point, Alexei came strolling in. His expression seemed rather bothered.
“Where have you been?” Kiara asked.
“Getting information,” he said. “The Black Claw is back in the city. You know the monsters the cult was trapping last semester? They’re being used as a conduit for Gabby, for her to harness dark magic.”
“How do you know?” I was surprised Alexei had managed to get his hands on such a crucial piece of information.
Alexei scowled. “I was flying over town. I stopped to rest for a moment on a rooftop and overhead two cultists talking below in an alleyway. They’re keeping the monsters in an old warehouse on the edge of town. They have at least four in there, which doesn’t sound like many, but it’s a lot when you consider how big these creatures have to be.”
“And how powerful,” Stefan added.
“So what are we going to do about it?” Kiara looked between us. “Gabby is already magically talented due to the full moon ceremony she uses to harvest power from Droga. We can’t let her keep draining these creatures, too. She’s too strong as it is.”
“There’s only one answer, is there?” I asked glumly. “I have to put on the mask again.”
A small bit of silence rang between us. I expected Emma to pitch a fit, or at least look pissed— instead, a bit of introspection came into her eyes.
Odette tilted her head. “But I thought you were done with him, after what happened with—”
Theo nudged her, and she fell quiet. I swallowed nervously.
“I don’t want to be the Phantom anymore. But my personal grievances aren’t worth putting Dolinska in more danger,” I said. “Only a vigilante can stop this.”
“What about Gabby and Eli? They know you’re the Phantom,” Delmare argued.
“We have the video of Gabby performing dark magic,” Emma reminded her. “Gabby can’t touch us so long as she’s worried we’ll expose her.”
“Us?” I asked.
“The White Rose will be there,” Emma swore. “I’m not letting you do this alone.”
I wanted to tell Emma no, ask her to stay behind— but she wouldn’t. And this was a dangerous operation. I needed help to pull it off. Setting multiple monsters loose was a recipe for disaster.
“We’ll come too,” Stefan suggested. “Once that warehouse is destroyed, it’ll take time for the cult to find another place to store those monsters. This is our next step to slow Gabby and Eli down.”
I didn’t want to bring my friends into this, but perhaps it was the only way. I’d spent too long pushing them away, and look where it had gotten me.
Maybe doing this together was the only way to get through it.
At midnight, I donned my mask. My cloak swept behind me as I perched on top of a clocktower, looking down upon the city.
The White Rose loomed beside me, her features changed by the mask she wore, hair brown and eyes blue, her white cloak swooping around her. She’d gotten a new costume, after her previous one had been stained with blood from me—
Well. We all knew what happened.
It was eerie, standing side by side like this. We’d been enemies, but now we were allies.
“Are you ready for this?” Emma had changed her voice to that mysterious lull of the White Rose.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” I began my descent downward. Emma followed behind, using her levitation powers to lower her to the warehouse roof below, avoiding use of her wings.
“There’s an access point just ahead.” The crackling of a communicator device in my ear rang with Kiara’s voice. She and Alexei were flying over the scene, hiding in the clouds in search of any trouble. The rest of the team was on the ground. The device didn’t work very well— technology was iffy around magic— but it enabled us to hear each other from a farther distance than telepathy magic could offer.
Emma had tried making a portal into the building, but it was surrounded by wards which prevented such magic. The wards would take time to break, which we didn’t have. We’d have to force our way inside.
“Do we have the all-clear?” I asked. Kiara and Alexei had moved in, to provide a distraction for the cultists, but I didn’t know if there were more nearby.
“Alexei and I have led the guards away, but you’ll have to be quick about it,” Kiara said. “They won’t chase us forever.”
That meant we had ten minutes, tops. I ran forward. I saw a vaulted door before me. When I tried it, it was locked. Emma raised