Chapter 26
26
For the next week, I do my best to avoid Rafe while still pretending to date him. But our fraternization has drawn just about as much attention as I figured it would. Which is to say, quite a lot.
“So, I hear you’ve been spending time with Vanguard now?” Sebastian pries as all the members of our team soak in a hot spring after a particularly intense early-morning hoverjoust practice. The opening games are fast approaching, and practices have amped up.
“Um, kind of, just seeing where things go.” I breathe in the thick geothermal mist. The hot springs are one of the sources of the fog that blankets the island. It should smell like sulfur, but as with so much else, the Makers have improved upon nature, and it smells more like French toast.
“That’s all we’re gonna get?” Sebastian, always a sponge for gossip, looks terribly disappointed. “This is the same princeling who laughed at you while you were in the dust? Our biggest competition, who notoriously spent every night in a different bed until you came along… and that’s all we’re gonna get?”
Carlota comes to my defense. “Have you set your eyes upon him? Can you really blame her?” She flicks water into Sebastian’s green hair.
He laughs. “You’re right. I’d do the same. Oh, wouldn’t I do the same.”
After showering, I use Georgie’s computer to call Kor. I haven’t been in touch with anyone since the kidnapping revelation. I’m angry at my mom and unsure how to interact with Kor without confronting him, but I need to confirm that they for sure have Hypatia, and if so, where they might be keeping her.
I know that the Families have many facilities around the city—connections with the Met, Columbia University, and the United Nations, but Mom specifically said that Hypatia is at a medical facility. I need more leads.
Except the call is a whopping failure. Kor debriefs me, like usual. But I awkwardly freeze up and neglect to ask any of the questions I need to ask. Instead I stare at him, fixated on wondering how this person that I thought I knew so well could possibly be capable of abducting a helpless preteen girl.
The worst part is that it doesn’t seem impossible. Kor has always been so single-minded in pursuing what he wants.
I’m barely paying attention as he tells me about a performance he did for a children’s cancer charity. “It was weird doing a show without you,” he tells me, and there’s so much tenderness in his familiar eyes.
I feel like I need a system reboot so that everything can start to make sense, and instead of probing for information, I make excuses to sign off quickly.
When I call to Georgie that I’m finished, she comes in and quietly gets to work as opposed to pulling me into her normal fizzy chitchat. I’m pretty sure she’s withdrawn because of the whole Rafe thing. I should explain it to her now. Explain our need for non-suspicious collaboration and that I’m not actually dating the guy who treats her like dog poop on his shoe.
I start talking. “So, I have an idea about how to get off the island—”
She whips her head to look at me. “Have you found out where Hypatia is?” She looks so eager. So worried.
I sigh as I shake my head, sickened with myself. Hypatia is in danger, and I’m her best chance of rescue. But I can’t even figure out how to have a useful phone call with my own family. Some spy I turned out to be.
“Is there any way I can help?”
I’m about to thank her and decline politely, but then I stop and think twice.
Georgie has dropped enough hints for me to understand that her online activities are not, to say, strictly legal. I don’t know if it’s impolite to ask your friend to hack someone for you, but I decide to give it a shot.
“Uh, theoretically, would you be able to find a place that I know exists if I don’t know where?”
She thinks for less than three seconds, then says, “Know anyone who is likely to go there? Theoretically, of course.”
Mom had said that all the New York members of the Chamber are involved in whatever is going on, so that gives me some options. “Yes.”
“Oh, then this will be easy peasy. Choose whoever is most likely to open a link from you on their phone without any suspicion.” She’s already clacking away at her keyboard, flitting between monitors.
Kor and Mom would both be suspicious if I sent them a random message since they know I don’t have phone access. But Alfie probably wouldn’t think too hard about it.
“Got any insulting memes?” I ask her.
Georgie sits up straight. “Do I have any insulting memes?” She rubs her hands together gleefully. “Let me introduce you to my arsenal.”
For just a moment, she reminds me so much of Izzy that I almost feel as if I’m cheating on Izzy with a new best friend.
We spend a little too much time giggling at ridiculously captioned classical paintings and grumpy cats delivering Shakespearean insults. I’m glad to know that despite Georgie having been isolated from most of provincial society for so many years, she’s still acquainted with the best parts of the internet.
We settle on a picture of the Last Supper, but everyone at the table is giving the middle finger.
Georgie messages Alfie from her computer with my cloned number.
S aw this and thought of you. With an attached link to the meme.
Moments later he replies with a string of middle finger emojis.
“And… we’re in,” Georgie says triumphantly. “Oh, this doofus has his location services turned on, so we don’t even have to wait to see where he goes. I can pull up where he’s been for the past week.” Clack, clack, clack. “Jeez, aren’t these people supposed to be, like, super secret? They need way better digital security protocols.” She starts to tag locations on a map on her screen. “So, what am I looking for?”
“A place that could house a covert medical facility? I’m not exactly sure.”
“Say you haven’t tracked someone before without saying you haven’t tracked someone before,” she jokes dryly. “We’ll want to rule out anywhere he has reason to visit on a regular basis and see what’s left.” As she works, Georgie talks through what she’s doing. She pairs his location data with other information from his phone to easily establish what can be ignored: his apartment, gym, school, girlfriend’s place, favorite take-out spots.
She has definitely done this before. And now I can’t help but wonder who else she’s ever needed to track.
“Is there a reason he would be visiting this area?” Georgie asks, pointing to the East River on a map.
I peer over her shoulder as she enlarges the window for me. “Not that I know of.”
“He’s been here three times in the past two weeks.” She zooms in on a couple of small islands.
“That’s near Riker’s Island, New York City’s prison,” I say. “Maybe he’s been visiting an inmate?”
“No.” Georgie shakes her head. “This here is Riker’s Island, but that’s not where he’s been going. He’s been going here.” She points to a much smaller island. “Is there a park there or something?” She clicks around a bit more, then says, “North Brother Island. That’s what it’s called.”
I inhale sharply. North Brother Island is the home of an abandoned hospital and is completely restricted. Or so I thought.
Before I can explain this to Georgie, she’s already reading through an extensive web search. “There’s a hospital there that has a past life as a place for quarantined disease patients, veteran housing, and a rehab for drug addicts. Now the whole island is a bird sanctuary and off-limits to people.” She zooms in on a photo of the old hospital. “Definitely looks like a hidden medical facility to me,” she says with a grin.
I nod. “That has to be it.”
“So you’re saying you think this is where they’re keeping Hypatia?”
I nod again.
“Okay, let’s make this happen!” She claps her hands together. “How else can I help?” She doesn’t even wait for me to answer. “I bet I can make you a map.” Clack, clack, clack. On one monitor she’s researching North Brother Island, and with the other she’s continuing to go through Alfie’s phone, moving so fast through his apps, files, and internet history that I can barely keep up. “Has this dude not heard of incognito mode? I did not need to know that he’s into—”
“I don’t want to know!”
“Good call.”
I’m not quite sure what Georgie thinks she’ll find by scrolling through endless selfies of Alfie flexing in his bathroom mirror, but she clearly knows what she’s doing.
“Jackpot!” she exclaims when she finds a series of pictures of what looks like a construction site. “He took pictures of the renovations they’ve made to the old hospital. I don’t blame him—it looks super cool. I can cross-reference these photos with the old blueprints I found in the Historic House Trust archive to make a map. It won’t be fully accurate, but it should be better than nothing.”
“You are an actual wizard,” I say with genuine awe and only a hint of concern for why she would have ever needed this specific set of skills.
An alarm buzzes, and Georgie starts to gather her things. “Well, this was fun, but I have a reservation to use one of the looms, so I gotta go.” She blows me a kiss and bounds out of the room while my confession about Rafe stays trapped in my throat.