24

I WAKE UP EARLY THE NEXT MORNING AND WAIT FOR Dylan near the elevators
in the lobby of the director apartments. Since I’ve got no clue where the
Van Helsings’ apartment is located, I figure it’s the best place to wait for
him. A group of Junior Record Keepers awaiting Director Cobblepot shoot
me nasty looks and mutter something about “unfair badges” and “stupid
magicians,” but I ignore them.
Dylan and I promised to share whatever we learned, so that’s what I’m
doing. But I’ve been dreading it all night. Maria, a traitor? When I finally
spot him, I run over.
His eyes go wide. “Amari? What’s up?”
“Can’t talk here,” I say. “Come with me to the library.”
“Okay . . .” he says. “Should I be worried?”
“Just come on. It’s important.”
We take an elevator down to the library and dash into a study room.
“What going on?” he asks.
“I was casting constellations with Director Horus last night and I asked
him about that meeting we found on Quinton’s computer.”
He leans closer. “And what did he say?”
I tell him.
Dylan looks stunned. “But why . . .”
“You said it yourself—they weren’t getting along anymore. They were
splitting up! What if Quinton realized she was keeping secrets from him?” I
meet Dylan’s eyes. “Maria is a magician. What if she accepted Moreau’s
offer to join them?”
Dylan looks so hurt by this accusation that I can’t help wondering if I
made a mistake telling him. “You think my sister is a traitor?” “I don’t know,” I say. “But there had to be a reason for my brother to go
behind her back like that.”
Dylan pushes himself to his feet. “I’m outta here.”
“Wait,” I say. “That’s not all. Director Horus knows about you being a
magician.”
Dylan goes stiff. “He does? How?”
“I shouldn’t have said it like that,” I say, shaking my head. This whole
thing has me flustered. “I just meant that he knows there’s a magician who
wants to protect me. The constellation showed a twoheaded snake baring its
fangs at me. But there was another snake by my side. He said that snakes
are supposed to represent magicians.”
Dylan thinks for a moment. “Of course I’d have your back. That’s what
partners do. That’s why it doesn’t make sense for Quinton to think my sister
would ever . . . Let me prove it, okay? You keep looking into what Quinton
was up to, and I’ll show you my sister isn’t a traitor.”
“Okay.” I don’t know what else to say.
Dylan turns to leave but stops short. “Did Director Horus get suspicious
about there being another magician on your side?”
“Well,” I say, “he asked me about it, but I just told him I didn’t know.”
Some of his anger fades. “You kept my secret?”
“You should tell people when you’re ready.” It’s a choice I wish
somebody had given me.
Surprise shows on Dylan’s face and he flushes. “Thanks.”

Now that training has restarted, it’s time to learn Stun Sticks. Agent
Magnus paces in front of us, holding up a metal rod. It almost looks like a
really fancy pen. “First thing to know about a Stun Stick is that it’s for
selfdefense purposes only. Once you make Junior Agent in a few weeks,
you and your partner will be assigned to a Senior or Special Agent.
Wherever that agent goes, you go. Needless to say, things can get a little
hairy when you’re out fighting crime. These Stun Sticks have the power to
down an eightfoot yeti midpounce. Which one of you brave souls want to
volunteer to demonstrate it?”
“I think Amari wants to volunteer!” shouts Kirsten.
I turn to glare at her but Agent Magnus steps in front of me. “That so?” he asks.
Which is worse? Getting zapped by a Stun Stick blast or chickening out
in front of everybody? I swallow. “Sure, I’ll volunteer.”
I step up in front the group and Agent Magnus offers me the Stun Stick.
“Wait, you want me to zap you?” I ask.
“That’s right.”
A slow grin spreads over my face. Now we’re talking. This might be
worth it for how much he teased us about our sloppy Sky Sprints technique
last week.
“Now you’ll want to hold it out in front of you and press—” I press the
button and Magnus goes stiff as a board, his thick arms clapping against his
sides. He bursts into loud guffawing laughter.
Huh? I touch the Stun Stick to my own arm and tap the button. Instantly,
both my arms snap to my sides. It’s a lot like one of those bear hugs I used
to get from my greataunt at Thanksgiving. A few seconds later I get the
sensation of being tickled on the bottoms of both my feet.
We pass the Stun Stick around the room and let each trainee experience
what it feels like. “The Stun Stick works in two ways,” says Magnus. “First,
it immobilizes your opponent, preventing them from attacking. Second, it
can lessen whatever ill will your opponent bears you with laughter. At the
finale, you will duel against one another in pairs using Sky Sprints and Stun
Sticks. So go ahead and get your Sky Sprints on.”
I turn to head to the equipment room to get a pair of standardissue Sky
Sprints.
“Amari,” calls Dylan, waving me over. It takes me by surprise. The two
of us haven’t talked much since the whole “Maria might be a traitor” thing.
He keeps glancing down at his gym bag.
“Yeah?” I say.
“I, uh, picked up something during weekend break.” Dylan reaches inside
and pulls out a black box with Duboise written in silver across the top.
“Didn’t have a chance to give it to you before so . . .”
I’m so stunned, it takes a second for my brain to catch up. “These are for
me?”
Dylan lifts off the top. A pair of really cool Sky Sprints sit inside a
velvety box. The white boots have a ghostly shimmer. The tag reads Dead
but Dazzling Collection.
All I can do is shake my head in disbelief. “Thank you.”
Dylan’s whole face reddens. “I mean, uh, you won’t get far in those dusty
old Sky Sprints you were using before. And if you fail, so do I.”
“Right,” I say. “That makes sense.”
I wish things with me and Dylan could go back to normal. Please don’t
let Maria really be a traitor . . .

Over the next week there’s a new report about some outpost or legacy
family’s home getting overrun by hybrids practically every other day. Elsie
said the only reason they haven’t canceled the summer training sessions is
because Bureau headquarters is probably the safest place for us to be.
My days are pretty busy just trying to keep up. Every day I wake up and
take classes, study for the finale in the afternoon, and hang out with Elsie at
night, which usually means the two of us in a study room not coming up
with much about Moreau, KH, or the Black Book.
Elsie has been doing her part. She borrowed nearly every book on
magical objects from the library and even brought a few from Director
Fokus’s personal collection, but hardly any of them mention the Black
Book. And if they do, it’s info we already know.
On the days I miss Quinton the most, Elsie and I spend the last few
minutes before curfew looking at old magazines about VanQuish. It helps
me feel closer to him. On better days, either I’m Elsie’s guinea pig for
whatever wild invention she’s working on or she’s barricading the door and
helping me practice my magic.
I’m getting better and better at painting illusions by hand. One time I
even changed the color of Elsie’s frizzy brown hair to bright pink. She
nearly freaked when I pretended that I couldn’t remember how to change it
back. I can even paint moving illusions now, which are tricky because you
have to concentrate so hard to make the movements look natural.
The only downside is that in order to keep Dylan’s secret, I can’t tell
Elsie how I got the spell book or how I learned to paint illusions in the first
place. I wonder if my aura shows how much I hate hiding things from her.
If it does, Elsie never says anything.

It’s the week of the second tryout and I’m trudging to the food court when
Gemma, Elsie’s lab partner, hands me a note to meet her in the library
instead.
When I get there, she rushes me into a study room.
“Did you find something?” I ask.
Elsie sighs dramatically. “This is the last book I have access to. It’s taken
so much sucking up to Director Fokus to get her to lend me Rasputin’s
Directory of Dangerous Doodads and Doohickeys. It’s the magician’s
handwritten notes. If there’s not anything new about the Black Book in here
then I don’t know where else to look.”
I bite down on my lip and take the seat next to her. “Let’s see then.”
Elsie carefully flips through the pages until she finds an entry for the
Black Book. Her eyes scan it top to bottom before her face falls. “Nothing
new.”
As bad as I feel, Elsie looks even more upset. I know she’s been working
crazy hard to finding something that would help, so I pull out my own spell
book to cheer her up.
Elsie looks over as I slip the key into the lock and she sits up. “Of course!
I’m such an idiot. All this time . . .”
She reopens the book, flipping past the Black Book entry until she lands
on a new page:

THE BLACK KEY
If only a spare few know about the Black Book, even fewer are aware
of the key necessary to open it. After Vladimir’s death, the Bureau of
Supernatural Affairs was tasked with protecting the Black Book
from Moreau and those magician apprentices who avoided capture.
Not trusting humanity to possess both the Black Book and the Black
Key, the inaugural Supernatural World Congress bestowed the Black
Key upon an anonymous Key Holder whose duty it was to hide and
protect it. This duty is to be passed down through generations, with
each new Key Holder honor bound to never reveal themselves.
The Black Book and the Black Key are never to be brought
together under any circumstances. Therefore the Supernatural
World Congress forbids the Bureau from ever seeking out the key.
For if it does, then it has broken its foremost oath and shall be forever dismantled, its members immediately banished from the
supernatural world.
“KH means Key Holder,” says Elsie, eyes wide, pointing to the page.
“That’s what, or I guess who, VanQuish found.”
I bite my lip and nod. “No wonder Moreau’s apprentice went after my
brother. If there really is some master plan to take back the Black Book,
then they’ll need the Black Key to open it.”
“This is bad,” says Elsie, dropping her voice to a whisper. “If anyone
finds out about this, the entire Bureau would be shut down for breaking its
oath.”
“Then for now we don’t say anything to anyone,” I say.
“What about Dylan?” asks Elsie.
“I . . . don’t know yet.” Because Maria Van Helsing might be Moreau’s
apprentice.

Now that Elsie and I are out of clues, and the second tryout is only a couple
days away, we decide to shift all our focus into not failing. It would be
different if we knew who the Key Holder was, then we could at least send a
warning somehow. If it’s not already too late.
Hopefully Quinton hasn’t told Moreau’s apprentice anything. But I don’t
like to think about the ways a magician might go about making someone
talk . . .
A couple times I’ve wanted to tell Dylan about what we found, but it
seems like he’s avoiding me. He’s even been pairing up with Lara instead of
me in Sky Sprint training. I almost wish I’d never said anything about
Maria.
All the trainees from every department have been studying and practicing
like crazy. Hardly anyone shows up for lunch anymore. If not for Elsie, I’d
be right there with them. My roommate doesn’t believe in missing meals,
and apparently that rule goes for me too. Last time I told her I planned to
skip lunch to finish Uniforms of the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs: A
Guide, she picked me up and carried me here.
As I finish off a taco, Elsie goes on and on about some new flea grenade
that the Agent Support Division of the Department of Magical Science is working on. That’s where she wants to end up when she makes Junior
Researcher. They come up with all the cool gadgets that agents use to fight
crime.
“A flea grenade isn’t as mean as it sounds,” says Elsie. “My fleas tickle
the yetis into submission. It’s actually a lot like how a Stun Stick works
now that I think about it.” I just smile at Elsie. If I thought I was doing well
by ranking first in the previous tryout, that’s nothing compared to how
much the researchers love Elsie. She’s the only trainee to be invited to
Director Fokus’s Movie Night for the Intellectually Inclined. Apparently,
they just sit around watching really boring documentaries that only geniuses
would find entertaining. Whatever the second tryout for researcher trainees
is, it’ll be no sweat for that girl.
“Are the yetis really as bad as everyone makes them seem?” I ask.
Elsie nods. “The worst. They think they own the whole forest! They
throw the most ridiculous tantrums. Some sports team just mentioned one of
their forests as a possible spot to build a stadium, and the yetis proceeded to
buy the team and trade away all the good players.”
“They’re that rich?”
“Yep,” she answers. “They own a really popular ice cooler company.”
“Hey, Amari, you got a sec?”
Elsie and I both look up to find Dylan standing over us. “Um, sure,” I
say.
I follow Dylan to an empty table.
“So . . . I have a friend, who heard it from another friend, whose brother
is a Junior Agent, who walked in on Agent Fiona telling my dad about the
second tryout being a treasure hunt—inside the Bureau. He said Agent
Fiona made it clear that the only way to pass is to have a really good
understanding of the Bureau.”
“Are you sure it was real?” I ask. “Because Lara seemed pretty certain
she knew what the first tryout would be too.”
“That was just my sister wanting to be the center of attention. This is
legit.”
I chew on my lip. “How many people know about this?”
“All the agent trainees. But you weren’t there so I came to find you.”
He’s being nice about it, but I know what he really means. The magician
wasn’t invited to the secret meeting. “Thanks for telling me,” I say. “But I bet all the copies of Ins and Outs
and In-Betweens of the Bureau are checked out by now.”
“No worries,” he says. “I have my own. We can study together.”
“Oh,” I say, surprised. “That would be cool.”
He goes a little red. “I’ve been thinking and . . . I know you only said
what you said about Maria because that’s where the investigation led you. If
the situation were reversed, I’d have done the same. Just please keep an
open mind, okay? Let’s treat my sister like she’s innocent until we know for
sure.”
“I can do that,” I say.
A smile spreads across his face and he holds out his fist. “VanQuish 2.0?”
I smile and bump his fist. “VanQuish 2.0.”