I studied the carnivorous text crawling up my arm, twined it around my fingers, and pulled back, taking their protection with me. I dissolved the magic and tried to fix my invisibility. To Deb, I whispered, “Now.”

I remembered the first time Deb had tried to manipulate my thoughts. She’d gotten much stronger since then, as more and more of her humanity slipped away. Her power touched both men and settled over their minds like gravy on a pasty.

Her invisibility flickered. Apparently influencing someone’s thoughts counted as an attack, even if no harm was inflicted. She yanked the ring from her finger and switched it to her other hand, vanishing just as the guards shrugged and turned around.

“It’s probably nothing,” said one. “Another electrical short.”

His partner tested the door to make sure it was latched. “I’ll put in a maintenance ticket to get an electrician out here.”

“I’ll do a loop through the halls. Think we better do another prisoner count to be safe?”

“Safe from what?” He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Ain’t nobody got time for all that paperwork.”

We tailed the second guard toward the front office and followed him inside. Two more uniformed guards, a man and a woman, sat in front of a bank of screens. Unlike the other guards we’d seen, these carried Tasers and mundane firearms. I checked the video feeds from throughout the prison. Most displayed empty hallways and cells. I didn’t see the sirens anywhere.

“Nothing,” said the man we’d followed. “Log it as an electrical short. José’s walking the rounds to make sure.”

Lena and I moved toward an electronic map of the prison on the wall to the right of the video screens. According to the label at the top of the map, we’d broken into the Mecklenburg Correctional Center. LED lights marked the doors. Most were green. Others blinked yellow, including the front doors where we’d entered. I studied the map, trying to guess where they would have taken captive sirens.

I’d memorized about half the layout when Lena stepped past me, yanked a Taser from the holster of the nearest guard, and pulled the trigger.

He collapsed to the floor. Lena, now visible, caught the next guard’s forearm as she reached for a button on the desk. Lena hauled her from the chair and slammed her to the floor hard enough to expel the air from her lungs.

Deb’s fingers caught the throat of the third guard, the man who’d inspected the doors. She hauled him close and whispered something. His face lost its color, and he fainted.

I looked around the room. Two guards lay unconscious, with the third gasping for breath. “Lena, what the hell?”