Just like before, we huddled together, waiting to see if we’d get discovered, but unlike last time, I realized I was glad that it was Elliot crouching shoulder to shoulder with me. Somewhere in between the teasing and the bickering, I’d come to think of him as more than a mandatory partner. Somewhere along the line, he’d become a friend. I made a mental note to tell him that if we survived this. We both tensed as the security officers ran past our fountain. As their footsteps retreated, I sagged backward against the cool stone in relief, only to stand back up abruptly as something dug into my back. Turning, I spotted a black security camera looking right at us. My first instinct was to grab Elliot and run, but there was something about that camera that felt weirdly familiar, so I paused. That same gut-deep instinct that helped me to identify Butterflies during a Glitch was on high alert as something tugged at my memory. The same something that had been tugging at me ever since I’d seen Salzburg standing inside the mountain. Because I’d seen this camera before, or at least a prototype of it. The missing puzzle piece I’d mentioned to Elliot slammed into place with a certainty and clarity that literally took my breath away.

“What?” Elliot asked.

I shook my head, holding up my hand to silence him as I stared at the camera. Was this it? I turned to Elliot. “Recite the bullet point list again,” I said.

Elliot stared at me for a second, then held up his hand as he started ticking things off. “Behind the curtain,” he said. “Belowdecks. When the window breaks, grab me. Trust the door will open when it needs to. The prototypes are a bust. Grab the—”

“There,” I said, cutting him off. “The one about the prototypes. Say it again.”

He did, looking confused. “I don’t get it,” he said. “What prototypes?”

“How do you destroy an entire island with one explosion?” I asked.

“You couldn’t,” Elliot said. “Not unless it was nuclear, which it wasn’t.”

“Right,” I said. “So, if you can’t do it with one big explosion, you’d have to do it with a bunch of strategically placed smaller explosions. Right?”

“What are you getting at?” Elliot asked.

“Before we left for the mountain, there were a few security breaches, and my mom had a meeting with Officer Salzburg about a new security device that detected Butterflies. A device they’d replicated after they found it on one of Mayhem’s members.”

“Replicating anything found on a Mayhem member seems like a bad idea,” Elliot said.