Robin gasped, sucking in air until her lungs wanted to explode with it. The delicious scent of the woods surrounded her.

“Oh, thank the gods!” a male voice that definitely wasn’t Hal exclaimed next to her.

Hal.

He was gone. Vanished. Taken. The thoughts shot through her one after the other, each one a slap in the face.

She forced her eyes open, even though they protested every step of the way.

Alec. He had been the one who exclaimed, and was smiling down at her now. “There she is.”

A coughing fit shook her body, and then she tried to breathe normally enough to speak. After making some sounds she was not proud of, she was able to get out, “Where’s Hal?”

“Well, we don’t exactly know right now, but we are working on it.”

“How do you not know? Don’t you guys track each other or something?”

“Sure, but some magic can block that. It’s why we took so long finding Aster.” He shrugged as though this was nothing all that unusual, which made her want to scream.

“Nimue?”

“I am here, Robin.” The ethereal voice came from her other side.

She breathed a little easier then. At least she hadn’t lost Hal for nothing. Not that she’d lost him. Nope. Not at all.

The one thing that whoever took him didn’t count on was her. She was damn good with computers and had a lot of friends out there on the darknet. She’d find him if it was the last thing she did.

“Those are some intense eyebrows you’ve got goin’ on there, girly. Care to share?”

“If you can’t find him, I will.”

“Fair enough. You were passed out for a while, though, so maybe let’s just take a breath and get you back on your feet before we start making any crazy plans, yeah?” Alec smiled in a way that she knew was meant to charm her, but he wasn’t Hal. There were no dimples, no swirling greens in his blue eyes, no long, sun-drenched hair that she could run her fingers through. Tears pricked at the backs of her eyes. She wasn’t going to give him up easily. That was for damn sure.

“Let’s get moving.” She sat up, and the world spun. Her stomach heaved. Turning her head, she almost vomited on Alec, barely missing him as he scrambled backward.

“Now, Robin, Hal is our resident healer, so you need to go slow, because I can’t peek into your head to see what’s wrong, okay? If I try and do that, your brain will explode, and I know Hal would kill me for that, not to mention you seem pretty decent, so I don’t want to kill you.”

He was very strange. When she had seen him before, Ellie had been with him. Together they made sense, but Alec alone was . . . odd.

“I don’t want you to kill me, either. Turns out I’m quite enjoying my life right now, with the exception of the last day or so.”

“You make a good point.” Alec winked, but it fell flat. He evaluated her with his gaze. Sensing that his usual brand of charming wasn’t working on her, he switched to business mode, which she appreciated. “We will figure out where he is, but right now, let’s get you some water, yeah?”

She nodded as he carefully helped her stand, handing her a bottle of water. Grateful for a chance to wash her mouth out, she took it. She spit the first gulp out before letting the cool liquid soothe her throat.

The world swam again, but it wasn’t as bad as before. She turned to Nimue and was shocked to find her wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. The woman’s silvery-gold hair was tied up into a giant bun on the top of her head.

Looking around, Robin finally took in her surroundings. They were in a clearing in the woods, next to a lake. The sun shone down in the way it did during summer, bright and warm, the leaves of the plants and trees bathing in its golden light. Birds called back and forth around her, and squirrels and other small critters scurried through the grass. It was idyllic.

“Where are we?” The question came out in a hushed, reverent tone, which she hadn’t intended but nonetheless felt was appropriate.

“Welcome to my lake.” Nimue smiled, and that same warmth Robin had felt before fell over her once again.

“The lake?”

“Yes.” She nodded as she sat cross-legged on a big rock.

“Is Excalibur in there?”

“Should be.” She shrugged, as though this wasn’t the most groundbreaking discovery ever. “Arthur doesn’t have need of it; otherwise, I would have known.”

“Couldn’t anyone just stumble onto it?” Nimue took a breath to answer, but Robin just realized what she had said. “Wait, the Arthur? How could he still be alive?”

“Tis a long story, one that is painful for me to tell. I will share it with you another time. Suffice to say that no, no one could stumble on this location unless I wished them to. It is part of my magic, my secret hideaway.”

“Whoa.” Robin suddenly sat down on a fallen tree across from the rock. “That’s a lot to take in.”

“I feel like I should be offended. You didn’t freak out at sirens, but Excalibur and Arthur? Come on. We are way older than Arthur, and we are still kicking ass, I might add, not napping in fairyland,” Alec huffed.

Nimue shot him a reproachful glare.

“Sorry. I guess because I knew about you before, it didn’t shock me when Hal told me, but this? I thought this was straight fiction.”

“Most of what people claim happened did not; at least, from what I understand of your stories. Keep in mind I have been in a cave for longer than I care to admit. I have to say, I like the fact that women wear trousers now. Very comfortable.”

“When, or if, you ever feel like sharing, I would love to hear what really happened.” Robin tugged at her earlobe self-consciously. She felt shy asking, even though it was perfectly reasonable.

“One day I will tell you my story, but for now, we need to deal with the pressing events.”

“Of course!” Robin’s mind flipped into planning mode again, all the unnecessary thoughts being hushed. “Nimue, I need to ask you about the mark you put on my back, and I think I also need your help with rescuing my family.”

“Whatever I can share or help with, I will. Feeling the sunlight again is more of a gift than I can explain.”

Robin’s throat knotted. “I understand. Randall didn’t allow me outside for almost ten years. If he was leaving, then I had to meditate on his future to make sure he was safe. While that’s nothing compared to you, I don’t think I will ever forget what that first breath of fresh air smelled like, or the warmth of the sun on my skin. Even now, the depth of need I have to be around nature is surprisingly intense.”

“Brother Randall is not a good man. Neither were any of his predecessors, though. All power-hungry narcissists.”

“While I hate to interrupt the bonding, ladies, I do feel that we need to stay on track.”

“Yes. Right.” Robin marshaled her thoughts once again. “The mark on my back. What is it and can you remove it?”

“It’s Randall’s personal brand that he had me develop for you. It has the design that an initiate of the Order of Talos requires, but the magic behind it marks you as his property.”

“His property?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry, but without some of his blood, I cannot remove the part of it that matters to you. I can make it invisible should you wish, but the magic binding you to Randall is blood magic. Only blood can dispel blood.”

“That means if I can’t get it removed, I can never . . .” Her heart broke at the thought of never being able to be with Hal.

“No. You would only ever be able to be with Randall. He was worried that someone else in the Order might romance you away from him. He has an unhealthy interest in you.”

“He has an unhealthy interest in anything he wants to control.” Robin fell silent as the thoughts of all those Randall Fields had injured or controlled over his lifetime ran through her head. He needed to be put in his place.

“And your family? How can I help you with them?”

“I’m fairly positive that Randall would have taken them back to the Eclipse building in Boston. It’s where he feels safest. The whole building is warded with magic, not to mention standard alarms and more advanced non-standard alarms. Could you help with the wards?”

“I’m sure I can. How big is this building?”

“Big. Publicly it’s fifty floors, but there are at least three floors beneath the underground garage. I wasn’t given complete clearance, so I can’t tell you for sure.”

“I have never seen such a structure!” Nimue’s eyes were wide with wonder. “I have plenty of power, though, especially since we have been resting at my lake. It has given me a chance to recharge.”

“Good.” She nodded, her brain already planning a few steps ahead. “Alec, did your brothers have any luck with leads on my family?”

“I’m not sure. They just sent me to get you and the Lady of the Lake. I was going to take you both back to the island, but you were passed out for an hour or so.”

“An hour!” Robin exclaimed, wishing they had started with that tidbit.

“Come on. If you’re ready, my lady, then it would be my pleasure to escort you to my home.”

“I am ready, siren.”

Robin put her hand in Alec’s outstretched one. His skin was so much smoother than Hal’s. Another slap in the face. All she wanted was that big man back. Once Nimue grabbed Alec’s other hand, the world around them disappeared, and then just as quickly, they were on the island, standing outside the big house.

Alec turned to her, his shoulders slightly slumped. “Do you want to take Nimue inside while I round up the others?”

“Actually, I need to go get something.”

He frowned at her. “Where are you off to?”

“I’m just going to grab the laptop I’ve been working on.”

Alec was clearly suspicious, but if Hal hadn’t told him about the cabin, then she wasn’t about to, either.

“Fine. I’ll handle everything, then, while you disappear to somewhere mysterious and get the laptop.” Alec practically pouted. Clearly, he was used to getting his own way.

“I’ll be back in a moment.”

Robin turned and followed the path up the mountain. It disappeared as it curved through the trees, but she remembered where to go. She could practically feel Hal walking beside her. Stupid man. Making her get attached. She scuffed at a rock in her way, kicking it to the side. Once she was out of the trees, she began to run. The energy she felt was incredible, like it had been bubbling up inside her.

The cabin was exactly as they had left it. Hal’s workout clothes still hung over the deck railing, and as she opened the door, the scent of him hit her like a brick wall. All masculine and woodsy. Her heart pounded in her chest. The mug of coffee she had been drinking when Hal came back from the workout was still on the table. Quickly, she emptied it and rinsed it. She wasn’t sure how long it would be before she could come back here, and she wasn’t about to leave a mess for Hal.

She changed her clothes, grabbing a sweater and the laptop, before starting to run back down the mountain to the big house. The few scraps of a life that she had might be crashing down around her, but she could still appreciate the tall pine trees that covered the ground around the pathway, not to mention the view, as she ran. She glanced out at the ocean, promising herself that one day she would swim in it. Once she had Hal back.

Bursting through the front door, she was surprised to find everyone waiting on her. Blush reddened her face as they all turned to stare at her.

“Are ye all right?” Ellie’s Scottish accent sang to her as she found a place to get set up.

“Yes. Just had to get this.” She waggled the laptop that had been tucked under her arm, before setting it down and opening it up. “Any news on my family?” She glanced at Thad.

“Seems Jimmy had been sneaking out every night to go to see a local bookie. Horses are his preferred way of losing money right now. He already owes the guy I spoke with upward of five thousand dollars.”

“Damn it.” She sighed. “Typical Dad.” Tapping aggressively at the keyboard, she was able to pull up the files that she had on the Eclipse building. Mostly it was public record stuff, plans that were put before the city council before the construction was started, permits, that kind of thing, but there were a couple documents that were private memos from the company archives.

“Seems that your father attracted the attention of a man, whom I am altogether too familiar with, whom I’ve been trying to track down myself.” He spoke in low angry tones. The change in Thad’s voice caused Robin’s head to snap up. Rage contorted his features. It was only then that she noticed Cin was missing from the assembled group.

“Who is that?” she asked, trying to figure out what could have made him so angry.

“Norman. Leonard’s brother.”

“The Scout? Why are you looking for him?” Panic shot through her. She hoped Thad hadn’t brought any unnecessary attention on them. That would be the last thing they needed.

“The Scout?”

“Yes. Norman. He’s referred to in any and all paperwork as The Scout. It’s only because I heard Randall use his first name that I know who he is.”

“Well, he tried to kidnap Cin. His brother is in a cage under us right now, and hasn’t been giving us any of the information we’ve so nicely been asking for, so I figure maybe I can get some payback on Norman and get the info we want at the same time.”

All the blood drained from Robin’s face. “The Surgeon is here? On the island?” Her heart beat an erratic rhythm in her chest. She tried to catch her breath, but she couldn’t seem to breathe deep enough.

“Robin? Just breathe. He’s locked in a cage that not even a fury can break into, or a siren break out of, for that matter. He can’t get to you and doesn’t know you’re here.” Alec’s voice grounded her a little, but the images flashing through her head were ones she hadn’t thought of in a long time.

When Randall had first taken her, he had The Surgeon evaluate her. The man had killed countless people in front of her, treating her like an experiment, testing how quickly she could sense impending death, how far she could sense it into the future, if the volume of her scream meant anything. He told her what he had been looking at after each section of the testing was concluded.

The fact that she was so connected with death also made him find her attractive, something he didn’t bother to hide, even flaunted it in front of her. There was nothing she could do to escape, to unsee what she had seen. Once the testing had been completed, she had been given a job working in proximity to Randall, eventually becoming his assistant.

Not that she was going to share any of that with them. Maybe with Hal one day, but only if she needed to. It was her personal torment. No one else needed to be involved.

“I’m fine.” She forced the words out, her voice sounding shaky to her own ears. “So Norman was tracking my dad?” she asked, focusing on Thad. Everything seemed too sharp, too bright. If the people she cared about weren’t in danger, she would just go back to the cabin and hide out there. That, however, wasn’t an option.

Thad nodded, watching her with those eerily light-blue eyes of his.

“Well, if he was the source and what we saw at the safe house was correct, then I think my initial guess was probably the right one. They are at the Eclipse building.”

“Okay, you lived there. How do we get them out?”

“Nimue thinks she can handle the magical wards, but I’m still trying to figure out what to do about the alarm systems.”

There was a pause as the group thought, before Ellie piped up. “I may be able to help wi’ that.”

“No.” Alec shook his head.

“Alec, love, I wouldn’t even need to be in the building.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Well, it’s a good thing the world doesn’t depend on what ye like, then, isn’t it?” the petite Scotswoman said with a smile, teasing her fiancé.

“Can someone explain?” Robin had no idea how Ellie could help.

“I can control electricity and lightning, but I’m still workin’ on the last one.” She smiled warmly at Robin, the skin around her eyes crinkling with mirth. “I could take all the electricity that the building would be usin’ an’ divert it, or store it. Would that help?”

Robin tapped her chin in thought. “Only if you can prevent the backup generators from kicking in?”

“Shouldnae be a problem.”

“Then yes.” Robin’s heart felt lighter. Now at least, they had one problem solved. “Now, how do we find Hal?”

“I tried to scry for him while you were getting your laptop, but wherever he is, it’s warded with magic, so we can’t sense him.”

“Okay, so magic can’t sense the area . . .” Robin’s mind was going a mile a minute, trying to figure out a way around the problem.

“Just look for the areas magic can’t sense and then search those.” Aster’s voice came from across the room as she leaned against the door.

Robin didn’t even realize she had appeared. The woman was sneaky and as sly as a fox. “You’re a genius. I assume you guys can do that?”

Alec looked at Ellie.

“I think we can reverse engineer one of Granddad’s spells. Ye ken the one with the water and map?”

“Yeah.” He nodded enthusiastically. “If we do a world map, then that could give us a list of locations to start with.”

“While you guys do that, I’m going to reach out to a couple of my darknet contacts. It’s been a while, but I can’t imagine they wouldn’t enjoy hearing from me.”

It may have been years since she had any contact with them, but those guys wouldn’t turn her away, especially if it was a plea for help. Jkall and Rider were out there somewhere; she just had to track them down again. They were masters at finding lost things. If the brothers could give her a list of sites, then Jkall and Rider would be able to tell her which one was the right one.

“Darknet?” Dem looked at her, one eyebrow raised in question.

She took a breath as she prepared to explain. “Darknet or darkweb is an area of the Internet that isn’t registered in search engines, usually to find things or people. You have to use a peer-to-peer server. Basically, everything is encrypted and the only way to find stuff is to kind of manually search for it, going from computer to computer.” She got blank stares all around the room. “Say I want to send Aster a message. I would have to encrypt it if I wanted it to get to her, but I couldn’t just encrypt it once.

“The first message would go to Nimue, who’s closest to me. She would decrypt the first layer and send it on to Alec, who’s next to her, and then Ellie and then Dem and then Thad and finally Aster. Each one of you would have a layer of encryption to break before you could send it on. The number of layers should correspond to the number of computers it has to pass through before it gets to its final destination. It’s called onion routing.

“There is no centralized web server, no search engine. You have to crawl from node to node to find what, or whom, you’re looking for. There are a lot of illegal services and activities around on there, but you have to know how to access them. I’m not sure that made any sense to any of you. Basically it’s a super-secret way of keeping prying eyes out of your business, usually so you can do something you’re not supposed to be doing.”

“Secret sneaky shit, got it.” Alec nodded at her.

“Well, when you put it like that, it makes it sound much less impressive.” A smile played at the corners of her mouth. She was starting to understand Alec’s humor.

“So these contacts you have can help you?”

“Yeah. I don’t actually know who they are in real life, but that’s part of why the darknet works. You give me some locations, and we can figure out which one is the right one.”

“I’ll go get the maps.” Ellie stood and walked out, with Alec hot on her heels.

Robin looked over to find Aster already gone and Dem and Thad sharing a hushed conversation, before they both got up and left.

“This is all very interesting. It’s like magic.” Nimue’s voice was full of awe.

“You know, if I remember correctly, there is a quote out there about technology being indistinguishable from magic once it’s advanced enough, or something like that.” She smiled across at the other woman.

The Lady of the Lake was sitting next to her, watching her crawl around the darknet as she tried to track down her old contacts from when she was a teenage girl who was too smart for her high school and up to no good. Her life was so weird.

An hour or so later, she had tracked down Jkall but was still looking for Rider, when Alec and Ellie came rushing back in. Dem and Thad had departed long ago, and Nimue was asleep on the couch next to Robin. Ellie held two or three soaking-wet maps.

“What happened?”

“We found ye some locations!” Ellie grinned.

“Um, why are the maps wet?”

“Well, that’s because this wee spell uses water infused wi’ magic.”

Her Scots accent was stronger when she was excited, Robin noticed. It was pleasant to listen to, but now was not the time to be distracted by that. “Okay, so what are the locations?”

Ellie spread the first map onto the table. Picking up the laptop so it didn’t get wet, Robin settled it on her knees, the battery warming her legs even through her jeans. A map of the world was now spread in front of her.

“You can see tiny pockets of dry.” She pointed to at least thirteen different locations.

This was more than she was hoping to give Jkall.

Another map flopped down on top of the first. This one centered on England. “You can see there are a few different locations here.” Ellie pointed at three dry spots this time. Robin could narrow one of those down herself as the estate or the cave where Randall had been keeping Nimue. The other two were still up for grabs, though. One was on the Isle of Man, and the other was up in the Hebredes just off the coast of Scotland.

Ellie repeated this process with a few different maps. Apparently, they had ruled out a few of the locations based on their previous experiences, but there were still almost ten left. She sighed. Jkall was not going to be happy with her. She knew she was going to end up owing him a favor, which was a dangerous place to be.

“I’ll send the list over to the contact I was able to reconnect with, and we will see what we can find.”

Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she encrypted the list before sending it off. While she waited for his response, she found a picture of the man who had controlled her life for the past nine years, and began to see which airports were closest to the areas shielded by magic. Hacking into their surveillance feeds wasn’t as easy as she had hoped. The firewalls and other security measures that had been put in place while she was sequestered in the Eclipse building were slowing her down. Things had changed while she was away, and she wasn’t happy about it.

Running the photo of Randall through facial recognition software, she compared it with the feeds she was able to pull from two airports, only to come up with bupkis. Theoretically, that knocked two possible sites out of the running. She began working on accessing the next location’s security cameras, but paused when she got a message back from Jkall. The decryption took a few minutes, and she waited with bated breath.

Finally, the photo of Randall she had sent to her hacker friend popped up with a still from a security camera next to it. Her old boss was trying to hide his face with sunglasses and a hat, but he wasn’t paying attention to where the surveillance cameras were. The location tag indicated that he had flown into Athens. Another message popped through. This time it only took a minute to decrypt. It was another photo of Randall, on the docks, getting on a yacht, along with a cruise permit. The course was indicated as a trip around the Aegean Islands.

They had it.

“I know where he is.”