Darkness covered Vanessa as she crept through Fablehaven's driveway  to the gate. A tall, cloaked figure stood behind the gate. Errol Fisk.

"Took you long enough," he said upon seeing her arrive.

Vanessa raised an eyebrow, and stood in front of the gate with her arms crossed.

His beady eyes darted around. "Sorry."

"Yeah,"  Vanessa said. She leaned over and undid the gate latch, letting him in.  "That's better. Now, why did I need to sign a guest into the register  along with you?"

"Olloch," Errol answered. He reached into his satchel and held out a packaged snack. "Granola bar?"

Vanessa  wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "Why Olloch? I thought I was  supposed to work alongside and help the Sorensons, not endanger them.  And I thought Olloch had already served its purpose, to trap the kids at  Fablehaven?

Errol shrugged and opened his granola bar. "Who knows  why the boss tweaks missions when he does? Once they figure out Olloch  is inside the preserve, they'll dedicate resources to that and you can  gain greater control of the mission."

Vanessa considered this.

Through  bribing the fog giant with buffalo in exchange for information, they  had already discovered it was the Four Hills where Warren had met his  fate. She held with almost certainty that he had had the same objective  as them, and that the Four Hills likely held the inverted tower. The  pieces were falling into place. She just needed to neutralize the curse  on the Four Hills and gain the key, and she could break into the  Inverted Tower. But, the earlier plan where she had two explorers to  supplement her sounded a lot more appetizing.

"I don't like this."

Errol laughed around a bite of granola. "Are you paid to like what you do?"

Vanessa  sighed. Sometimes, in the idealistic embrace of the Burgesses and  Sorensons, she forgot what life usually wanted. "Good point."

—

"Do you have suspicions about the sabotage?" Tanu steered the  four-wheeler as Vanessa followed their positioning on a map. She looked  up at the question and off to the side, lost in thought.

She was  very good at separating herself and dissociating during covers. It  became second nature to hide her knowledge from herself, and to think as  a person without it. As Good Vanessa, all she knew was that someone  released drumants in her room and tried to kill her. She felt suspicion  and fear.

She didn't know what Vanessa-Vanessa knew. That it was  her own hands that released the drumants and that signed Olloch's name  in the register. That it was her that was ruining the lives of the  people around her.

Come to think of it, the Sphinx must practice  some similar sort of disassociation but on a tripled scale. She couldn't  even imagine.

"Well, the only people relatively immune to  suspicion are Stan, Ruth, and Dale. Of course, I consider myself among  that lot but only because I know myself. Everyone else knew I kept  magical creatures in my room," Vanessa paused then laughed. "I think  it's funny the saboteur wanted me dead, because I feel the most useless  on these expeditions."

Tanu gave her a side-long look. "If we're talking about useless, I think a certain superstitious elder has you beat."

Vanessa  couldn't hide her responding smile and shook her head. "But, to answer  your question, no. I really feel like I can't hold suspicions. I can't  go on these expeditions with you guys and also suspect one of you killed  me. It sounds bad, but I'm crossing my fingers for an outside  assailant."

"Totally. I get that," Tanu said. Vanessa hid her smile at his slight Californian accent. "I can't imagine anyone as cruel."

Vanessa  nodded. She really felt like Tanu was her first real friend since  Warren. Well, real as it can be under the circumstances. Too bad she  might be the reason he could end up dead by the end of this.

"At the up-coming fork, take the left path," she directed, and they continued their journey.

—

"He's just so annoying." Kendra put her pencil down and turned to  Vanessa. "If I have to speak cordially to him at dinner tonight again, I might explode."

Vanessa  smiled and squirted the drumant blood onto a slide, smearing it beneath  another. She dipped it into a blue vial, then a yellow vial, and let it  dry on the towel. "Maybe he will. Who knows with all this magic  around?"

Vanessa didn't particularly like Coulter either. At all,  really. Especially because every time she saw him, she remembered the  taste of his ankle when she bit it, and that memory was foul. But she  didn't spare him much piece of mind, as there were bigger goals to focus  on. It was a nice wedge to gain Kendra's trust though—being a wall to  rant to. Maybe she would need that in the future. Vanessa paused, and  guilt crept in as she stared down through the microscope. Kendra was  Warren's niece, yes? Or cousin?

Kendra scoffed and went back to her summer homework. "Please."

Vanessa  went back to her own thoughts. She really needed to test the theory  about the Four Hills. She knew it had to be the entrance. She could feel  Warren breathing down her shoulders, his eureka moment when reading the  map of Fablehaven. It had to be true.

And, she needed someone to  neutralize it with, and based on Kendra's ranting, Coulter wasn't going  to be missed if something indeed went awry. Two birds with one stone.

Though,  she still needed someone else there with Coulter, to run back and tell  the group the discovery so they could act on it. But who would blindly  follow Coulter?

"And my brother just acts like he's some saint  just because he's mean to me and nice to him." Kendra scribbled on the  corner of her homework, trying to revive her pen. "Like a dumb puppy."

Oh.

Did Vanessa physically feel her last shreds of morality vanish?

Sure.  But, it wasn't like Seth would come to harm. No, the plan needed him to  survive and run back to the group with the information. Coulter could  possibly perish. That was whatever.

Vanessa flicked her eyes over to Kendra's frustrated scribbling. Seth would still be in danger, though.

She flicked her eyes back to her journal. She would do it.

At  this point, only the ruthless part of Vanessa—the spy for the  Society—had survived. All other sides of her had withered, parched, and  died.

Vanessa had spent years playing pretend as a knight with her knight in shining armor. It was time to grow up.

—

It was later. After they  had all-but confirmed that Seth had been  devoured by Olloch, after  Vanessa had witnessed Kendra break down into  sobs. After she had brewed  her best sedative tea to sink the young girl  beneath the tides of  grief threatening to overwhelm her.

It  was  hours and hours later when Vanessa stood in front of the sink and   splashed herself with water, and the shock of the cold water broke her   compartmentalization.

Her hands shook as she scraped the inside of her arms.

Seth was gone.

Dead, probably.

Vanessa   hated herself. She tried to crawl back to that barrier, behind the  Good  Vanessa and Mission Vanessa, but found herself stuck. It consumed  her.

But, she would never, ever give up on a mission.

—

It  didn't take long for the Sorensons to sniff Vanessa out. She could   feel it coming, the ants crawling underneath her fake skin and tearing   it off.

She fell for  the trap with the key. Stan caught her. She  regained control and  imprisoned the aggressives. She lost Kendra to the  woods. She monitored  her vessels and had felt Seth in a slippery,  unusual state—but alive.  Her world turned upside down. This wasn't  supposed to happen. The  betrayal was supposed to be quieter, later,  harmless.

But it happened now, and she had to deal with fucking Errol of all people.

"I heard a rumor." Errol swiped his finger along one of Stan's bookshelves and rubbed the dust between his fingertips.

"Great. Is this relevant?"

"I think so. Was the albino your mission partner when you were undercover with the Knights?"

Vanessa stiffened. "No."

Errol laughed and sent her a knowing look. "Rough fate for him, it seems."

She narrowed her eyes. "Piss off."

"Someone's antsy. He's definitely handsome though, even with the pale wash. Good pick."

Vanessa   reached for his neck and grabbed hold. He clawed at her hands. She   shoved him backward toward the sliding glass door. "Piss off or this   mission is about to become a solo one."

"Jesus," Errol said as he left the living room.

Vanessa sighed and cracked her neck.

She was off her game.

It was Warren's fault.

God, it always was.

—

"You  lied to him," Dale said. The darkness of the cell shrouded him.   Coulter sat, blank and albino, on the floor. Her first victim. Tanu was   next.

Vanessa turned  the key and took it out. She began walking  away to check that her  other prisoners had been locked up satisfactorily  by Voorsh and Slaggo.

"He loved you, you know!"

Vanessa's   boots scuffed the floor as she tripped slightly. Dale's words rang in   her ears. But, just like the albino Coulter, she would never have to   face her victims.

—

Oh, how she ate her words.

—

Vanessa paused as she felt a change. She closed her eyes and felt for her vessels. Seth! Alive and normal!

Upon   taking control, she opened his eyes to a sight she never thought she   would see again. Warren's face. Still pale with bleached hair, but with his eyes. His eyes that narrowed at her.

"You!" Vanessa said. She couldn't control herself. Warren? Alive?

The curse must have been broken on the grove. If that was so, it was time to spring into action.

But, other thoughts crowded her mind. Warren was healed!

"Get   out of him, hag," Warren spat. Kendra must have told him there was a   narcoblix on the preserve. He didn't know that he was really talking to   Vanessa Santoro, lover and mission partner of 5 years.

Vanessa   smiled. That was funny. But, her cover was blown and she preferred her   own body for death-dying missions. She released control and woke up  back  in the Sorensons' living room. "Errol!"

It was time to earn their wage.