He didn’t break that eye contact with me as he said it. My eyebrow went up.

“Don’t let me get in the way of you giving these guys their chance,” Byron said.

“You’re vouching for them?” the Foresight leader asked.

“Yeah.”

Byron punctuated the sentence by changing into Tristan.

“I’m good with this,” Tristan said, shifting his posture to avoid looking at Moonsong.

“Good,” the Foresight leader said. “Thank you for your time, Shepherds.”

Tribute and Moonsong left the office. Just Anlace, the leader, Kenzie, Byron, Sveta and I, now.

I looked around the office and saw an article. The leader was on the cover, with the name ‘Brio’.

“You really want to do this?” Brio asked.

“They’re suited for it,” I said. “They have the ability to gather the information and figure out how to crack the toughest nuts. Tinker devices and people on the ground who won’t get a second look hanging around Hollow Point. They get the info, they sell it to you guys, and if you want it, they work with you on the actual cracking of the nut. Joint operation, or it can be solo, one way or the other.”

“Are you participating?” he asked.

“If I’m wanted, I’ll add my strength to theirs for the big plays.”

“To be honest, there’s a lot about this that could work,” Brio said. “When the Wardens gathered us all together, they assigned territories by lottery. We’ve got other things we’re focusing on, and Hollow Point is in a bad way.”

“If you’ll pay a modest fee, enough to cover their lawyer, buy the info, keep them supplied, they’ll bring you in for the actual arrests. It’s a win for you guys, while these guys do the leg work.”

“If it works,” Brio said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“We’re hard workers,” Kenzie said. “We’re really good at what we do.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Brio said. His voice had a tone shift that suggested he was used to talking to kids in a certain context. “You have a lot of hurdles.”

“We’ve been doing our initial research,” Anelace said. “Figuring out how we might fix Hollow Point. They’re tied into some bigger-picture stuff.”

“Tattletale,” I said.

“Her on one end,” Anelace said. “But she’s more the kind of person you have to deal with further down the road. Once you scare them, they’ll call her. They already called her once about us, and she reached out to try to convince us to leave the area alone.”

“And?” I asked.

“And we’re leaving it alone, or we were, until you sent your proposal,” Brio said.

I nodded. Not good to hear, but understandable. I wondered what played into that decision.

“On the front end, you’ve got some others to deal with. You’ll have to get past them before you can even start on the project.”

“Who?”