The bat clattered onto my kitchen table with all the dignity of a wet noodle. Aluminum. Child-sized. A faint dent halfway down the barrel where ten-year-old me had whiffed and connected with the bleachers instead.

  “Behold,” I said dryly. “Mjolnir II.”

  Elly raised one perfect brow. “I still can’t believe that you named your Little League bat after the hammer of the thunder god.”

  I shrugged. “What? I was ten. Everything was Thor back then. Plus, he’s back and cool again.”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose, muttering something sharp in fae tongue that probably translated to why is my life like this, then flicked her hand over the bat. Runes hissed faintly into existence, glowing briefly before sinking into the metal.

  “Aluminum is the single worst material for enchantments,” she grumbled. “Do you know what happens when you combine glamour glyphs with soda cans? Nothing. You get nothing.”

  “So… that’s a no?”

  Her lips twitched. “I didn’t say it was impossible. Just that it’s going to burn out faster than my patience. Which is saying something.”

  She tapped the bat once, and the air thrummed. The faintest shimmer rippled along the barrel, a distortion like heat waves. The energy sank into the bat, vanishing.

  “Congrats,” she said. “You’ve got a blunt instrument with anger issues.”

  I reached for it, only for her to smack my hand. “Gloves,” she snapped. “Unless you want your null aura shorting it out on first swing.”

  “Do dishwashing gloves count?” I asked.

  “Daniel.”

  I sighed, tugging on the leather work gloves she’d tossed at me earlier. The bat buzzed faintly in my grip, like it wanted to hum a note, only I couldn’t quite hear.

  Lily, perched on my counter in a blouse that made my brain short-circuit every time I looked at her, tilted her head. “At least he knows how to hold back his powers now.”

  Elly froze mid-incantation for her second layer of magic. “Hold back?”

  The temperature in the room dropped three degrees. I said a silent prayer.

  Lily’s smile was sweet, but her eyes were sharp. “He didn’t short out the tree with his blood. He could have—he didn’t. That means he’s learning control.”

  “That means he’s reckless,” Elly shot back. “And I keep trying to tell him that playing with his blood is suicide, and he knows it.”

  “Maybe,” Lily said, her tone softening. “Or maybe he’s smarter than you give him credit for.”

  Euryale, lounging elegantly against the fridge like a Grecian statue who’d been given a martini, chose that moment to twist the knife. “You’re all missing the obvious solution.”

  I groaned. “Don’t—”

  “My great-aunt would be more than happy to lend her strength to the cause. All it would take is Daniel dropping his trousers long enough to let his snake meet hers.”

  I nearly choked. Lily sputtered. Elly outright gagged.

  Eury smiled serenely. “Practical, effective, and genetically advantageous. Unlike your aluminum soda can bat.”

  “Please stop talking,” I begged.

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  “Seconded,” Elly muttered.

  “Thirded,” Lily snapped, cheeks pink.

  Eury just smirked. “Cowards. I didn’t take you all for anti-serpentines.”

  I buried my face in my hands, trying not to die on the spot. “Why is this my life?”

  Lily slapped the sealed red envelope from Jade onto the table like it should have exploded. “Moving on, my lovelies: Jade’s fourth task.”

  I peeled the flap back while the others watched. The rice paper inside had been burned at the edges, the ink crisp and simple:

  RECLAIM: ONE MARKED.

  LOCATION: WILLOW CREEK SHELTER.

  WINDOW: SEVEN DAYS.

  DELIVER TO: HOARDLINK DROP.

  My stomach dropped. “Marked? As in—tagged by the Collectors and taken?”

  “It’s about time,” Elly said. Her voice had gone flat. “Willard says they’ve been hitting shelters and outreach centers. Someone there’s already been given the slip. We have to get them out before the Collectors finish the job.”

  Lily’s jaw tightened. “A person.” Her fingers braided in mine without thinking. “We’re… stealing someone from the hands of whatever this is.”

  Eury folded her arms, eyes sharp. “It’s less stealing than salvage. But the moral cost is the same. If we pull them too late, the Collector’s mark will be permanent.”

  I rubbed my temples. “So the dragon wants us to snatch a target out from under the Collectors’ nose.”

  “And deliver them to her,” Elly finished bluntly. “The point is: she moves interest where she wants it. She’s using us as muscle.”

  “Isn’t that what she’s always doing?” Lily asked quietly. “That doesn’t make it okay.”

  “No,” Eury said. “But it does make it dangerous. We’ll need precision—Lily’s sway to distract, Elly’s wards to break quick sigils, my anchoring for anything that tries to petrify or stall, and Daniel’s null to stop the tag from taking hold.” She looked at me with none of her usual sardonic distance. “All four of us. One shot.”

  All four of us. The weight of that joined plan pressed down.

  Elly jabbed a finger at the paper. “We’ve got a week. That’s time to prepare. I’ll work my scrying again for the car— My scrying says it’s not in the city anymore—it’s not even technically in our reality anymore, so far as I can tell.”

  “Pocket dimension.” Eury said, earning a nod from Lily, as if it were a given that we should all assume.

  “Your car is still a priority?” I asked, incredulous.

  Her glare could have carved stone. “My car has charms on it tied to my family. It’s not just a car. It’s a ledger of things I can’t afford to lose and a virtual copy of my rolodex. If we’ve got a week, we hedge. You help me get it back, I help you get this marked person. Otherwise, I feel like they’re going to target me.”

  When no one said anything, she continued, “It has pieces of me. And if the pocket-dimension lead is right, I can try a retrieval while we stage this rescue. Two birds, one risky plan.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again. “Pocket. As in… pocket dimension. Right.”

  “Yes, Daniel. Like a purse. Only full of monsters instead of gum wrappers.”

  “Bags of Holding aren’t real.”

  She just stared at me.

  Eury smirked. “Olympus was a pocket dimension. Collapsed during the Vesuvian eruption, which was a side-effect of the collapse. Chicken and egg situation, but Rome rose. and Greece waned. Surely, you’ve read a history book.”

  “Wait, that was—”

  “Petty god squabbles,” she said with a shrug. “Most of us have been weaker ever since, particularly those with Greco-Roman mythological roots. Sad, really.”

  I groaned. “So let me get this straight. You want me to sneak into Narnia, rescue your hatchback and fight off origami mailmen at the same time.”

  “Yes,” Elly said sweetly.

  Lily’s hand slid over mine. Warm, steady. “We’ll be with you.”

  Eury raised her glass. “And if you’d prefer, I can always call my great-aunt for backup.”

  I slammed my head on the table, surprising everyone. They all looked at me like I was the supernatural being as my head rose once more. I swallowed. The reality didn’t taste any better. “We’re splitting duties—rescue here, pocket-salvage there. And if either goes wrong?”

  “Then we improvise,” Elly said, voice flat as pavement. “But we don’t fail.”

  Lily squeezed my hand. “We’ll be with you either way.”

  “But are we missing something? I mean, I’m all good saving someone, particularly if I’ve made out with them before… but does her task even require that we rescue a person? Doesn’t the car qualify on its own?”

  Lily rested a supportive hand on my shoulder. “Danny may have a point, and it’s certainly easier to rescue one thing than two.”

  Elly eyed the both of us, sniffing something amiss. “You might be right. Can we vote for my car?”

  “On the off chance we fail, I feel less regret about losing a car than about possibly getting someone killed.” Eury pointed out.

  “I wouldn’t.” Elly grumbled.

  “Car it is?” I asked, getting a round of nods. “It’s settled then.”

  Eury’s smile was thin. “If you’d like to call on my great-aunt for muscle or leverage, I can do that quietly. But understand—she plays long games and asks long favors in return.”

  I rubbed my face and tried not to imagine what any of that looked like. We had to rescue a marked person or object in a week, which required finding Elly’s car in a closed pocket. All while keeping everyone alive and un-filed.

  “Fine,” I said finally. “We plan. We prep. We do this smart.”

  The spider, on the Pop-Tart box, clicked once, as if recording the resolution. “FEEDER. PREPARE. LOGGED.”