"be careful," i told him. "i don't want them to mistake you for a hostile gray man."

"i believe the smaller leyworm now recognizes me," he said. "hopefully this will prevent an attack."

"okay. i'll close the portal behind us. if you need us to open it, call, okay?" arcphones used ley lines for a wireless signal, so contacting us shouldn't be an issue.

"i will, justin."

the rest of us stepped back through the portal to the mansion.

after disconnecting the arch, i walked upstairs after the others. my mind still reeled from the discovery of angel babies. even though the leyworm i'd rescued from dash armstrong had vouched for me, did that mean we were on their safe list? or would things be different the next time i walked in there?

and who are they really helping?

so much made so little sense. true, i'd only known leyworms in the most terrifying sense, when they'd chased our small group through dark tunnels deep in the earth during our expedition to apprehend vadaemos. i wondered if yolo could communicate with the leyworms. they seemed pretty cozy.

elyssa and i took a flying carpet down into queens gate that night. the bustling city looked like london from the victorian era. a huge clock tower rose from the center, flanked on either side by domed buildings used for official arcane council meetings, among other things. we grabbed dinner at the copper swan, a popular chinese restaurant.

"i think shelton is right," elyssa said as we discussed his plan to question an arch operator about the control room beneath el dorado. "you obviously can't tell the operator this is about el dorado unless he still believes your darkwater story."

"if the arch operators don't help, what then?" i asked.

elyssa shrugged. "kidnap one? torture him for information?"

i felt my forehead pinch. "what?"

elyssa laughed. "i'm kidding, babe." she put a hand atop mine. "do we even know where this darkwater organization is based? maybe we could break into their headquarters and find more useful information than the operators know."

"now, that's a good idea," i said.

"probably because a woman thought of it," she said.

i snorted. "i think we should start with the operators. infiltrating darkwater sounds risky." i narrowed my eyes in thought, remembering a conversation i'd once had with bella. "although...back in the day, bella and stacey used to be cat burglars. maybe they could help with something on that scale."

elyssa's violet eyes widened. "they were thieves?"

i nodded. "bella told me stories about the two of them. maybe they'd be willing to come out of retirement."

"it could be fun," she said, pursing her lips.

"now you're scaring me again," i said with a smirk.

after dinner, we went back to the mansion and found bella playing scrabble with a grumpy-looking shelton.

"you clearly don't have a life," he said, as she placed a long word i'd never seen before across the board. "what do you do, read dictionaries all day? is that even a word?"

"of course," the petite arcane said with a bright smile.

"what the hell does it mean?" he said.

"it means i won." she stuck out her tongue.

shelton's grumpy facade vanished in a burst of laughter.

"we've been discussing plans," i told them as bella cleared the board.

shelton gave us a suspicious look. "as in plans for new bedroom furniture or plans for something that'll make me wish i didn't know you?"

i took a seat at the table. "we figured grilling one of the arch operators might be a good starting point, but elyssa thinks infiltrating darkwater is a good backup plan in case the operators don't have answers." i chewed on my inner lip. "we need to know how to operate the alabaster arch so we find out where the grand nexus is. we need to know how to turn on the lights. we need information to bargain with lornicus so he'll help me rescue mom."

shelton's forehead wrinkled into an incredulous look. "just so happens i know where darkwater is located," he said.

my eyebrows pinched. "you do? how?"

he shrugged. "when we were pretending to work for darkwater, i did a little extra research. i don't like impersonating employees of a company i know nothing about. i also wondered what kind of people the conroys were hiring."

"tell us more," elyssa said, taking a seat next to bella.

"jarrod sager originally owned the company when it was known as arcane enterprises," he said, speaking of his adoptive father, the former arcanus primus, now dead thanks to the late bigglesworth. shelton flinched, but soldiered on. "he hired them for the gloom initiative, even though using his own company for a public contract was an obvious conflict of interest. cyphanis rax, his primary opponent for the primus election, dug up the dirt and called him out on it. everyone figured sager's political career was over, but then i caught the pinkerton gang, and dear old dad took the credit for it."

"you caught the pinkertons?" elyssa said, an amazed look on her face. "they remained at the top of the templar most wanted for years."

he gave a modest shrug. "i was getting pretty good at the bounty hunting biz."

"they weren't political enemies of your father, were they?" bella asked.

a scowl twisted his lips. "nah, they were legit bad guys. not the ones aerianas sent me after."

aerianas, vadaemos's daughter, had used shelton to carry out bounty contracts on sager's political enemies in a twisted deal with daelissa to push funding for the gloom initiative through the overworld conclave. sager needed political cover to fund the project and shelton had unwittingly helped him by bringing in his opponents on fake charges. we still didn't know much about the gloom initiative or its purpose.

"taking credit for their capture was enough to rescue sager's career?" i asked.

shelton nodded. "once aerianas got her claws into me and had me hunting down political enemies of dad's, cyphanis's name came up."

"did you arrest him?" i asked.

"no. he was too rich and powerful for me to go after. i tried a couple of times, but the man was untouchable." shelton shrugged. "plus, he moved around a lot, so it was hard to get a fix on him. most of the time, i ended up tracking one of his doubles instead of the real deal." he leaned back in his chair. "so, sager sold the company to a shell corporation owned by the conroys, and the name changed from arcane enterprises to darkwater."

"where are the headquarters?" i asked.

"the tech sector of the grotto, right next to magicsoft and orange." he sighed, ran a hand through his hair. "they probably have a mix of tech and magic protecting the place, so infiltrating it ain't gonna be easy."

"that's where bella comes in," elyssa said. "and maybe even stacey."

bella gave her a shrewd look. "did justin tell you about my nefarious past?"

elyssa nodded. "yep. if anyone could get in, it would be you two. i'd like to help as well, maybe learn a thing or two along the way."

"whoa, whoa, whoa!" shelton said. "i know about your thieving youth, woman, but you haven't done it for a century at least."

"you make me sound awfully old when you put it like that," bella said.

"i'm not kidding. their defenses ain't gonna be kiddie stuff. you could get killed."

"maybe it's not such a good idea," i said, not liking the idea of elyssa going along.

the two women gave us sharp looks.

"harry shelton, you know i can take care of myself," bella said. "elyssa and i saw a lot of action in the streets of bogota, so i know we can handle this."

"and you think stacey is gonna just jump on board with this insanity?" shelton said.

a grin spread bella's lips. "i think she'll enjoy it."

"let's hope the arch operators can tell us what we need," i said.

"they might have more than just information about the arch control rooms," elyssa said. "if jeremiah conroy owns the company, maybe they have information about where he lives."

"don't count on it," shelton said. "the old man is trickier than the devil."

elyssa flicked his comment away with the back of her hand. "we can't overlook the possibility. we find your mother's location, and lornicus is out of the loop."

"i'm going to call stacey right now," bella said, her eyes bright with excitement.

"i can't wait to test out the new templar stealth pack," elyssa said, matching the other dhampyr's excitement.

shelton and i exchanged distressed looks. stopping these two would be an uphill battle.

"that reminds me," elyssa said. "this saturday is my initiation, and i want to invite everyone."

i'd already known about it, but had kind of forgotten to bring it up with the others.

"what do they do for initiations these days?" bella asked. "since you can't use the torches anymore." templars formerly used torches to call the templar divinity to bless newly minted soldier with immunities to certain curses, super strength, etc. but since discovering daelissa was the divinity and that she'd used her magic to blank out each initiate's memory of the proceedings, a major portion of the templars had broken away from the organization. christian salazar, the commander of templar forces in colombia had called for an imperator concilium to replace the synod. the vote had passed, but forces loyal to the synod threatened war if the others tried to replace them.

"it's a simpler ceremony now," elyssa said. "although arcanes who don't already have supernatural strength, won't get it."

"we'll be there," bella said. "i'm very proud of you."

elyssa's lips spread into a smile. "thanks, bella. it means a lot to me."

the next morning, adam, shelton, and i took a shuttle down to the queens gate way station to see what information we could glean from the operators there. i took along my practice staff just in case we ran into trouble. oh, who was i kidding? trouble would find us. as with most obsidian arch way stations, a large parking lot took up a generous portion of the massive cavern while a huge, enclosed stable spanned the opposite wall. between the back of the stable and the wall ran a narrow alley. shelton and i had discovered each way station had a door concealed by illusion in this narrow alley and through it sat the control room.