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guessed was why he’d been hired to teach studio art.
    “Lisbeth Cannon is going to be okay. Marceline found her family, and they’re going to help her get back on track.” He looked down at a piece of paper in his hand. “The Reaper’s name was Charlie Andrews. He’s part of Jeremiah’s crew. Comes from a single-parent family, and his mom works nights. She gets some kind of stipend from the sanctuary to help them out, so she’s gung ho on the Reapers. Thinks her son’s a superhero.”
    “Fat chance,” I muttered. It was a long drive from liking Reapers because they helped you pay the bills to thinking it was cool that your son was stealing a teenager’s life force.
    “He’s too young to need the magic,” I said. “Did Foley talk to him? Why was he using a girl? Does he know anything about the blackout?”
    “She wasn’t able to interrogate him,” Daniel said. “She only heard about the mom. She didn’t actually see him do anything—she only saw Lily assault him with a suitcase.”
    All eyes turned to me, and my cheeks flushed red. “No firespell,” I explained. “That was the only weapon I had.”
    “Awesome,” Scout said. “So he’s off the hook, and we’re back to square one, except that we don’t have any magic and there might be an army of Reapers not just recruiting teenagers for food, but actually stealing their souls.”
    “It’s gonna be a great week,” Michael said.
    Daniel tucked the paper away and took a seat at the table. “Everybody, calm down. The council”—those were the really higher-ups who made decisions about Adept strategies—“are looking into the blackout. They have our best minds on it.”
    “We are their best minds,” Scout grumbled.
    “Be that as it may, for now we leave the heavy lifting to them. This situation is temporary—if there’s a cause, there will be a solution. And we will find that solution,” he said, giving Scout a look. “That said, for now we have no power. So I want everyone on full alert. You go anywhere, you go in pairs. Be careful underground, and just as careful above. Until we know what they’re planning, we take care.”
    “We always take care,” Scout whispered. “It’s the Reapers we have to worry about.”
    “If we’re all on the same page,” Daniel said. “I think we’re done for now. You’re dismissed.”
    “Excellent,” Michael said, and fist bumped Jason again. “Back to the crib and a little midnight gaming.”
    “What is it with you two and the fist bumping?” Scout asked.
    “We can’t help it if we’re smooth,” Michael said, giving Scout a big wink. She looked away in exasperation, but not before her cheeks went pink.
    “Smooth?” I asked, leaning toward Jason. “He saw that in a movie, right?”
    “Three days ago. Action flick filmed in Chicago, and he won’t stop quoting the scenes.”
    As if we needed any more action in the Windy City.

4
    D aniel’s motivational speech and our business done, we left the Enclave again, but stopped in the tunnel outside. We said our good-byes to Jill, Jamie, Daniel, and Paul, and Scout, Jason, Michael, and I hung back.
    “Did you ever think your junior year would be this exciting?” I asked Scout.
    “I was hoping it would involve a discovery that I was secretly a princess with the power to rule the world and make pop stars my minions,” she said. “I have not yet become aware of any such discovery.”
    I patted her arm. “Keep the faith, sister.”
    “On to more important topics,” Jason said. “What are we going to do about this blackout?”
    “What do you mean ‘do about’ it?” I asked.
    “We can’t just sit around and wait for the council to do something,” Michael said. “They put Katie and Smith in charge of the Enclave, after all. That doesn’t show good decision making to me.”
    “Michael’s right,” Jason said. “We can’t just wait around and hope they’ll find a fix, and that Reapers will leave us alone in the