“I remember that clearly now. We’d just gotten Jinx back, but that’s when he bolted. I chased him all the way down into the basement of Moncha HQ. He led me to this strange place that was like…a street, but a movie set of a street because we were indoors, and in one of the houses was Monica Chan. She had a sloth baku that seemed to be controlling her in some way, but she was lucid. She told me Eric had his own plans to take full control of the company and that all he needed to do was to destroy Jinx, and he would win. That’s why he wanted Jinx so bad. That’s why Carter took him.” It’s all come back to me—the house, having tea with Monica Chan herself, the sloth, learning about how Monica was the one who created Jinx, and that, as a punishment, Eric had locked her away—a prisoner in her own company.

“An underground street?” repeats Kai. “Sounds kind of like a dream.”

I frown. “I promise you, it was real.”

Ashley puts her hand on mine. “Of course, we believe you. And you actually met Monica Chan?”

“I did. I saw her. I even had tea with her! But Jinx and I had to run away before security caught us. I was going to tell Mr. Baird and go back to rescue Monica, but then…” Then I collapsed. And got hypothermia. And was in a coma for a monthlong hospital stay.

And oh no, I’ve already wasted so many hours with this stupid memory loss when we could’ve been rescuing Monica…

My voice quakes. “What if she’s still trapped in that place? Toby, you said she hasn’t been seen in weeks…”

“Hey, it’s okay,” says Ashley, snuggling up to me. My cheeks are damp with tears. There’s so much emotion rushing through me, my memory rising up like a tidal wave and bringing with it an ocean of turmoil.

“I’ll go there,” says Tobias.

“Wait, what?” I splutter.

“I’ll go to Moncha HQ. Tonight. I’ll make my dad take me down to the basement, we’ll find this underground house, and we’ll get Monica out.”

“Are you serious? You would do that?”

He nods. “Dad is working round the clock at the moment. He’s always saying I can visit whenever, even though I didn’t win the internship, but I said no because I didn’t want some kind of consolation prize…but now I will.”

“I’ll go with you,” says Kai, puffing out his chest.

Tobias shakes his head. “It will be better if I go by myself, but Aero will livestream everything to the whole team,” says Tobias, addressing all of us.

Ashley nudges me. “See? It will be okay. Toby will find her,” she says.