Emily took a deep, deep breath. “Okay,” she said.

“I did good?” Athena asked.

“You . . . uh, sure.”

Athena beamed. “If you want to question him, he’s all softened up.”

Having Teddy help with the interrogating would have been nice, but the werebear was currently cocooned in a bunch of blankets on the edge of Emily’s bed, and the only help she was providing was some background noise from all her snoring.

Emily walked over to her chair, spun it around so that she was facing the weird guy, then sat down. “Okay,” she said. Then to make sure, she said it again. “Okay. Al— Jacob. Jacob, can you tell me why you came?”

The man nodded. “I . . .” His eyes looked around, a bit nervous and crazed. “I met some people. They contacted me, said they knew what I was up to. Said they could help. But, but they sounded suspicious.”

“Go on.”

“I used some of my power, did a few coin flips. And . . . they’re bad, real bad. And they know a lot about me.”

“Who are they?” Emily asked. “Do you have a name or anything? How did they contact you, and why did you come here?”

“Here’s safe,” he said. “I looked around, and I found your place. Heard someone talking about you, followed them for a bit. Just got lucky. I’m out, though. Ran out of luck when I found the room and got in.”

“The door wasn’t locked?” Emily asked.

Athena tensed a bit, then she nodded. “Must be his powers,” she said.

“Hmm.”

“I need . . . I don’t know. They could be anywhere? They could be listening right now. I need more luck, more to be safe,” he said.

“Who are they?” Emily asked.

“The Cabal. They called themselves the Cabal.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

An Undisclosed Chat

Emily sat on her favorite chair, pulled up a blanket, and covered her shoulders with it.

It was a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

On the bed sat Teddy and Athena. Athena was swinging her legs to burn off energy and Teddy . . . was still snoring. That was fine.

In the middle of the room, sitting cross-legged with his head bowed, was a very nervous Jacob, idly twiddling his thumbs and occasionally looking up to see if Emily was still watching him.

She was, but not with any bad thoughts in mind.

Not many, at least.

Having a boy barge into her room was a big no-no in her book. She cleared her throat and the boy flinched. “What can you tell me about, um . . . you called them the Cabal?”

“I don’t think saying their name out loud’s a good idea,” Jacob said before glancing around.

Emily looked to Athena. That was her power at work, she bet. “Fine, then let’s call them something else. The, um, the Clowns.”

Jacob huffed a laugh. “All right, all right, I can do that. The Clowns, then. Yeah, I like it.”