Ian Whiting lay nearby, on his back, unconscious. He appeared dead, his skin leached white, but his signature registered a faint film of yellow light around his body. The boost Laura had given him in the lab had been enough to jump-start his body signature.

Sinclair staggered into her field of vision, his uniform torn and singed. He leaned over Whiting as she shuffled on her knees next to them. “Is he okay?”

Sinclair leaned back on his heals. “I think he got hit with debris. Are you okay?”

Laura pulled her hair back and retied it. “A little rattled, but I’m fine. We need Whiting awake.”

She leaned over Whiting and scanned his body signature. She didn’t have healing skills, but from what she saw, he wasn’t damaged, only drained. He needed rest to replenish what he needed, but she could infuse him with a temporary boost like she had given herself. With one hand on his chest and the other on the ground, she tapped into the organic essence of the soil. The essence flowed through her and into Whiting, using her body as a conduit. It wasn’t healing precisely, but enough to jump-start his own essence regeneration. Whiting’s chest heaved as his body reacted to the influx. Laura eased him to his side as he started to retch.

She waited until he caught his breath. “Do you know who you are? Can you tell me your name?”

“Ian Whiting,” he rasped.

He could hear. He could think. “Mr. Whiting, I’m Mariel Tate with InterSec. What happened here?”

Dazed, he stared at the fire. “Was I in that?”

She helped him sit up. “Where’s Cress?”

“She tried to kill me,” he said.

“Well, she didn’t. Where is she?” Laura asked.

Now that he was awake, he pulled more essence on his own. He shook his head. “She was in the pod.”

Laura exchanged glances with Sinclair. “The pod? Is that what was in the crèche?”

Whiting got to his feet. “When I activated the final sequence, they ordered Cress to kill me.”

“Sequence for what? What the hell are you talking about?” Laura asked.

He stared into the distance. “We have to stop her.”

Laura shook him by the shoulders. “Focus, Whiting. What the hell was going on here?”

Instinctively, he activated his body shield. Rather than struggle with him, Laura let go. “We need a healer, Jono.”

Whiting held up his hand. “No, I’m fine. Give me another moment. My head is clearing.”

While she waited for him to compose himself, sendings from the rest of the team flowed in. Buildings all over the compound had been rigged with explosives and were now in flames. The few Legacy staff remaining had escaped on boats on the river side of the site. The fighting had been a distraction until the bombs went off.

Still confused, Whiting’s eyes alternately cleared and glazed over a few times. “We have to get to Washington.”

Laura stared at him. “What was going on here?”

Whiting rubbed a hand against his temple. “They stole my research on Cress and made an amplifier for her abilities. Amazing work, actually. I hadn’t thought through the implications.”

“Implications for what?” asked Sinclair.

Whiting tilted his head up. “I proposed the crèche as a way to dampen the cravings Cress had for essence. These people inverted my design. They created a pod for Cress’s body and the helmets to expand her abilities. They’re using her as a weapon to deactivate essence. The fey will be helpless against them.”

“Cress would not have agreed to this,” Laura said.

Whiting’s face became troubled. “She didn’t. I created a ward on the pod that suppressed her consciousness. It’s slaved to a control helmet. A man named DeWinter has it.”

Laura swore. “I should have blown his head off in the limo.”

“Hel, that explains it,” Sinclair said.

“What?” she asked.

“When I wore the helmet during training, I kept making moves and decisions that surprised me,” he said.

Whiting’s face was becoming animated. “It worked, then. I’d wondered how successful it would be. The crèche is a ward generator. The modules on the sides synchronize the helmets to the pod. The stone embedded in the back of the helmet is an impulse conductor. Put the two together, and anyone who wears a helmet is under your direct control.”

Laura interrupted him. “You said we have to get to Washington.”

Whiting became subdued as he remembered something. “They’re going to attack the fey leadership. I don’t know the details.”

Laura met Sinclair’s gaze. “Draigen’s reception. She’s been a target since she arrived, and the entire fey leadership is there right now. “

Sinclair sighed. “Why did I know this would end up about Terryn?”

Laura frowned. “Terryn’s not the point, and you know it.”

“They’ll need a granite-based structure to create an essence-dampening field,” Whiting said.

Sinclair shook his head in feigned annoyance. “Gee, how will we ever find a granite structure in D.C.?”