“Helping us. I need to get Lex and her parents out of here. That would be easier if she wasn’t on quarantine.”

Tamika nodded. “I’ll update her records with a note that you cleared her ‘infection.’”

“Doesn’t a doctor need to sign off on that?” asked Toby.

“I’ve been working in hospitals for twenty years. I think I can forge a doctor’s scrawl.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll make sure Potts doesn’t remember anything that happened here.”

“Give me ten minutes, then you get that little girl somewhere safe.”

Once she’d left, I turned back to Potts. “Who else is involved?”

“McGinley has contacts with people in China, France, Britain, and Afghanistan. I don’t know names.”

“What does he want?” whispered Toby.

“To form an alliance of nations to control the use of magic throughout the world, with us on top,” said Potts. “Once we bring the Porters down for working with terrorists, DHS will take over operations of New Millennium, using it as a central hub of magical research and intelligence.”

“Keeler wrote about another attack, something big,” I said. “What is it? Does it involve the sirens? The Gateway Project?”

Potts gave a clumsy, exaggerated shrug. “Nobody told me the details. We were worried you might catch on and read my mind. What you’re doing is illegal, by the way. I should arrest you.”

“What’s going on, Uncle Isaac?” Lex was sitting up. Her color was better, and her voice stronger.

“You were sick because of me,” I explained. “Because this man wanted to use you against me.”

“Are they going to take my leg away?”

“No way, kiddo. I promise.” I turned back to Potts. “Where’s Darlene Jackson-Palmer?”

He shrugged and chuckled. “Kiyoko thirteen picked her up after she went to Keeler. I don’t know where they took her.”

“What about Nidhi?”

He shook a finger at me. “That wasn’t us. The FBI wanted to question the lead Porters. Doctor Shah was brought in because she’d worked with one of the other council masters. The one from Bangladesh, I think.”

I blinked. “So she’s safe?”

Potts shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. One phone call from McGinley, and she’s rotting away in a secret prison for the rest of her life. Or maybe we’ll just burn down your lover’s oak instead. We have lots of ways to hurt you, Isaac.”

“How many prisons do you have like the one in Virginia?” asked Lena.

“Four in the U.S. Several others overseas.”

“Do you know when this big attack is supposed to happen?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I imagine it will be soon though, thanks to you. If McGinley thinks he’s been compromised, the best play is to launch the attack and make sure you Porters take the blame. That way, whatever you say ends up sounding like a desperate attempt to blame someone else for your crimes.”