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trail of blood behind it.
    I can help him/I can stop him
echoed in Tessa’s brain, but fainter now. He didn’t want anything to do with her. She held up the note again, and the words—
Forget about me…. Destroy … then there will be nothing to link …
—jumped out at her. She flicked her gaze back and forth between the note and the movements out in the darkness, Gideon edging farther andfarther away from her. In a few moments he would be gone, and whatever other choices she had would be lost.
    Gideon was at the corner now, peeking around the other side of the apartment building. As soon as he turned his head, one of the figures behind him on the sidewalk hustled forward. Gideon glanced back over his shoulder, and the suddenly energetic figure dived down, out of sight.
    Gideon resumed walking, and the figure darted forward again, hiding only when Gideon glanced back a second time.
    Gideon was being followed.
    The indecision of
I have to help him/I have to stop him/He doesn’t want me
melted away, swept out by a new resolve:
    I have to warn him.

CHAPTER
10
    Tessa burst out onto the street, having clattered down the stairs as fast as she could. With her first step out onto the pavement, she reminded herself to be careful; she couldn’t call attention to herself here. She slipped into the crowd and slowed her pace to match the slow plodding of the people around her. It was maddening to do this—she wanted to run.
    Maybe they’re both gone, anyhow, Gideon and the one following him….
    But, no. A hooded head ducked down quickly, half a block ahead of Tessa, and she knew that that had to be the follower. She stood on tiptoes and saw, far ahead where the street sloped down, another head turn. If only there were more light, maybe she could have seen a flash of golden hair. But it wasn’t just the streetlights that were out; it looked like the electricitywas out on the first floor of their apartment building, too.
    Strange,
Tessa thought, creeping forward.
    She peered around and saw that other lights were missing too: the tiny glow of red that always shone in the security cameras atop the apartment door. She’d
never
known those to be out. Did that mean the cameras weren’t working?
    Even stranger,
Tessa thought.
    She couldn’t stop to figure it out. She concentrated on keeping the darting figure ahead of her in sight. She advanced one block, then two.
    What good does this do?
Tessa despaired.
I can’t get past the follower to warn Gideon. Maybe I should run over to one of the parallel streets and get ahead of both of them?
    Just then, far ahead, Gideon turned a corner. He might start darting in a zigzag pattern now; he might go anywhere. If Tessa tried to run ahead on a parallel street, she might lose him.
    So I just … watch?
    Some of the old books Tessa had gotten from her grandparents’ apartment had been spy novels. Tessa didn’t think anyone made such things now, but she’d read lots of the old ones. The stories were full of spies tailing one another, and double agents taking advantage of the element of surprise.
    That’s what I have on my side,
Tessa thought.
If the follower tries to do anything to Gideon, I’ll run up to them and make a big scene, and Gideon will be able to get away.
    Tessa’s heart pounded at the thought of the immense courage that would require. But she kept going, farther and farther from home, darting around corners behind the follower, behind Gideon.
    Nothing to link you,
Tessa remembered from Gideon’s note, but it did seem they were linked now, all three of them: Gideon to the follower and the follower to Tessa, every bit as distinctly as if they were clinging to a rope slung between them.
    The areas around them grew dodgier. Tessa lived in a bad neighborhood, an ugly neighborhood, but it was mostly that way just because of neglect. The people in her neighborhood had given up. In the buildings she passed now, the decay and decrepitude seemed like an active thing, a violence