I looked at Lena. “Anything else?”

“How did you infiltrate and manipulate Vanguard?”

“FBI informants. They’ve got plants in extremist groups across the country.”

I shoved the book back into my pocket. “Time to forget about this conversation, Russell. You’re going to sleep now. When you wake up, you won’t remember anything that’s happened today.”

“That sounds nice.” He closed his eyes and stretched out on the floor.

Lena sheathed her knife. “Gateway?”

The Gateway Project would give McGinley’s people the ability to strike anywhere in the world. “First we use it to get my family out of here. Then I destroy the whole damn project.”

Toby scooped Lex up in his arms. His face was pale, and he kept staring down at Potts. “They organized those Vanguard attacks. They sent terrorists to kill people on their own side.”

“Bad guys are real assholes, eh?” I glanced around the room. “Did Lex ever get those books I sent over from the library? I may need them to get us back to Franklin Tower unseen.”

We told the nurse at the desk we were taking Lex for a walk. Once we reached the elevator, I used the invisibility spell from Stuart Little’s car. We made it across the grounds, but one of the guards outside Franklin Tower wore a magic damper. We stopped a short distance from the doors while I made a quick phone call.

Five minutes later, Vince Hambrecht burst through the front doors. He grabbed the closest guard by the arm. “Have you seen an acid-breathing cobra with three heads come through here? She answers to the name of Selma. You’ve gotta help me find her.”

While the visibly unhappy guards helped Vince search, the five of us slipped inside and made our way to the elevator. I stopped at my office to grab my jacket and books, and then we headed for the fifth floor.

The door to the Gateway Project was locked and sealed. A notice pinned to the door prohibited anyone from entering without written permission from Babs Palmer. I saw no cameras, but the electronic ID scanner was probably rigged to sound an alarm. A second, magical barrier overlapped the first, creating a bubble around the entire room.

I pulled out a copy of Stephanie Burgis’ A Most Improper Magick. I’d tucked a bookmark into the proper page. The protagonist could verbally disrupt magic. I handed Smudge to Lena and waited for them both to move down the hall, then used the book to pop the magical bubble. It took out our invisibility as well, though it didn’t reach Lena.

I swapped it out for Neverwhere and headed down the hallway to the supply closet. I’d borrowed the mops and other cleaning materials on more than one occasion when my experiments went wrong.