Lee sat on Ford's bed, deep in thought. Ford had welcomed him in here last night — the bed was big enough for both of them — and Lee was a lot more comfortable sleeping in here by his brother than in the Hall of Mysteries by a woman who wasn't his wife. Janice seemed to prefer this arrangement, too.

Ford wasn't here at the moment, but Lee didn't mind. It gave him time to think about things Ford wouldn't want him thinking about. As leader of the Order, Lee had learned to guess what people were thinking, but Ford seemed to do it naturally. Lee didn't want him to see his thoughts and then start another fight.

The door opened a few minutes later. Ford entered silently and started getting ready for bed. "Where were you?" asked Lee, though there were few places Ford could've been.

"Talking to Ivy," Ford said. He finished buttoning his nightshirt.

"Asking her more about Mabel?"

Ford paused. Despair was clear in his expression. "Mabel just needs rest," he said, which Lee knew. So what was going on?

Ford sat beside Lee on the bed. Though he felt impatient, Lee forced himself to wait until Ford was ready to explain.

"I asked her. . ." Ford swallowed. "I asked her if hamadryads could bring someone back from the dead."

Lee's eyes widened. "Ford—"

"I knew what the answer would be. Of course they can't. But I have to get all the information. And now we know for sure." He wouldn't meet Lee's eyes. "Ivy doesn't know of anyone who can raise the dead, at least not completely. People still exist after they die, I know, but according to Ivy there's no way to put them back in their bodies. There are creatures out there who could turn the body into a type of zombie, but—"

"Ford," said Lee. "It's okay."

"No, it's not," Ford snapped.

"Okay, you're right, it's not. But. . ." He sighed. "Well, thanks for finding out more."

"You can't die, Lee. There has to be something else that will work. The ancients couldn't have wanted any deaths."

"The ancients set this up so that we would have to die in order for Bill to win," Lee pointed out. "They also made it possible for me to join the Wheel in someone else's body. If they foresaw this situation, I don't think they would hesitate to kill one person if it meant stopping Cipher. That's what mattered to them, and. . . they were right."

From the look of Ford's face, there seemed to be a war between the man who understood the necessity of sacrificing one life to save many others, and the man who desperately clung to his brother. "We didn't get to try using everyone's power to help," he said. "Not really. Cipher corrupted our power before we really knew."

"No, we knew," Lee said. "We were already giving it as much as we had when he took over. We're not going to risk everyone by trying that again."

"We still have to try everything else, then," Ford said. "We all have to go to the Manor, capture Bill, and then trying knocking him unconscious and exorcising him with different types of magic and all of that."

Lee almost disagreed, but thought better of it. He shouldn't say out loud what he was thinking: that it would be too dangerous to go to the Manor, and they should just go in, assassinate Bill, get out, and then try the Cipher Wheel. That would be the most effective thing to do at this point. But Ford definitely didn't want to hear that right now.

"We can make those plans tomorrow," Lee said instead. "But Mabel isn't the only one who's exhausted. We all lost some energy out there."

Ford nodded. "You're right. We should sleep." He seemed like he'd rather stay up making plans, though.

Lee turned off the light and got into bed. "Good night, Ford."

After a shaky breath, Ford replied, "Good night."

Lee lay there in the darkness, examining the shadows on the ceiling that were cast by the light of the false moon as it seeped through the closed blinds. He listened to Ford's breathing, the occasional shifting of the blankets, the footsteps and hoofsteps of people throughout the house. Tired as he was, he couldn't fall asleep.

It took a long time, but the noises of the house died down, and Ford's breathing settled into what Lee hoped was a deep sleep. Carefully, silently, Lee got out of bed. A plan had formed in his head, and the more Lee thought about it, the more he had a desperate need to put it into motion. He left Ford's room, slowly closing the door behind him, and walked down the dark hall to the lab.

"Andrew," he whispered. "Andrew, are you awake?"

Sleepy thoughts entered his mind — the perytons. Lee hadn't known that Rowan and Marigold had come back to sleep in the Museum. They didn't want to leave the humans in case they were needed, they told him.

"Can you wake Andrew?" Lee asked them. He couldn't see anything in the darkness, so he stayed near the door.

The perytons sent thoughts to Andrew to wake him up, and Lee kept whispering his name. Eventually, "What? What's going on?" the minotaur asked, coming awake.

"It's me, Linc — Stanley," Lee said. "I need to talk to you."

He heard Andrew get to his hooves and step towards him. "What is it?"

Lee felt his heartbeat quicken, but he did his best to ignore it. "Let's go," he said. "Let's just go, now. You and me, and Gideon and a peryton to fly us there, and some supplies. We can go and sneak in and kill Cipher, and then it'll be over. No body, nothing stopping us from getting to him."

Andrew was silent for a long moment. Lee had no idea what he was thinking. "Ford would be livid," he finally said.

"At this point, Ford is just getting in the way," Lee said. "You know it. He'll hate it, and the others will be shocked, but it's what we have to do."

Another long pause. "You're right," Andrew said.

The perytons didn't like this plan, but Rowan agreed to transport Lee. He got up and asked Andrew to open the door to the backyard for him.

"Papa?" said a voice, sounding confused.

"Go back to sleep, Enoch," said Andrew. "It's all right."

"I'll go get Gideon," Lee said. He crept down the hall, keeping his hand on the wall so he'd know when to turn, and made his way to the living room. The false moonlight through the door helped him avoid Geneva's sleeping form as he went to wake Gideon.

The boy awoke easily, and though he hesitated much like Andrew had, he soon agreed to help Lee with his plan. "Mabel and Dipper will hate us, though," he said quietly. "So will Pacifica."

Lee grimaced. "I know," he said, his voice catching in his throat.

Five minutes later, Lee was on Rowan's back, and Gideon was on Andrew's, levitating the minotaur with his amulet. Lee and Gideon had stun guns, and Lee could see the glint of a dagger strapped to Andrew's waist.

Lee glanced back at the Museum. "I'm sorry, Ford," he whispered.

They started their flight. Rowan's large wings beat the air, and Lee enjoyed the feeling of the cold wind on his face, trying not to think that it would be the last time. Gideon and Andrew flew a little bit ahead.

Then Gideon gave a strangled cry. Lee didn't have time to wonder why — Lee slammed into a wall of some kind, and before he knew what was happening, he had fallen off Rowan's back and was plummeting to the ground.

He only had time for one thrill of terror to shudder through him. Then he slammed into something — or maybe it slammed into him — and suddenly he was falling diagonally, not straight down, on top of whatever had hit him. Then that something hit the ground, and Lee was thrown off, landing on his back in the snow — which was softer than dirt, but still knocked the air out of his lungs.

Are you okay? asked Rowan, getting to his feet.

Lee painfully sat up. "I think so," he said. "Thanks."

Rowan explained that he'd felt Lee fly off his back, and he turned around and dove after him, hitting him at the right angle to change his trajectory and get him safely to the ground. Lee looked up to see Andrew horizontal in the air, with Gideon on his back, lowering him to the ground. The two landed in the snow, both breathing heavily.

"What happened?" Lee asked.

"I have no idea," said Gideon. "I just. . . ran into a wall."

"Me too."

"I didn't feel anything," Andrew said. "Gideon fell off my back, and then I was falling until Gideon caught me."

"Is your back okay?" Gideon asked Andrew. To Lee, he explained, "I had to fly down to him, then levitate him instead of myself, then land on him pretty hard."

"I'll be all right," Andrew said. "What about you two?" he asked Lee and Rowan.

They said they were fine. "I want to see what that was," Lee said. "Let's see if it's down here on the ground, too."

So they carefully started walking in the direction they'd been going. They weren't very far from the Museum — they'd crossed the rift that used to be main street, but hadn't gone much farther than that.

"Here it is," Gideon said, his hand out. He'd found the wall.

Lee touched it. It was invisible, and it wasn't hard. It felt like jelly. But Lee's hand couldn't push very far into it, and it sent a shock up his arm.

He pulled back, his eyes widening. That felt just like the hex, from way back in the eighties, that kept him prisoner in the Order. He pulled back his sleeve to make sure there wasn't anything on his arm.

"Lincoln? What's wrong?" asked Gideon.

"This reminds me of something," Lee said. "From years ago."

"I can't feel anything," said Andrew, and Rowan said he couldn't either.

"There's some kind of barrier," said Gideon. "Did Bill do this? Make it so the Symbols couldn't come after him?"

"He shouldn't be able. . ." Andrew trailed off. Bill had already done one impossible thing today, so why not two?

"I'm going to look into the mindscape," Gideon said. He sat down in the snow, and his amulet started glowing.

Lee tentatively put his hand back onto the barrier. It really did feel like the barriers from the prison hex. There's no way it was the same magic, though, right? Then what was it?

It didn't take long for Gideon to return to the physical plane. "We're connected," he told Lee. "There's a yellow thread of magic between us, and we both have threads going back to the Museum."

"What does that have to do with the barrier?" asked Lee.

"My guess? All the Symbols are connected, and we can't go too far away from each other," Gideon said.

"But we didn't see anything like that when we were the Cipher Wheel," Lee said.

"No, we didn't, and I didn't see anything when I was helping you possess Greg, either. I wonder if Pacifica has seen it."

"Let me check the mindscape," Andrew said. "To see if I find the same thing." He sat beside Gideon, closed his eyes, and said an incantation. A minute later he returned. "I see it too. It's a magical connection. It feels like it's related to Cipher's spell."

"Is it stopping us from going to him?" Lee asked.

"I don't think so, because then we would see some kind of wall in the mindscape," Gideon said. "I think this just means that we can't go to the Manor by ourselves. We need all the Symbols with us."

Lee's stomach flipped. That was it, then. There'd be no sneaking off to kill Cipher. Whatever happened, it would have to happen in front of everyone.

"Should we go back?" asked Andrew.

"I don't see any other choice," Lee said, his voice heavy. "Let's go back and ask the hamadryads for some healing — I'm still hurting from that fall."

The others agreed, so they flew back over the rift and called out for the hamadryads, who appeared from the trees and helped them heal. Even Rowan, who Lee had assumed was too big, went into the trees for a moment. Apparently physical size didn't matter; that was good to know.

"So now what, Lincoln?" Gideon asked when they were all healed.

"Now we go back inside and pretend this didn't happen, I guess," Lee said. "And tomorrow we'll make those plans Ford wants to make."

Gideon nodded. "And what about the others? Will we tell them what you want to do?"

Lee's expression darkened. "I don't want this," he said.

"Sorry. I know. But are you going to keep hiding it?"

They started walking around the Museum to get to the lab entrance. Lee didn't answer for a moment. "If I tell Pacifica," he said, "or Mabel, or Dipper, I think they'll be too upset to form the Wheel."

"If we're going to go through with this, it'll have to be before we form the Wheel," Gideon pointed out. "They'll be upset if they find out then, too."

The observation made Lee angry. "I know that," he said, though he hadn't really thought about it until now. "I just — I don't know. It's hard enough to deal with Ford right now. I don't want to worry about them, too."

It was selfish of him, he knew. But he just didn't have the emotional energy to think about his own impending death and think about how others felt about it.

"Okay. I get that," Gideon said.

Andrew didn't say anything, though Lee could feel disapproval coming from him. Same with Rowan.

When they got to the lab entrance, Gideon stopped. "Lincoln? Andrew?"

Andrew opened the door, and Rowan squeezed through it. "Yes?" Andrew asked.

"Ford. . . Ford seems like he'll try to stop this. Even if it's the only way," Gideon said. "Should I. . ."

He trailed off, then tried again. "Should I keep him back? When we're at the Manor, when — if — Andrew has to kill Cipher, should I use my amulet to keep Ford back?"

Lee looked at Gideon, unsure of how to react to that. Somebody would probably need to hold Ford back, it was true. But for Gideon to offer to do it? He was only a child. Well, a teenager, but same difference when you were Lee's age. Was it right to ask him to help with their plan?

Well, by asking him to come with him tonight, Lee already had. "That would probably be best," Lee said.

Andrew seemed even more hesitant, but finally he nodded. "If it's necessary, then yes."

No one said the obvious: that it would almost definitely be necessary.

"Okay," Gideon said, seeming smaller and more vulnerable than Lee had ever seen him. "Good night, then."

"Good night," Lee and Andrew said. As Gideon slipped inside, the two looked at each other.

"Things would be so much easier if we could have just gone," Lee said, frustration lacing his voice.

"At least we're not sneaking this way," Andrew said. After a moment of silence, he added, "I think you should tell the others."

"I don't know how I would," Lee said. "And I don't want anyone else telling them. Got it?"

Andrew let out a long breath. "Fine. Good night." With those clipped words, he went inside.

Lee stood there, alone, wondering how he could feel even worse than he did before he'd left the Museum.

With a sigh, he went back inside, walked carefully through the dark to Ford's room, and got back into bed.