Limelight

> > “Larcener must be found,” Prof said. I could barely pick him up. “Until we accomplish this, we can do nothing.”

> > The others in the group nodded.

> > “I want Fabergé and Dragdown to spread rumors,” Prof said, writing on his notepad. “Claim there is an underground resistance movement against me, and it’s looking for a leader. Surveillance is your duty, Inkwell. You’ll watch the various powerful family neighborhoods. One of them has to be sheltering him, like the Stingrays were doing for our captive below.

> > “We attack in two ways: the promise of a rebellion to draw him out, mixed with the threat of discovery. Fuego, I want you to keep working with your dowser, doing sweeps through the city. We’ll make a big show of where we’re looking and expect Larcener to move—we flush him out like dogs in a field scaring pheasants.”

> > I leaned against my table, suddenly feeling as if I’d been punched in the gut.

> > Prof had put together a team.

> > It made sense. Prof had years of practice organizing and leading teams of Reckoners, and he was very good at hunting Epics. But hearing him talk to these people like he’d once talked to us…it was heartbreaking. How easily he’d replaced his friends and freedom fighters with a team of tyrants and murderers.

> Chapter 28, Calamity, page 240