"The phoenix do you mean you were cleared for duty?!" Violet screamed as Em sat on the bench, still shaking lingering bits of mind-reader out of his head.

"I dunno, Perry said it was fine..."

"Well it clearly wansn't! You almost cost us our easiest mission!"

"Look, I'm real sorry..."

"Sorry's not gonna undo all that sloppy work!" Violet groaned, throwing herself onto the bench next to him. It was no use screaming, no use passing the blame. Fae's anger would be shared equally, and they would never be trusted for fieldwork again. They'd sit behind desks like the eldest members, or even worse, have their memories wiped and sent to live ordinary lives in ordinary cities.

"At least we got the girl." Bishop added, as if his positivity could undo everything they had done wrong before Fae arrived. "That's gotta count for something."

"Or nothing." She mumbled, but the wait was over. Fae strutted through the room and they rose to their feet.

"So, I've gone over your reports and the 2,000 filed by the local Patrolmen," She stated as she flipped through a file bigger than Violet's head. She couldn't help but wonder how Fae managed to read the entire thing in a few hours, but there were more important thing to worry about than pages per minute.

"Your work was sloppy and put literally everyone at risk." She stated and Violet winced, remembering how easily Fae could make them clean out dragon pens or be stuck pushing papers for eternity. "But you got the job done. I've already begun interrogating the girl and she has withheld nothing."

Violet couldn't help her look of surprise as the smallest grin slipped onto Fae's lips, closing the file with a look of pride. "It wasn't terrible for your first unsupervised mission and I trust that you will continue to improve as you complete the case."

"Uh, yes mam." Violet spoke out of turn, too stunned by the praise to remember protocol.

"However," Fae continued, all pride washed away to reveal an emotionless facade. "Em, I heard you had some trouble with the mind reader again?"

He nodded with hardly any change in emotion.

"I hate to do this, but until we get this figured out, you will be on desk duty. No field work allowed and you will have no exposure to sensitive information. And Violet?"

She nodded in response, trembling in her combat boots.

"Patrolman Gray Penzig filed a report about you threatening to kill two students?"

"They were refusing to follow orders mam," she rushed, although she knew it wasn't enough to cover up what she had done. Her anger had driven her to say such things, and knowing that there was a copycat living in Alfheim...her mind was prepared to explode.

"Well, although you have the authority to kill, let it be noted that you will be questioned if two unarmed students end up dead."

~~~

"So this is everything Sharise handed over." Em slapped a small bag of evidence onto the library table, nothing but a half eaten chocolate bar and a notebook with a dragon doodled on the cover.

"And this is supposed to help us how?" Bishop beat her to the punch, analyzing what looked like a leftover lunch with perfect eyesight.

"It's really not." Em answered, pulling up a chair and grinning. The idea of desk duty didn't bother him the slightest, and if it did, he never showed it. Grinning and prepared to tear open the case, he jumped head first into the evidence.

"What's really gonna help us is this little thing."

"Um, what is that?" Violet asked as he placed a thick, plastic covered hunk of plastic on the table. It looked absolutely useless. Too small to write a note and too dull to be a weapon.

"Human tech." He answered, holding it up like a trophy. "This fossil is gonna tell us everything we need to know."

"Fossil?" She asked again and he rolled his eyes. He had already lost the element of surprise.

"Old technology." He corrected. It wasn't uncommon for him to explain away his human slang, although she could tell how much he wished to be understood again. "Anyway, Sharise was trying to bring this outdated flash drive to that figure we met in the woods. She never got a name, but was being paid pretty well to exchange information. I guess she just picked the wrong time to go through a rebellious phase."

"Does she know what's on it?" Bishop asked as he took the device from Em's hands. He was pretty good with computers, which often led him to understand the strangest of human technology.

"Didn't say." Em answered. "But she mentioned there was no password. If we can figure out what information is on there, it could lead us straight to our little 'forest friend.'"

Violet watched as Bishop jammed the flash drive into a computer, scrolling through rows of coding in order to find the file. Sharise was right that there was no password, but the drive was such a mess, it might have been worse.

"Okay, I think I found it." Bishop mumbled with his eyes glued to the screen. He opened a file, revealing a long list of people.

"So she was giving out information about Alfheim citizens?" Violet asked, peering at name after name, photo after photo. "Was there something special about these ones?"

"Yeah." Em pointed to a little bit of information between a name. Clustered amongst their age, birthday, and other standard details was their grade. "They're all the students of Dobra Skola."

"Wait, so Sharise was being paid to bring a stranger information on children?" She asked, not sure she completely understood. Military figures and government officials maybe, but students just seemed useless. What could a war torn city want with a bunch of kids?"

"Yeah, that's not good." Em added, leaning back with surprise. He drew his through his hair as if wiping away the mind reader's influence. The last thing he wanted was their enemy to see that information. "Don't kids start training for war at like 12 in those cities?"

"Actually, it's basically since birth." Bishop corrected, recalling every fact of the cities they worked so hard to protect their citizens from. "Cities like Centralia, Pennsylvania have been at war for as long as The Guard's been around. Kids start living at school as soon as they can walk and parents are shipped out to the battlefields. They have a whole system to create as many soldiers as they can..."

"But it's not enough." Violet perked up, glancing feverishly at Em. "They need more."

"Well, that's about the worst possibility." Em cut in with a hopeful note. "They can only use this information if they know where Alfheim is, and then they'd have to plan a full fledged attack, round up the students, turn them into soldiers and...wow this is bad."

"But there's no way they know where we are, right?" Bishop couldn't help but scroll farther down the list as if searching for some hidden clue. "It might just be the soldier in the woods who knows, or maybe it was all a coincidence...Alfheim's been hidden for too long to be found now."

"I don't think so." Violet bit her lip as all the disasters of the mission flowed back into her mind. Trembling, she pointed to a student on the screen.

A blonde boy ducked his head as if he couldn't stand the thought of being photographed, yet the features were undeniably similar. Blonde hair and freckled skin matched Em like a lost twin. The only difference was their build. Although strong and athletic, the boy was dwarfed next to a member of The Guard, as scrawny as a doll.

"Is that..." Em leaned in, bewildered by the image. Next to the photo, the name sat as plain as day.

Maddox Apollo Jonathan Francois Magick

"That's my name!" He shot, filled with anger. "Who the phoenix stole my name?!"

"And why is it so long?"

"My parents were rich freaks, alright?" He glared at Bishop, prepared to rip the computer from the table. "And I think we've got bigger concerns right now than my long name!"

"I saw him on the mission." Violet admitted, feeling the words burn her throat. "He was awkward and clumsy, but it's probably just a cover. I think Centralia's already sent a spy in."