“Don’t worry, I won’t!” Cyrus said, waving at Gabriel. As the other boy left, Cyrus gave Fort a worried look. “There’s a lot I need to tell you, and I don’t have much time. Can you come with me for a minute?”

Fort winced, staring at two guards watching him from the cafeteria entrance. “If I go too far, the guards will bust me for not having lunch with Gabriel. Colonel Charles wants us together twenty-four seven for some reason.”

Cyrus made a face. “This is really important, and it might be the last time I see you.”

Fort’s eyes widened. “The last time? What… why?”

Cyrus nodded. “Dr. Opps wants me out of here. He said something about how Colonel Charles is dangerous, and we needed to figure some things out.”

Colonel Charles was dangerous, and no one knew that better than Dr. Opps, who’d first been imprisoned by the colonel at the last school, and just yesterday had the books of Summoning and Mind magic taken from him. Not to mention that Dr. Opps wanted Sierra and Damian finding the other books of magic. “What do you mean, out of here? Where are you going?”

“Back to the school in Wales. A lot’s going to happen there, and they’ll need me. But that’s not what I have to tell you. The bad things that are coming are going to happen because of you.”

Fort stopped dead in the hallway at this, but Cyrus yanked him into an empty side room, this one with the presidential seal on a podium and a bunch of seats facing it. Maybe this was where the president would address the nation if the government had to be evacuated underground for protective reasons?

“I don’t know how, but I didn’t see your real plan,” Cyrus said, looking apologetic. “If I knew you were going to take the Summoning book to find your father, I would have told you what was coming. But for some reason, I saw you destroy the books, so I messed up.”

“You did tell me,” Fort said, blushing badly. “But I didn’t want you to give it away to Rachel or Jia, so I asked Sierra to make you remember things differently. I’m… I’m so sorry, Cyrus.”

His friend seemed taken aback for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, that explains a few things,” he said, leaning in. “So you know what happens if they go with you?”

Fort nodded, unable to forget their previous conversation. “You told me that if anyone comes, I’ll lose one of my friends forever.” He cringed. “You had a long list of what might happen. Jia would get taken over by an Old One. Rachel would shut down the portal from the other side to save everyone. It was awful.”