What was the Leap Year Society? When had the group started, who was chosen for it, what were its aims?
How did the Ascendants fit in, and who the hell was the Archon?
What was the Enneagon that Dr. Corwin had invented?
Most mysterious of all, what was the place called the Fold, which the LYS and the Ascendants seemed to know about, and which Andie might have glimpsed in her strange visions throughout her life?
“I wonder if we’ll get some answers tomorrow,” Cal said, reflecting her thoughts.
She sat with her back against the side arm of the sofa, her knees propped in front of her, sipping her beer. “You know what I think?”
“Lay it on me.”
“I think this apartment may belong to the LYS, but has nothing else to do with them. I think this is where they keep the outsiders.”
Cal lowered a piece of cheese he was about to nibble. “What if tomorrow night isn’t about helping us at all? What if they want to interrogate us like the Ascendants did? What if they have someone . . .”
Andie knew what he was thinking. What if they have someone like the Archon who can toy with our minds?
“Why leave us in this cozy apartment if that was their intention?” she said. “You’re being too paranoid.”
“Are we really free to go? Maybe they’re watching us right now and plan to trail us when we leave.”
“They could have left us to rot in the dungeon or locked us up tonight. I think it’s worth the risk. And I’m not sure we can survive on our own.”
He muttered a reply under his breath. They ate in silence, letting the alcohol calm their nerves. Cal’s eyes were less hollow than when they had arrived, which relieved Andie, though her own exhaustion and emotional turmoil had left her feeling like a dishrag wrung out by a sumo wrestler. She could only imagine how he was feeling, after countless hours imprisoned behind a brick wall with no food or water.
“Nightcap?” he said after a while.
“Sure.”
He rose and returned with two more beers, then hunched forward on the sofa. “I agree we should hear them out. If we don’t like what they say, or if they don’t show tomorrow night, then we get the hell out of Dodge.”
Andie was facing the patio. The intensity of the heat lightning had increased, etching patterns of fading light into the sky. “Agreed.”
Andie slept like the dead.
As light slanted through the bedroom window the next morning, she stared at the thick wooden beams on the ceiling and wished it were all a bad dream.
Dr. Corwin shot in cold blood in this very city, either dead or imprisoned.
Her mother—who, until Venice, Andie had not seen since she was a child—trapped in some cultlike secret society, so terrified of their mysterious leader she had let them take her own daughter away.
Andie had refused to turn over the Star Phone, and perhaps her mother hadn’t had a choice. Still, Andie knew if it were her decision, her child, she would fight like a cornered wolverine before letting those bastards win.
Just like she was going to do for her mother—and for Dr. Corwin.
She couldn’t shake that last haunting image of her mother’s eyes. She was crying out for help. Andie knew it in her bones. Maybe the Archon controlled her mother to such a degree that she was no longer making her own decisions. Maybe her mother had risked life and limb to contact Andie in the first place and would do anything to help her, if given the chance.
Or maybe her mother had the safety of someone else to consider. Maybe that was why she had left in the first place, forced to make a terrible choice between Andie and her children by another marriage, who were also at risk.
That was a dangerous road to go down, Andie knew, because she wanted so very much to have a Hollywood ending, for none of this to be her mother’s fault, for the two of them to walk hand in hand into the sunset.
Despite everything that had happened, her years of silent suffering and rage at the world, Andie still gave her mother the benefit of the doubt.
Why? she wanted to scream. Why does she deserve that?
Except Andie knew.
No matter what had happened all those years ago, for better or for worse, she had only one mother. Samantha Zephyr was her flesh and blood, her creator. Andie didn’t know if she could ever truly forgive her, but she would always love her—and she was going to do everything in her power to secure her release.
In Andie’s mind, the math was simple. The Ascendants wanted the Enneagon above all else, and Dr. Corwin’s enigmatic invention was the only thing she could barter for her mother’s and her mentor’s safe return.
According to Dr. Corwin’s journal, and from everything she had witnessed, the Star Phone puzzle led to the Enneagon. She didn’t know why the Ascendants wanted it—was it a weapon, an explosive new technology?—and it didn’t really matter. Because no matter the cost, no matter where it led her, she was going to follow the Star Phone to the bitter end. Unless and until a better avenue presented itself, that was the only plan she had.
After a deep breath, she stretched like a cat and rolled out of bed. Through the closed bedroom door, she heard Cal snoring. He had fallen asleep on the couch before he finished his second beer.
Outside the bedroom window, she saw a street with flowerpots on the
