You may draw whatever conclusions you want from the beginning of this chapter, if you know what I mean. Personally, I think yes :) Enjoy and thanks for reading!

It was almost four in the morning when she found us. My head was pillowed on Zach's chest, and his arms were wrapped around me. The breeze through the open window was cool, and the cold of the stones in our tower was strangely comforting, their texture far less uncomfortable that I'd thought it would be.

We'd slept there because we hadn't wanted to be found, and until my mother came trudging up the stairs that morning, our plan had worked. She opened the door tentatively, as though not quite sure what to expect, as though she was afraid she would barge in on us at an awkward moment.

But she'd forgotten that we're spies. We'd heard her when she'd first started coming up the stairs.

"Hey, Mom," I said quietly, sitting up and meeting her eyes.

She smiled sadly at me, an expression I couldn't quite interpret. Then she walked over to us and held out a piece of paper.

"Joe wanted me to give this to you," she said, pressing it into my palm. "You two should probably go soon. You've been here almost twenty-four hours."

"She's right, Cam," Zach said quietly. "While it's still dark."

I nodded and pulled myself to my feet, determined to do this the right way this time. "I love you, Mom," I whispered, pulling her close. "I'll be back. And I'll finish this."

"I love you too, Cameron," she answered, her voice perfectly controlled. "Be safe." She pulled away and leveled a look at Zach. "Take care of her," she ordered, the 'or else' obvious in her tone.

"With my life." Zach answered without breaking eye contact, his voice completely serious. "I will."

She nodded silently, then turned on her heel and marched down the stairs.

"We should go," Zach said quietly, getting to his feet and taking my hand. "Before the sun comes up."

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"I don't know," he answered honestly. "Your father was based in DC when he disappeared, right?"

"Yeah," I answered. "How many Circle bases are there?"

"Enough to make this nearly impossible," he answered. "But your father wouldn't have gone to a base for his briefing, not if he was that close to DC. Too many people who could be watching to chance leading anyone back to the caves. They'd have met in some sort of public location, where there would be lots of people going about their own business. Which means he would have slipped the journal to my mother directly.

"But that's what I don't understand," he continued. "If she knew was a double agent, she was already looking for the information he had. Don't you think she would have noticed a book full of secrets on the Circle written in code?"

"Yeah," I agreed. "If he'd slipped the journal into her bag or something, she'd have found it later and known what it was. In which case, she wouldn't be looking for us."

"This isn't getting us anywhere," Zach commented. "What'd Joe give you?"

I pass him the paper, and he reads the numbers that are scrawled there, then raises his eyes to meet mine. "It's a routing number," we say together. Then I fall silent and wait for Zach to explain.

"He's giving us his stash, Cam," he offers. "Joe Solomon's financing our mission."

It had never occurred to me to wonder where Zach was getting the money for our adventure before, but it did then.

"How were we paying for this before?"

"With mine. Every spy sets up a few thousand dollars under a preferably unknown alias in case they have to make a run for it," he said, looking surprised. "And you keep adding to it as you get paid in hopes that if you ever need to go off grid, you have something to start with. You honestly didn't know that?"

"Where did you get your start up money?" I asked, ignoring his comment. "You haven't officially been on any missions yet."

"I had a previous life, Cam," he reminded, rolling his eyes. "I went on missions for them."

"We should go," I said, not wanting to think about Zach's 'previous life'. "Even if we don't know where we're going."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Even if we're searching after a book my mother can't possibly have."

An idea started to take shape in my head. Joe Solomon had said there was a third journal. We'd already found the first two, and we'd held them in our hands, turned their coded pages. But a "journal", by definition, was merely a recording of daily events and information. Joe Solomon and my father were smart. They wouldn't have chosen to hide their information in anything that could be easily damaged. And then I knew.

"Zach," I said, meeting his eyes. "We're not looking for a book."