“Oh, she had one.” Dot rolled up the sleeves of her lab coat. “She had to have had one with the cylithium in her system. Perhaps she could mask it. Like Saul.”
Like Saul. “If they’re making Effigies, then Saul could be a fake one too,” I asked, “right?”
Dot didn’t appear surprised to hear the question. “Ever since I saw the autopsy results, I’ve been wondering if that was the case. But we’ve already concluded that Saul—or rather Nick—was born in the nineteenth century, and they certainly didn’t have nanotechnology back then. Given this simple fact, I still strongly believe in my fifth-element theory.”
That was true, though the fact that both he and Jessie could hide their frequencies made it hard to let go of the idea that there could be another connection between them. Even so, the struggle between Nick and Alice was too like the struggle I faced with Natalya. Alice wasn’t just some split personality. I’d seen her the first time I scried inside La Charte hotel; she was real. No matter how good the technology was now, I doubted they could synthesize another life into someone’s head. That was magic.
“Something else to think about,” Dot continued, “is that Jessie came prepared to fight an Effigy.” She picked something familiar off a table: an inoculation pen, the one I’d used against Saul in Argentina. She shuttled the long tube back and forth between her fingers. “It’s the same technology, just a compact version fitted into her glove.” She looked at Belle. “A temporary way to shut down an Effigy’s magic. Don’t know why I didn’t come up with it,” she added bitterly, before shaking her head. “This isn’t something you just have lying around. Someone must have given this to her. Someone. Someone. Someone . . . or someones with access to high-powered tech.”
“?‘Someones’ isn’t a word,” mumbled Pete.
“Like the Sect.” Sibyl straightened up. “It’s Sect technology, after all. Sect technicians from our R & D department helped Saul escape our custody. Then those Sect agents who knew about our top-secret mission helped Jessie, an engineered Effigy with Sect technology, steal back the ring and hand it right to Saul, a terrorist who seemingly appeared out of nowhere and began attacking cities around the world.”
“Seemingly?” I repeated.
“Where did Saul come from?” Sibyl’s sharp gaze passed over each of us. “We know he’s been alive since the nineteenth century. What has he been doing since then? Why did he surface only recently? How did he get linked up with Sect agents, scientists, and now these former students from one of our top training facilities?”
“In Greenland!” A burst of adrenaline rushed through my body as I made the connection. “Agent Chafik said you tracked Saul for a while after our fight in France, but his signal went dead in Greenland.”
“Yes . . . another connection.” Sibyl considered it. “We already sent a team there and found nothing. But perhaps it’s worth another look. It’s clear to me that there are those within the Sect who have forged some kind of partnership with Saul. We knew there were traitors in our organization, but this could be much larger than we ever expected.”
“Much, much larger,” Dot said. “It may not even be limited to the Sect. But whoever these traitors are, they’re working with Saul. They’re supporting him. Whether he’s calling the shots or he’s just one player in a larger team, I don’t know.”
Saul told me himself in Marrakesh that he wasn’t the one I needed to worry about. They were his backup. His soldiers. But at least one of them had tried to escape. Why?
“So, how long do you think it’ll be before the entire Sect collapses at our feet?” Dot tossed the pen into the air and caught it. “Shall we flip a coin?”
“Can someone just . . .” Hanging my head, I let out a haggard sigh. “Some freaks attacked us. They could do stuff. Weird stuff. And now Saul has a ring and he’s attacking people again. That’s what I care about. I just want to know what the hell we’re supposed to be doing here.”
The door burst open. Cheryl scurried into the room. “I’m sorry, Director,” she said hurriedly, too flustered to hide her Cockney accent like she usually did. With a hand, she pushed up her glasses. “I would have warned you, but I didn’t even know he’d be here—”
“That’s quite fine, thanks. You can go.”
A young man brushed by her, knocking her shoulder as he passed. His self-importance seemed to expand with his puffed-out chest, though his slender—well, scrawny—body didn’t inspire much awe.
His dirty-blond hair appeared to have been slicked back with antifrizz styling gel, keeping the wave of his combed-back bangs in exactly the angle and the direction he’d calculated. His prim dark suit and blue tie gave him the model student look, his silver-rimmed glasses perfectly perched on the ridge of his nose. He was at least attempting to project an air of confidence as he surveyed the room. Maybe it was confidence to him, though the smug lift in his chin as he straightened his tie screamed false bravado.
“Oh god.” Rhys shook his head. “You’re kidding me. Dad sent you? Is this a joke?”
The young man spared Rhys a quick glance but looked entirely unfazed when he responded with, “Oh good, Aidan, you’re here too. It’s been a while. Nice to see you.”
Rhys didn’t respond. They shared the same American accent, but the uptightness in the young man’s voice made all the difference between them, as if he regulated his tone as staunchly as he did his appearance.
Chae Rin leaned sideways from the table. “Rhys, you know this guy?”
The young man straightened his back as he took his cue. “Assistant Director—”
“Brendan Prince.” Sibyl kicked the broken pieces of controller away from her with a swift sweep of her shoe. “Formerly of the Munich facility. And the oldest son of the director of the North American Division.”
Rhys squirmed, embarrassed as I stared at him with arched eyebrows.
“Rhys’s brother?” Lake glanced from one to the other. “I guess . . . Yeah, I can see it. Oh, this might be fun.”
Well, I didn’t know about fun, but I could see the resemblance too. Brendan looked more like his father than Rhys did, but the straight nose, the high, handsome cheekbones—they were the same. But as Brendan preened in his well-cut suit, Rhys slouched in his baseball jacket, curling his fingers against his old jeans. Something told me their similarities ended with genetics.
“Prince.” Chae Rin snorted and added under her breath, “Definitely acts like one.”
“So, you’re the one the Council called in. Interesting.” If Sibyl was trying to mask the disdain in her voice and stay neutral, she failed. Her lips had already quirked into an amused grin as she took in the sight of him. “Prince’s very ambitious son. And he criticized Blackwell for having a family position. Looks like he couldn’t wait to put in a good word to upgrade his own son’s career.”
“Why not? He ‘put in a good word’ to give you your job,” he said. “Or so I hear.”