“It won’t be that simple,” Michaela said, twisting to fully face us from the couch, no longer even feigning disinterest. Either she’d decided she really would rather make Ruben’s life hell afterward, or she was actually anticipating the job we were about to pull—the boldest, most dangerous breach of a syndicate’s inner defenses I’d ever heard of. And for the first time, I wondered what she’d done before she married Cavazos. Before she became a wife and a mother, and let someone seal the oath oboedientia on her arm. Was she active in the syndicate—an employee of her future husband? Was it possible that she now missed the action, and that part of her obvious personality disorder was the result of being effectively shelved away from the action?

Or was I giving her too much credit?

“Why not?” Anne asked, and Cavazos deferred to his wife with one outstretched hand.

“Do I get to sit at the grown-up table now?” Michaela snapped. And when he nodded mutely, she stood and directed her explanation to Anne, though most of what she said was new to me, too.

“You can not just shadow-walk into any of Tower’s buildings, including his house. I’d bet my life on it. You certainly can’t get into any of ours that way. All the closets are kept lit. The beds have storage beneath them. Tables have glass tops. Showers and cabinets have glass doors.”

“What about at night?” Anne asked. “I tried to leave the lights on all night once and nearly lost my mind. I couldn’t sleep, even with my sleeping mask.”

Michaela actually laughed—she didn’t seem the least bit threatened by Anne, for which I was profoundly grateful. “An overhead infrared grid is the cornerstone of any good security setup.”

Anne frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It’s exactly what it sounds like.” Meika leaned against the back of the couch, and her accent lent an exotic flavor to what was already an interesting explanation. “Every room in the house has lighting recessed into the ceiling. A grid of them, placed at precise intervals. They look like normal accent lights, but the bulbs are all infrared, and there are no switches. They’re on all the time, though they can be turned off at the master control in the security room. Even though you can’t see the light they shed, it covers nearly every square inch of the house, leaving no shadow big enough to walk through—unless you are a toddler.”

“But how does that help?” Anne asked, and I listened as closely for the answer as she did—we were way beyond my understanding of shadow-walking. “Infrared light isn’t visible to the naked eye. So there would still be shadows where te visible light doesn’t fall.”

“Yes, but shadows that don’t penetrate the infrared spectrum are very…shallow, for lack of a better term. They’re not deep enough to walk through for something like ninety-nine percent of shadow-walkers. With the infrared grid, the room is actually completely lit and impenetrable for virtually all Travelers, even if you see shadows in the visible spectrum.”

“Wow, that sounds complicated. And expensive,” Anne said, and I could see the wheels in her head turning. If comprehensive infrared lighting was the only way to protect her daughter, she wouldn’t be able to afford to house Hadley.

“They can afford it,” I assured her.

“We can’t afford not to have it,” Cavazos said. “My enemies are…numerous, and we’ve foiled two abduction attempts on Isabel this year alone.”

Anne paled and suddenly looked as if she might vomit. “They want money?”

“For Isa,” Michaela said. “Most of them just want Ruben dead.”

I laughed out loud, and for once, Meika didn’t look as if she’d like to rip my head off.

“So you’re saying there’s no way to shadow-walk into Tower’s house? What about emergencies? What if someone does get in and Tower needs help? He’s not going to call the police….” A safe assumption, considering how much of his business was illegal. “So how would he get his men there in a hurry?”

Michaela shrugged. “I’m sure he has at least one darkroom. We have three of them, in different parts of the house.”

“Darkroom? Like photographers use?” This part of Cavazos’s life was all new to me—I’d never been allowed to roam free in their house.

“No, more like a closet. Darkrooms are special entrances and exits for Travelers to use. There is no infrared light. Just one standard overhead light, which is kept off unless you need to lock the house down for some reason. I use ours all the time, and if you have staff, or close friends or family who are Travelers, they can use it, too.” Like we were using the bathroom, keeping it dark for Kori, just in case. “Some of the wealthier families even keep full-time Travelers as chauffeurs.”

Figures. I could barely afford my own car, and Tower was probably paying someone to take his wife shopping without ever stepping outside.

“Great.” I shrugged. “If you’re pretty sure Tower has one or two of these darkrooms, you can just bring us in one at a time, right?”

“Assuming I had any desire to touch you without a blade in my other hand…yeah.” She shrugged, but the reminder that we’d never be friends came through loud and clear. “I could get you into his darkroom, unless it’s locked down. But you’d have nowhere to go from there. The typical darkroom has a steel door with concealed hinges and a dead bolt thicker than my wrist. If you try to cut through it, you’ll trigger the alarm, which will then trigger a lockdown. The light will come on and you’ll be trapped in that fucking closet until his men come in and get you. Or just gas you through the ventiv p>