"You said you wouldn't laugh," Jake said.

"Well what am I supposed to do, Jake?" Alex said, still chuckling. "Magic? Really? I knew it wasn't just a library—I knew it had to be more than that. I mean, come on. You in Portland? Eliot, can you picture Jake in Portland?"

"You believe him?" Kai asked incredulously. A headache was starting to develop behind her eyes, and she doubted it would be getting better any time soon.

"I can prove it," Jake said. He unfolded his paper and held it out to Kai. "This is how I knew to come here."

Uncertain, she took the page and held it up to the light. It looked like a newspaper clipping, complete with a picture of Flores shaking hands with a man she didn't recognize. "Robert Flores, international smuggler," she read out loud, blinking up at Jake. He nodded for her to continue. "Evaded arrest in four countries. Several law enforcement agencies report that he escaped incarceration, and conflicting accounts place him in up to three places at the same time." She shook her head, passing the paper back to him. "That's... that's impossible. How did you get this?"

Jake held the page out to his brothers, who peered curiously at it. "The Clippings Book. It sends us after artifacts that start causing trouble."

"Us," Eliot repeated. "There are more of you?"

Jake nodded. "Four, but this time I'm working on my own. Or I thought I was, before I ran into you all. Apparently the case is more connected than you thought."

Alex started laughing again, drawing Kai's glare. "You don't actually believe this, do you?" she asked.

"I dunno," Alex chuckled. "I've seen some weird stuff out there. Like we had this cousin in LA, Lindsey—he used to call me when he was drunk and tell me all sorts of weird things about his job. He said he worked with demons, but he was a lawyer so I always just assumed he was exaggerating. But then one time he called and said a vampire cut his hand off."

"Oh yeah," Jake said. "Vampires are real."

Kai stared at him. "Come on. You really expect me to believe that Dracula cut off your cousin's hand?"

"Well, not Dracula," Jake said. "My boss killed Dracula. But other vampires, yeah. One could have."

Kai made an exasperated sound, and Jake gave her a patient look that somehow managed to not seem condescending. "Just humor me. You don't have to believe it, not at first. But assuming I'm not insane and that magic is real, then conventional means won't work on Flores. His escape proves that."

Assuming magic is real. Right. Okay, fine, if it would get her answers—Kai could pretend for a little while.

Alex seemed willing enough to play along. "So you think this ring is letting him... what, transport?" he said. "That's how he escaped?"

"Maybe." Jake read the paper again, a furrow developing between his brows. A purple-blue bruise stood out sharply on his left cheekbone, but he didn't seem to notice it.

"Was Flores wearing a ring?" Alex asked.

Kai shrugged. "I didn't notice."

"One," Eliot said at the same time. "On his right forefinger. Just a plain gold band."

"Ring of Harmony..." Jake muttered. "It doesn't seem like that's a description of its powers. Harmony... Music? No. Something to do with transportation. Or bilocation." He looked up, his eyes flashing to Kai. "Or trilocation. It says here that he was in three places at once. When did you meet with him yesterday?"

"Around 10 AM," Eliot answered.

"10:15," Kai said.

"Okay." Jake moved to stand by her, laying his paper down on the checkout counter. "And then you arrested him when?"

"Just before noon," Kai said.

"And Eliot, you were attacked...?"

"Maybe 20 minutes after that."

Jake nodded to himself. "So either of them could have been the one from that morning."

"If—" Eliot started. He cut himself off and shook his head, tossing his hair out of his face. "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but—if there are more of them... I mean, it kind of explains things."

"What do you mean?" Alex asked.

"When Flores came to my hotel room, he didn't seem to know what had happened earlier. He acted like he didn't know he'd been arrested."

Kai nodded. "That's right—he did the same before I arrested him, remember? He asked if I'd tried to arrest him that morning."

"Yeah," Eliot agreed. "It was like he didn't know what had happened even though he was there."

Jake tapped his chin with one finger. "So... we're dealing with three possible versions of Flores. And none of them seem to know what happened to the other versions. Actually, that makes sense."

"None of this makes sense," Kai said.

"No, I mean—three." Jake swept an excited look over them before looking back down at his paper. "The ancient Greeks believed the number three symbolized harmony."

Eliot gave a thoughtful nod. "Yeah, I read about that in one of your papers."

Jake froze, gaping at his brother as if he'd just said something crazier than magic is real. "My—what?"

"Sorry," Eliot said. "I mean one of Oliver Thompson's papers."

"Oh!" Alex pointed at Eliot and grinned. "Yeah, I've read that one. But wasn't it under a different name? What was it... Griffin Griffould?"

Eliot shook his head. "No, that's the Celtic history expert."

"Right. Roger Devlin?"

"I don't know that one." Eliot took out his phone and typed something on the screen. "I'll add that to my list. No, I think it was Thompson. Or James McKelvie."

Jake continued to stare at them. "How did you...?"

"You made us read like a thousand of your papers when we were kids," Alex said, as if the explanation was obvious. "You really think I wouldn't be able to recognize your writing?"

"But... you both...?"

Eliot slipped his phone back into his pocket and folded his arms. "I found an article by accident when I was reading up on a job. Thought it sounded familiar. A few years later I was researching to impress an art professor and came across another one by a different author. Figured you were publishing under multiple names and got curious."

"Same here," Alex said. "I found the first one while I was undercover and started digging. I've figured out five aliases so far. How many are there?"

"Seven," Jake said weakly.

"You have seven fake identities?" Kai said. So much for Eliot being the only one she had to worry about.

"Not—not like that." Jake cleared his throat, shaking his head as if it would banish the color rising to his cheeks. "I just publish under different names. Research, theories, things like that. I don't go around pretending to be them."

Kai rubbed at the worsening pain in her forehead. "Okay, so another weird estranged brother detail that can probably wait. Can we get back to the case?"

"Let me make a call," he said. "I'll see what Jenkins knows about this."

"Who's Jenkins?" Alex asked.

"He works with me." Jake disappeared into Alex's room, returning a few minutes later in a pair of jeans and a clean t-shirt.

Alex sputtered. "Are those mine?"

Jake shushed him, dialing a number on his phone and holding it up to his ear. "Jenkins? Yeah, the weather's great, thanks. What do you know about the Ring of Harmony?" He paused to listen and nodded to no one in particular. "Hold on, I'm putting you on speaker."

"I thought you'd gone there alone," said a voice as Jake held out the phone for the rest of them to listen.

"Yeah," Jake hedged. "I'll explain later. Just go ahead, Jenkins, they know the basics."

Jenkins cleared his throat, not sounding entirely pleased with Jake's answer. "Well... the Ring of Harmony is a very old artifact, forged by Hypatia the Wise in the 5th century. According to legend, the ring gives its wearer the ability to appear in three places at once. Hypatia was always rumored to be an overachiever. Supposedly, the ring helped her become one of the most accomplished mathematicians and philosophers of her time."

Jake looked at Kai. "Would one version of the wearer know what was happening to the other two?"

"Not necessarily," Jenkins answered. "Not right away, anyway. Some texts mention a 'reforming' at the end of 24 hours, during which time the wearer of the ring would reabsorb his or her versions, as you say. At that point, one assumes that the wearer would learn what those versions had done throughout the day."

"Sounds... overwhelming," Alex muttered.

"Indeed," Jenkins said. "How many are you dealing with?"

Jake flashed a concerned look at his brothers. "What do you mean?"

"The concept of the number three was incredibly important to the ancient Greeks," Jenkins answered. "You have the three fates, three muses, three genres of drama—"

"Jenkins," Jake said.

"The number three represented harmony, hence the ring's name." Jenkins went on. "Hypatia forged three rings, each with the power to create a total of three versions of the wearer. If three people each wore a ring, they would create a total of nine versions."

"You'd get a perfect number," Jake said. "The Greek idea of Triple Perfection."

"Quite so. So, how many are you dealing with?"

"We don't know for sure," Jake answered.

"Well, one is in the Acropolis Museum in Athens," Jenkins said. "The last I heard, the second was rumored to be somewhere in Egypt. We lost track of the third one some time in the 14th century."

The 14th century. Rings of Harmony, perfect numbers—it was all too much. Kai glanced around the room, searching for hidden cameras or anything else that might explain the insanity that seemed to have taken over the others. But Alex and Eliot were both focused on Jake, their expressions serious, as if they were honestly weighing his words. As if magic was a real possibility.

But... what else could it be? Why would Flores pretend not to know what had happened during his meeting with her and Eliot? How did he escape jail without showing up on any of the cameras, without being seen by anybody? How could he be in Eliot's hotel room at the same time that she stood with him at the police station?

Was she really considering magic as an explanation?

"We'll do some more digging," Jake was telling Jenkins. "Thanks."

"You're welcome, Mr. Stone. Call if you need anything else."

Jake ended the call and put his phone in his pocket, looking around at the rest of them. "Well?"

The headache was definitely getting worse. "Well what?" Kai sighed.

"Go on, get it out of your system." Jake smiled indulgently, as if he'd had this conversation before. "Call me crazy, say you're crazy for considering it, whatever you need to do. Then let's get started on a plan."

"To what—steal a magic ring?" Eliot grumbled. "You want me to swing by Mount Doom on my way back to New Orleans?"

Jake shook his head. "We're not going to destroy it. I'm here to retrieve it and bring it back for safekeeping."

"Okay, then how do we get it?" Alex asked.

Kai was about to bring up—again—how completely insane they sounded, but the thoughtful expression on Eliot's face made her pause. "Flores wants to hire me," he said in a low voice. His eyes found hers, and he blinked like he couldn't believe what he was about to say. "I meet with him. Get the ring. That would prove things, one way or another."

"He wants to hire you to do what?" Kai asked.

"He wants a bodyguard."

"Bodyguard?" Jake echoed. "Is that what you do?"

"Sometimes."

"Eliot." Kai waited until he looked at her, until he read the serious expression on her face and matched his to hers. "Until I get more information, I can't trust you. Flores has offered to work with you twice now, and you've given every indication that you're open to it. You need to tell me why you're here."

There was a pause. She tried not to be impatient, but with every moment that ticked by she pictured Flores getting farther and farther away. She couldn't lose him, not after everything Ocampo had said. He was counting on her.

"I told you about magic," Jake pointed out quietly.

Eliot let out a soft laugh. "Yeah. Okay. I... uh, I help people. People who can't help themselves. People the law can't help."

The hesitation in his voice told her more than his words did. "And the people you go after?" she said. "You hurt them? You kill them?"

"No." His answer was sharp enough to put some of her worries to rest, though she still had questions. As if sensing them, Eliot added, "I mean, sometimes I hurt people. But my job right now is to make sure Flores is put to justice. Like Jake's paper says, he's evaded arrest in a few different countries already. I'm here to make sure he doesn't leave the Philippines."

His eyes stayed on hers as he spoke. They were as blue as Alex's, clear in a way that made her think of the ocean, of shallow tidepools that showed everything beneath the surface. She'd gotten pretty good at reading Alex over the last year. Most of the time she could guess what he was feeling based on how wide those eyes got. But Eliot... Eliot seemed to be showing her. When she looked into the deep and saw shades of truth beneath the waves, she got the feeling that it was only what he was letting her see. That there was more hiding in the shadows, things she would never understand.

Things she didn't want to know.

"I believe him," Alex said. He was watching her too, and he spoke quietly. As if his brothers weren't standing a few feet away in a silent room. As if he was talking just to her.

"He's your brother," Kai muttered.

"Yeah," Alex said. "And he probably does things like I do. Like I did."

She looked at him, finding the same look-beneath-the-surface light in his eyes, and thought about how much he'd changed over the last year. And how little he'd changed in the ways that mattered.

Fine. She would spare a sliver of trust for Eliot—and for Jake. Just until the case was solved.

"Alright, Eliot," she sighed. "Call Flores."