural as possible for the benefit of the people beginning to stream into the building as the city awoke.

At fifteen minutes to nine, Noah saw her. She scurried across the street, head down to watch her step. Lexi hadn’t bothered to try to talk to him while they waited. She knew he would probably just snap at her, his whole body quaking with anxiety at seeing his sister again. Tessa wore the most absurd outfit he could imagine a government employee could get away with, pairing a gray wool skirt with a dusty pink sweater and matching leg warmers of all things. At Tessa’s appearance, Lexi held her arm out to stop him from doing something crazy like jump into the road and start screaming with a swarm of onlookers around. To be fair, that had been his first instinctual reaction upon seeing his twin, her gait still just as familiar to him as his own. He could recognize her from miles away just from the way she walked.

After ensuring Noah wasn’t moving, Lexi swept around the corner and approached Tessa at a rapid clip. She moved as fast as she could without drawing attention and as they were about to pass, Lexi jerked just slightly so their shoulders collided. Startled, Tessa stumbled back, clutching at her bag, a raggedy patchwork thing Noah recalled her sewing together from scraps while they had been together.

He couldn’t believe the amount of rage he still had nestled inside him. Just the sight of her made him want to punch something or at least verbally assault someone. The recognition in her eyes as she looked up and saw Lexi, the rush of relief and surprise as she grabbed Lexi’s hand, all of it sent him back to the moment he realized she wasn’t coming back, that she had actually left him. He couldn’t hear what they said, but he saw Tessa’s mouth form his name and he wanted to tear it from her throat while simultaneously wanting desperately to hear her say it.

And then they were coming back toward him and he wasn’t ready, but he probably never would have been, and then they were in front of him and Tessa was crying, large bulbous tears streaming down her cheeks and ruining her eyeliner.

“Just so you know, I didn’t want this,” he stated. It was the only thing he could manage to say before he turned and walked away from her. Anything else he tried to say just choked him, gummed up his throat and refused to come out.

As he walked, he heard Lexi and Tessa’s footsteps following behind him, silence descending over them like the hush of a crypt.

When neither Ramon nor he spotted Tessa before the deadline, Lysander became almost convinced that the whole plan was going to be ruined before it even began, but then he spotted her mess of waves standing next to Lexi as they approached the parking garage. As he neared, he could see her shoulders convulsing, sobs racking them, and Noah standing as far from them as he could while still appearing to be part of their group, his arms crossed. Lysander strongly considered just turning back around and letting them work out their issues on their own, but there was no time for it.

“Hey, you found her!” he announced when he got close enough to say it without shouting.

Tessa knuckled away her tears and looked blearily up at him. “Lysander? You’re here too?” Her voice sounded garbled and nasally. “It’s not even Friday.”

For a moment, he had no idea what that meant, but then he remembered their visit to his parent’s house and chuckled in surprise. “Right, no, it’s not. Um, have you not told her anything yet, Lexi?”

“Nah. Thought it would be easier once we were all together,” Lexi explained, flippantly waving her hand.

Tessa sniffled. “Told me? This isn’t just a reunion with Noah?” she asked. At the sound of his name, Noah flinched minutely, shoulders jumping incrementally closer to his ears.

“I didn’t even want to be here. I said that,” Noah said tersely.

“I know. I just thought you were being stubborn and cute,” Tessa replied. Her face began to dry as the flow of tears ended, and she raised the sleeve of her sweater up and patted at her face, which only served to smear her running makeup around. She looked vaguely like the human form of a raccoon.

“Those things have nothing to do with each other,” Lysander mumbled, largely to himself, though Ramon let out a soft snort of laughter. Speaking up, Lysander continued, “Uh well, y’see, we’re actually here to ask for a favor?”

“Okay, but you only get three. Genie rules,” Tessa quipped. She recovered extraordinarily fast, but Lysander was hardly surprised given what he knew of her so far.

“Right, well, this one is pretty big?”

“Just ask me, Lysander. This is silly. You reunited me with my brother, so I think a favor is only fair.”

“We are not ‘reunited’,” Noah spat out, “As soon as this is over, I never want to see you again.”

Tessa’s face contorted momentarily, a ‘v’ appearing between her brows and lips twisting, but she ultimately brushed Noah’s comment aside. “We’ll see about that. What’s this mysterious favor I’m doing?”

“We’re going outside the Barrier and need you to shield those two,” Lexi explained, jerking her thumb at Ramon and Lysander.

“How do you know my power even works like that?” Tessa questioned in lieu of replying.

Lexi narrowed her eyes. “I don’t. But I can make an educated guess, can’t I?”

“Aww, Lex, you’re still so prickly! You’re right, by the way. I can totally do that,” Tessa effused, doing a truly professional job at ignoring Lexi’s glare.

“You can protect us from the Spread sickness?” Ramon asked, cutting into the conversation.

“I mean, not fully, but enough that you shouldn’t get sick,” she replied.

Lysander’s confusion only grew. “What? You can’t protect us fully from the sickness but you can stop us getting sick? That makes no sense.”

“Right. I forgot you’re new at all this. Do you know how the Barrier works?”

“Not really?” he replied hesitantly.

“Cool! So, picture each pylon as a lure. Essentially, they function as a means to attract the Spread, which is already attracted to itself. So far so good?”

Not at all, but he nodded for her to continue.

“Alright, well, after the Spread gets channeled into the pylons, it still wants to merge back with the parts that are inside the other pylons. So those pieces reach out to each other like magnets and form the Barrier!”

“That was about as clear as mud,” Ramon complained, “But basically you’re telling us that the Barrier is powered by the same shit it protects us from?”

“Bingo!” She shot Ramon a clumsy finger gun, complete with tongue click and all.

“And how does that work for us? Like, what does that have to do with your power?” Ramon asked.

“Oh right! So, those of us inside the Barrier are safe from the Spread because it all coalesces using the pylons to keep it in place. But! My power doesn’t work like that. I make shields and bubbles created from my own…magic, I guess? And as far as I can tell, I can limit the amount of the Spread you’re exposed to, but not eliminate it entirely.”

“As far as you can tell?” Lysander repeated incredulously. “Have you tested this?”

A shadow fell over Tessa’s eyes then. “Yes. I’ve had to,” she said, “But that’s not important right now! Basically, the slower your body takes in the Spread, the more chance you have of living through the process of Shifting, and I can slow it down for you.”

Lysander’s head spun at this. Lexi studied him from across their makeshift circle. “Do you want to risk it? You probably won’t die, but you very well might be out there long enough to Shift,” Lexi asked as the silence between all of them grew.

He shook his head, exhaling audibly. “This changes nothing. We still need to go,” he stated. Even if he became a Shifted, he would almost certainly be able to hide whatever ability it gave him, unless for some improbable reason it caused him to grow wings or a third eye or something. Though now that he had put that thought into the universe, it would almost certainly happen to him.

Tessa clapped once. “Okay! Well, I’m in. I do have one concern, and that’s what to do about my job?”

“What about it? Can’t you just go in and pretend to be sick today?” Lexi asked.

“Yes, that might work for today, but we’re going to be gone for longer than that, yeah?” Tessa began, rolling her hand as she spoke, “And well, I know that Lysander probably wants to avoid the notice of a certain BP leader, and I think he might be suspicious if I also disappear.”

Groaning, Noah finally turned to face the group. “Just go in and tell them you’re having a personal crisis or a family crisis or something! This isn’t hard!”

Tapping her lip, Tessa thought it through, but Lysander thought she looked uncomfortable for a moment. “Right. I’ll think of something. Be right back!” Then she took off back toward City Hall, running as fast as she could in her heeled boots. They would probably need to figure out a change of clothes for her.

No one spoke while they waited, all of them wrapped in their own thoughts, and Tessa returned fifteen minutes later, a thin sheen of sweat covering her face from rushing.

“Alright! Let’s ditch this popsicle stand!” she shouted as she rejoined them.

With the monumental task sitting before him, Lysander inhaled deep, chest expanding fully, the brisk April air tasting heavy with the possibility of rain.

And then they set off.