Mordecai jumped out at us as we ran across the front yard of a neighbor’s house down the street from Valens’s. Kieran told us to hop fences until we reached the blue house, and then go out through the side of their yard—they were rarely home.

“I was worried sick,” Mordecai said, his eyebrows lowering in confusion as his eyes shot from my attire to the sack I lugged behind me. “Did you steal something?”

“Is it stealing if it was bought for you by a misguided Demigod who wants his way?” I returned.

“No, it is not. It is reclaiming what is yours. You are totally in the right.” Bria stopped up short when she noticed the Mercedes was gone. “Well shit. We have to hoof it.”

Without skipping a beat, she pointed down the hill and picked up the pace.

“No, no. Wait—” Mordecai cut off as a black BMW rolled toward us from the opposite direction, stopping by the curb. The tinted window lowered, revealing an angry-faced Jack.

“Good thing he holds grudges,” Bria said, changing direction. “He’s the one we need.”

We climbed into the car, Bria sitting in the front passenger seat to take the brunt of Jack’s anger. I’d already been yelled at by Kieran—it was her turn to take some heat. Besides, she was the one who’d actually dosed him.

Jack slammed the car into gear before easing pressure onto the gas pedal. If it had been a different situation, I was sure he would’ve stomped on it and peeled out. But we had to maintain a low profile.

“What happened to the Mercedes?” Bria said, pulling out her phone.

“Zorn dropped it in another part of town,” Jack said, fury simmering just below the surface. Either he was terrible at hiding his anger, or he didn’t want to. “Kieran didn’t want it drawing attention up here.”

“Cool,” she said, not affected by the intensity of the large man next to her. “We need to head to the top of Ocean Beach by the cliffs.” She showed him a picture. “This end. Just down the hill.”

He didn’t glance over. “Like hell we do. I’m taking those two home, and you—”

“We might know where the skin is,” Bria said, before explaining what we’d found.

By the end, Jack had let off the gas.

“You’re sure about all this?” he asked, his dark eyes boring into me through the rearview mirror.

I shrugged. “I can’t be sure of anything until we check it out, but it makes sense. It fits.”

He nodded slowly, pulling over to the curb. His fingers tapped against the steering wheel and he gazed out the window. “Did you tell Demigod Kieran?”

“It clicked two seconds ago,” Bria said. “He’s out with his dad. I figure it’s worth checking out. We can text him if we find something. Unless you think they swim around that area?”

He pulled away from the curb again, back to full speed. “When they’re together, they swim way out. They test each other. A gentleman’s competition.”

“What’s a gentleman’s competition?” I grabbed the corner of his seat and leaned forward so I could hear better.

“It means they silently try to outdo each other while pretending it’s a normal day,” Bria said, stowing her phone. “Ego at work, if you will.”

“What happened in there?” Mordecai asked as we left the neighborhood and turned onto a road that would wind down the hill, hugging the cliffs.

I quickly went through everything, trying to skip the part in Kieran’s bedroom. I should’ve known Bria wasn’t finished with me yet.

“Did you use a condom?” she asked suddenly.

“Shhh,” I said, my face flaming again.

“Why? You don’t want Jack to know?” Bria glanced back. “Trust me, it’s obvious. You’ve got that glow of a good lay. You can’t hide that shit.”

“Would you stop?” I lightly jerked my head at a wide-eyed Mordecai.

Bria laughed and turned back around. “That kid is edging into the Wild West of hormones. If he’s not already thinking about sex daily, he will be soon. The best thing you can do is keep everything out in the open so there are no secrets, and so he’ll know to use protection. You used protection, right?”

“Talking about sex is not the problem,” I muttered. “It’s him knowing I gave in when I really shouldn’t have.”

“What did you do?” Mordecai asked me.

“Well, the cat is out of the bag now.” Bria glanced back again, and I swear I wanted to throw myself from the moving car out of pure mortification. Or maybe I wanted to throw her out of the car. I’d never been shy when talking to the kids about these things, but in the past, I hadn’t been talking about my life.

I sucked it up. I was a role model, no matter how unqualified. I needed to set an example.

“I’m covered. The pill is free when you’re below poverty level, and he’s a Demigod—he can’t give or receive STDs. It was safe. I was safe.”

I lifted my chin, feigning confidence and trying to hide my embarrassment.

“He didn’t use a condom?” Jack glanced back, shock written clearly on his face.

We descended the hillside, now overlooking the strip of beach pounded by messy, windswept waves. Swirling fog clouded the sky, promising a crappy beach-going experience. An experience Valens must have purposely cultivated, because back when the picture had been taken, he’d kept this area as clear and lovely as the rest of the magical zone. He didn’t want people down here.

Butterflies surged through my belly. That information had just increased the likelihood that we were right.

“Did he ask you if you were on the pill?” Bria asked, cutting through my nervous excitement.

“He might know,” Jack said. “He’s been thorough when it comes to her.”

“Yeah, but…she could sabotage the situation,” Bria murmured as we pulled into the sandy parking lot. A small smattering of cars and trucks dotted the lot, most of them pushed up right next to the walkway overlooking the beach.

“He clearly trusts her.” Jack put the car into park.

“Yes, he does, doesn’t he?” Bria shoved open the door, and before she was fully out, I heard, “Toot, toot.”

I sighed and followed them out of the car. What a mess.

“Right, so…” Jack stopped on the walkway, littered with trash and piled with sand where the sidewalk met the graffiti-marred barrier, a semi-circular wall to keep any extreme swells or rises in tide from washing out onto the street above. At a break in the barrier, steps led down to the windswept beach.

Bria looked first one way down the sidewalk, then the other, before eyeing the barrier itself. “I’ve always thought this area was neglected because it’s right next to the dual-society zone. But now I’m starting to wonder…”

“That’s what I was thinking,” I said as I descended the four steps onto the rocky, trash-strewn sand. “People rarely come out here for pleasure. They go over to the other side of the point where the weather is good.”

“Then what are these cars doing here?” Mordecai asked, gesturing around us.

“Some are fisherman, and some…” Bria glanced at a beat-up motorhome. “Are probably doing drugs. Speaking of which, I need to grab my car.”

“Thane took care of it,” Jack said with a smirk. “He dropped it at your house. You’re at our mercy now.” Violence glimmered in his dark eyes. A shiver ran the length of my body.

Bria laughed, chugging through the sand beside me. “Sure, sure. Keep thinking you’ve got the upper hand. Let me know how that works out for you. Better yet, I’ll let you know how it’ll work out for you…when you least expect it.”

Cold moisture touched my cheeks and slid across my skin, the fog so thick it felt like a sprinkle. Swirling sheets of gray obscured my vision. Large, half-burnt pieces of driftwood hunkered in the sand as we passed. The hard-packed wet sand bore evidence of the beach’s desolation. There were no footprints.

“It’s like some dystopian scene,” Bria whispered, looking out toward the cliffs.

The boom of a wave crashing against rocks interrupted the wind blowing against the shell of my ear. A rumble followed, the waves rolling down along the sand break.

“I hit this beach every so often,” Jack said, squinting through the fog to the cliff on our right, the one in the picture. “Never this far down, though. The base of that cliff face is really rocky, from what I remember. It gets hit with some hard currents and rip tides. If you got caught up in it, it’ll slash you up pretty good. Through the shifts in the fog over there”—he pointed—“it looks like a washing machine. All that white means keep out, rough seas.”

“Could Valens get in there and leave a trunk or something?” Bria put her hand up to shield her eyes, as though the sun were the problem and not a thick sheet of fog.

“He could, yeah. Easy.” Jack worked at the buttons on his shirt. “He could just still the waters and swim on out there. Or push the water aside and walk. He’s a descendent of the god of the sea. He has power over—”

“Right, yes. We got it,” Bria cut in.

“Pushing the water away,” I said, nodding. “That would make it easy. He could get someone across to refresh the spell on the skin. The treacherous area makes it safe, because even if someone wanted to check it out, they wouldn’t be able to because of what Jack said.” I blew out a breath and ran my fingers through my hair. “Which means we don’t have much but a hunch. Kieran will have to…”

Jack shrugged out of his shirt, displaying his robust chest and huge arms. He unhooked the clasp on his pants and pushed them down his muscular thighs. His underwear quickly followed.

“Whoa.” I jerked my head away. “Wow. Warn a girl.”

“I’ll check it out really quickly.” Jack jogged toward the ocean, and I couldn’t help getting a peek at his well-formed backside.

“What is his magic?” I asked as he waded into the water without so much as a shiver. He dove into the rush of an oncoming wave and disappeared below the surface.

“Kraken,” Bria said, watching the water.

I shifted so I could stare at her. “Are you serious? Those are real?”

She frowned at me. “Of course they’re real. Most of the myths and supernatural stories we hear were originally based off of magical beings. Why do you not know this?”

“No. I mean…” I looked out over the rough water. “I knew that, I just…” I shrugged. “I’ve never heard of a Kraken.”

“Clearly you have, since you just asked if they were real.”

“No, I mean, I’ve never heard of them as—never mind.”

“Is the dual-society zone a black hole, or something?” Bria asked incredulously. “Because wow. You are ignorant.”

“Right. Fine.” I tried to let it go. And failed. “But I’ve literally never heard of a real one. Not in society, anyway.”

“He’s a shapeshifter, then?” Mordecai asked.

“He is a shapeshifter, yes…obviously,” Bria said, watching the waters. “A shapeshifter of the sea. There aren’t many of them hanging with humans. Most of them stick to the sea. I think Kieran met Jack off the coast of Ireland somewhere. Or maybe it was Scotland. I don’t know how long ago—I only care so much, know what I mean? Sometimes when people talk, I accidentally stop listening. My mind is a more interesting place to be.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” I mumbled. “He doesn’t have an accent, either.”

“He gets that from the blood oath. All the Six automatically speak the local language anywhere they go. It helps them protect Kieran or something, I don’t know.”

“So…are Krakens really as huge as the myths say?”

“They can alter their size to fit various bodies of water they inhabit. Only the most powerful can get that big. Before you ask, they resemble a cross between a squid and a whale. They’re really weird looking, I’m not going to lie. But the strongest of them—like Jack—can take down ocean liners. He’s a big deal when it comes to the sea. Which is why he’s one of the Six. Each of the Six is exceptional in some way.”

“Would he ever think of adding more guys to the Six?” I asked, shifting from foot to foot. The waiting was killing me. I wanted to know if I was right. I wanted to know that if worst came to worst, I could still save Kieran’s mom.

“Then he’d have to change the name.” Bria frowned at me.

The seconds trickled by, turning into minutes, then handfuls of minutes. Mordecai walked up the beach toward the cliff, then back down. Bria and I stared out at the waters.

“That area couldn’t kill him, right?” I asked in a hush, my words drifting into the thick fog and disappearing.

“No. He might come back a little battered, but he won’t let himself get into a situation where it’ll kill him.”

“Is this why he’s the one who will be walking me through the change?” Mordecai asked, coming to stop next to us again. His voice quavered just a little, full of excitement and fear.

“Obviously.” Bria shook her head. “Wow, you two are about as magically dense as can be. How have you made it this far in life?”

“By not getting involved with magical people,” I replied.

“And look where that got you. You’re involved with the worst of the bunch.” Bria rolled back on her heels before checking the watch on her phone. “What’s taking him so long?”

“How will he show me, if…” Mordecai’s voice drifted away.

“Don’t know, kid. That’s not my area of expertise. Finally!” She pointed out at the water. Through the swirling fog I could just see Jack riding the top of a wave, his body as flat as a board and his arm held out. Body surfing. The wave crashed down, bringing him with it, and he disappeared under the churning foam. A moment later, he rose gracefully from hip-high water and jogged in our direction.

I jerked my head away, having caught sight of dangling bits I had no business noticing.

“What’d you see?” Bria asked, bending to gather his clothes.

He breathed deeply as he neared, catching his breath. “You hit the nail on the head.”

Excitement surged through me. I couldn’t help smiling and turning to him. “It’s there?”

He ran a hand over his short hair, flinging water. “It’s definitely there. It’s at the base of the cliff. It really is a washing machine in there. It’s fucking nuts. The current rips and tears you every which way, the rocks are extremely jagged, and more than a few spots could catch you and keep you. A human or normal magical creature wouldn’t have stood a chance. Not a chance. I barely made it in and out.”

I belatedly noticed the gashes along his arms and across his broad chest. Blood oozed down his skin, but he didn’t seem troubled by it.

“You’re sure it’s what we’re looking for?” Bria jerked her head back to the car and started walking.

“Oh yeah.” Jack nodded emphatically, a huge grin on his face. His energy sizzled, potent and infectious. The water had clearly revived him. “I got right up on it. It’s a sort of trunk—really classy—with her fucking name on it, man. And engravings of her in both forms. It’s her skin. It is her fucking skin. That prick made a shrine out of the box.”

“Sick fucker,” Bria said.

I pushed away the uncomfortable sinking of my heart. Kieran’s mother had been attached to the worst kind of man. He’d kept her in a living hell without her skin, and the bastard hadn’t even freed her from his honeyed trap after death. Yet he still clearly loved her. He had to have with the fountain and the picture. His mind must’ve been bent toward insanity when it came to her. Regardless, there was one thing I knew, it was that I could set her free.

“Tell Kieran,” I said, barely able to breathe. “We’ll have to do this on his timetable, but tell him. Whatever else happens, at least he can save his mom from a life in Demigod-made purgatory.”

“Freeing her is going to start the war,” Jack said.

Bria slapped her hands together and started rubbing. “Let’s hope so. I’m so ready to take that fucker down.”