Lou rolled her eyes. “You’re so weird.”

He nodded. “But you love me.”

She sighed. “But I love you.” She kissed his cheek before shooing me down the hall. “You should shower before he does something else weird and distracts you.”

I grabbed clean clothes from my drawers and hit the shower, rinsing off the day. I dried and dressed quickly, heading to Lou’s room. My phone started to buzz as soon as I opened her door, Zoey’s name on the screen. I answered it as I flopped onto Lou’s bed. “Hey, Zoey.”

“Hey, Dec,” Zoe said, sounding a little tired. There was a lot of noise in the background, making me think she was at the brewery. “Got a minute?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

I heard a door click and the line got quiet on her end. She’d gone into her office, meaning she wanted privacy. “I got a call from Ryder.”

I flipped onto my back. “He give you an update?”

“He was able to send a message to the foster family that’s been raising Tamsin and Rory.”

The twins. I sat up. “And? How are they?”

She huffed. “They haven’t responded yet beyond letting us know that the message was received and they’d pass it on to the twins. Apparently, they’ve been away at boarding school.”

My shoulders hunched and I frowned. “Boarding school?”

“I guess it’s not that uncommon for elementists to spend the last two years of high school like that, especially if they’re powerful. They likely outstripped the local teacher and had to go somewhere else to continue schooling.”

I relaxed again. Everything I’d heard about the foster family made me think the twins were well cared for, but it was difficult to really know on such little information. Zoey had gone quiet, making me realize she wasn’t done with her news. “What else?”

“Ryder talked to the detectives on the case—got an update. They’ve figured out how Dad and Eva got out.”

Some of my tension must have leaked into the bond, because Lou slipped into the room, moving quietly when she saw me on the phone. I patted the spot next to me in invitation and she took it, hopping onto the bed and sitting tailor style. I leaned against her, letting her soothe me. I needed to listen to Zoey, and freaking out wouldn’t help.

“The UTC dispatched a team of investigators to both prisons,” Zoey said. “I guess they spent days examining video footage, looking for trace magic, even screening urine samples of the guards for magical residue.”

I snorted. “It do any good?”

I heard the creak of her desk chair over the line, and I had a sudden memory of Zoey sitting at her desk, making her chair swivel as she talked. She couldn’t sit still when she was agitated. “The problem was, they were looking for a magical angle, because that was what most Uncanny would have used. Imagine their chagrin when it turned out to be a totally mundane escape.”