“Can I have all of it? Can I, can I?”

“Just the essentials this time.”

“Let me get this on record.” Arlys switched on her camera. “What else is here?”

“It’s a kind of plant,” Fallon explained. “For weapons storage, testing, maintenance. There are supplies—MREs, uniforms, medicine—though most of that is probably outdated. But medical supplies and equipment I think the clinic would be glad to have. The warheads have to come first. Can you work here?” she asked Chuck.

“I got this.”

“The warheads are several levels below. There’s an elevator. You can’t take another flash so soon, Arlys, so we’ll go down in that.”

“Is there power? You’re adding the light. I know magickal light.”

“No power. It died long ago. But I can make the elevator run.”

They went down several levels in what Arlys tried not to think of as a big steel box running on witchcraft.

She followed Fallon, who apparently knew just where she was going, through another warren, running the camera and a commentary as she went.

Then stopped in her tracks as she saw, through thick glass, the warheads. “Oh my God.”

“You can record them, but you have to stay here. And when we go in, you’ll turn off the camera.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll tell you when you can turn it back on.”

“Okay.”

“You need to turn it off now.”

With Duncan and Tonia, Fallon flashed. And with her heart in her throat, Arlys watched the three of them face down destruction.

She recorded nothing. But she didn’t forget.

She’d seen circles cast before, and had seen and felt the power that could rise from them, in them, around them. But this was more, more because even through that thick glass she felt the pulse of it, saw the air stir. Candles lit and words spoken she couldn’t hear.

The three of them levitated as if they were one entity, and there, Arlys thought, was a stunning beauty in it.

Liquid, the palest of pale blues, poured from a cup that somehow spilled into the moving air, then vanished. Dirt, light as tropical sand, flung from a hand that scattered and disappeared. Wind circling, the three who stirred it rising and rising. Light glowing, brighter, brighter.

Something burst, white and bright. It struck her eyes like a laser, and she waited for annihilation.

But it quieted to the palest of pale blues.

Her breath caught when each of them drew a knife, scored their palms, let their blood drip. Clasping hands, they lowered again, and lifting those joined hands high …

The warheads shimmered, sheened, became sheer, shining glass. Inside she saw whatever had been in them, the death they carried, was now dead itself.

She knew the Oppenheimer quote, and now thought of her lede. I am become the death of death, savior of worlds.

They brought their hands down with a power that made the floor beneath her shake.

The glass shattered into countless harmless pieces.

Fallon, flushed with power, eyes alive with it, turned, nodded at Arlys.

With a hand that trembled a bit, Aryls recorded.

The next day after a long night, Arlys sat with Lana on the front porch of her home. A home that years before Lana had shared with Max.

“It’s been a while since we’ve done this.” As the long day after the long night edged toward evening, she took her first sip of wine. “I know it must seem odd to you.”

“It doesn’t. It really doesn’t. I’d always hoped you and Will would get together. Now here you are, raising a family. So much has changed, so much hasn’t. And one thing I know hasn’t is your reporter’s instincts and sensibilities. It’s hard for you to hold this story.”

“TEENAGE TRIAD NUKES THE NUKES. Everything I’ve seen, Lana, everything from those first days in New York? Nothing compares. And holding it, yeah, it sticks. But I understand weighing the greater good over the public’s right to know. Fallon wants the recruits here, and those at other bases secured, before I break the story. It can wait a few days.”

She took another sip. “And though, at the time, it galled me when they just dumped us off after their first strike, I can understand that, too. Chuck and I were added weight—not even considering all the equipment they brought back.”

“They wouldn’t let me go, let me help. Even after they brought you back. Even understanding why on some level—Fallon’s absolute insistence it had to be only the three of them—I felt so damn helpless.”

“You said they didn’t get back until just before dawn. Horrible night for you, for Katie.”

“Simon and I pretended we weren’t worried, then gave that up. Paced, prayed. Can I just add Hannah is a rock.”

“She is,” Arlys agreed. “She always has been.”

“I can see leaning on that rock, and I guess Simon and I are going to have to get used to the pacing and praying.”

“Here’s a change. We’re mothers now, having to face sending our children into war. Will and I talked seriously about not having kids. We’re realists. New Hope is a good community, but it’s not the world, and we understood we’d have to fight to keep the community, and eventually the world. Did we want to bring children into that? And then … Well, if you can’t have hope in a town named for it, where?”

“You have beautiful children.”

“I do.” She took Lana’s hand. “So do you. Simon’s just terrific, Lana. I wanted to say that here on the porch that used to be yours and Max’s. I can see how much you love him, and more, how much he loves you, the boys, Fallon.”

“He went with me early this morning to the memorial tree, to Max’s star. He’s such a good man, Arlys.”

“I know it. So I’m hoping I’m doing the right thing.” She reached in her pocket, took out a flash drive. “I’ve gone back and forth the last couple weeks about giving this to you. It’s Max’s.”

“The book he was working on.”

“Yeah, and a kind of journal, random thoughts and observations. We hoped we’d find you, then when we didn’t, we hoped you’d find your way back even though Starr told Flynn what you’d said. Will and I decided we’d take the house, and I found this. I put it away, held on to it in case I ever got the chance to give it to you.”

“This means so much.” Lana took the drive, closed her hand around it. “So much, Arlys. I’ll give it to Fallon. It should be hers.”

“I was afraid it would make you sad.”

“No. It reminds me he had hope, too. He was writing again. It reminds me what he did, what I did, to protect the child we’d made together. And what Simon did to protect her, right from the start. It reminds me giving up is never an option.”

Every night Fallon traveled with Duncan and Antonia to repeat the spell. On the third night, they traveled throughout Russia, on the fifth, Asia.

They told no one.

Fallon updated her maps, plotted locations. She believed once they’d eliminated the worst of man-made destruction, they could move on.

During the day she worked with organizing and housing arriving recruits. She found Katie invaluable with her capacity for creating lists, spreadsheets, organizing data, and her innate ability to welcome strangers with warmth.

“They need to start training.”

Katie sat at a picnic table outside the barracks working on a laptop. People milled around; children played with dogs. Two of those dogs were Jem and Scout.

“They need to start training,” Fallon repeated. “They need structure, discipline.”

“Yes, I know.” Katie continued working without looking up. “But right now they’re not soldiers, or a lot of them aren’t. They’re adjusting to a new place. And we’re working to ensure there’s adequate housing, supplies. Rachel and her team are still doing medical evaluations. We have over four hundred of the eight hundred plus you expect.”

“I know all you’ve done, are doing.” But a storm’s coming, Fallon thought. Something big and dark, and soon. Still the crystal wouldn’t clear for her, wouldn’t show her.