I linger on those last two lines, and a grin tugs at my lips. Lyon still hasn’t gotten around to changing his title in his email signature. He’s far too sharp, his attention to detail too unerring, for this to be an oversight. Lyon’s new title carries significantly more weight—Father Time, Chronos, Grantor of Immortality, Ruler of Our Universe . . . Most would be thrilled to tack any one of those honorifics onto the end of their name, or over it, erasing who they were before. But not Lyon. I’m guessing he’s as uncomfortable using his new title as I’ve been. And something about that makes that ley line to his office shine brighter.

Until I open the attachment at the bottom of the screen.

My smile fades as I skim the report, my visions of our anniversary trip to Amsterdam suddenly reduced to smoking piles of dust. Lyon and Gaia have been searching for a handful of AWOL Seasons—bounty chasers who came after Fleur and me when we were on the run from Michael. Most turned themselves in and were granted clemency. Others were caught and brought back to the Observatory for hearings. But a few slipped off the grid as soon as they heard about Michael’s defeat; they haven’t turned up since.

And those are the ones Lyon is worried about.

A pattern of odd and untimely storms suggests they’re alive—and they aren’t lying low. Lyon’s restricting travel for all non-paired Seasons unless they consent to be monitored, tied by a transmitter to a ley line. Which would be an option for a Season like Fleur—whose magic could be pulled back to the Observatory through a ley line if the worst should ever happen to her—but not for a human like me.

I pitch the phone onto the bed, leaving a dent in the comforter. Arms braced against the dresser, I hang my head, struggling to figure out how I’ll break the news to Fleur. We outran an army of Guards and fought off a horde of bounty-hunting Seasons as they chased us across the Atlantic and most of North America, but now that I’m human, we can’t be trusted to leave the safety of our own freaking town.

A breeze lifts the sheer curtains of our bedroom. Raising my head, I catch a flash of pink through the window. Fleur’s perched on the lip of the pool in the courtyard below, the hem of her peasant skirt pulled up over her knees and her feet dangling in the deep end. Ceiba and cypress trees form a pale backdrop, their branches turned down, their pale leaves wavering under the churning gray clouds behind her. Her curtain of hair is tucked behind one ear, revealing the long white wire connecting her earbuds to her cell phone. One foot draws somber patterns in the water as she talks.