At first, it's hard to fly with Susan's added weight, to compensate and find a new balance in the air, a way to stretch his wings without catching them on any part of her, but once Jake is airborne, he doesn't land again until Susan directs him downwards.

Part of him wants to protest—they're obviously not at the restaurant Dolores had mentioned—but arguing will only waste time they don't have, and she still thinks phoning first is better than trying to get to them as quickly as possible. He could ignore her and keep going and try to bank on the fact that she wouldn't dare waste time by not giving him directions, but he's also not convinced she wouldn't try jumping off his back if he refused to stop now that she knows her daughter is in danger.

Given his own experiences of the fragility of his human form, he doubts dragon blood would spare her the nasty consequences of that decision, especially if he wasn't able to catch her in time.

Jake lands in the shadows to let Susan off and uses his enhanced dragon senses to make sure they're alone—especially from others in the Huntsclan.

They are, for now, unless there's a team in the area using tricks he's never been taught.

That's just as well. Susan doesn't seem to think Haley's disappearance is a coincidence, even though Jake doubts the Huntsclan has anything to do with this. Given the opportunity, they certainly would, but he can't imagine they would've had the opportunity. Even if Rose had decided to tell the elders of the American Dragon, Susan had been convinced that her daughter was safe. The Huntsclan….

The Huntsclan would have acted in one of two ways: hitting fast and hard, claiming their prize before their invasion could be noticed, or slowly and sneakily, spending the time to learn as much as they could before they razed everything to the ground.

There hadn't been much time between the messages being sent—or, at least, Jake presumes there wasn't, given how closely both had been received. If the Huntsclan were behind the American Dragon's disappearance, Jake can't imagine that the first message wouldn't have had news of such. After all, her disappearance shouldn't have gone unmarked for any length of time. But even if it had….

Even if it had, if the Huntsclan had truly discovered a dragon safehold, they wouldn't be foolish enough to immediately do something to make their presence known.

Well…. Most of them wouldn't.

He can think of a few who would act before thinking twice, but none of them are competent enough to discover a proper safehold in the first place. Stumble into something by complete accident? Sure. Uncover something that is surely magically protected? Not so much. Besides, their bumbling would have had them discovered before they could pull off as great a feat as spiriting away the American Dragon.

He keeps watch in his human form while Susan makes her phone call. Keeping an ear out for anyone who might spot them means he overhears everything, but all he overhears is her leaving a tearful message to an answering service. Twice, with barely a variation between the two messages.

Jake can't see the point in that, but he will admit that the lack of answer is hardly a point in Rose's favour. Still, he doubts her capture of Susan's husband is behind his inability to answer his phone.

When Jake hears Susan calling for a third time, only to immediately get the answering service again, he gives up any pretense of not listening. "This isn't getting us anywhere. We can find out what happened at the restaurant."

Susan presses her lips into a thin line as she hangs up the receiver. "Then I need to find a corner store before we continue."

"No. Not unless you're leaving me. This place isn't— I can find it on my own if I need to." He doesn't need to tell her they aren't far from one of the entrances to the Huntsclan's hidden labyrinth.

"Your father deserves to know what happened to your sister," Susan hisses, and he flinches at the words even though they hardly seem real. Father and sister aren't concepts he's used to applying to himself any more than he is mother, even if the last is rapidly becoming more familiar than the others.

Jake swallows down his unease as he's long been trained to do. Mission first, emotions later—and right now, whether Susan likes it or not, the mission is find Huntsgirl. If finding Rose happens to mean finding Susan's husband, then she has no reason to complain. "You told him what you know. That's as much as we can do right now."

"It's not. If I can talk to him—"

"If you could talk to him, he would've answered his phone. So are you staying here or coming with me?"

There's an anger in Susan's eyes he's not used to seeing. It doesn't quite hide her lurking fear, something he'd seen for her daughter when she'd first captured him and something he'd seen again for them both since they'd left together, but there's— Something else. Something he doesn't yet know her well enough to place.

"I was ready to take you to your aunt's house if we couldn't catch up with them," she says, slowly and deliberately but still with a knife's sharpness, "but if your sister isn't with your grandfather, then something happened to her and she's in trouble. If we're lucky, your father and Huntsgirl will have heard something about it, but even if we're not, the two of them can help us figure out what that trouble is."

Does she think that's why her husband is with Rose?

Maybe it is.

Or maybe that's just wishful thinking.

"So you're coming," Jake says flatly. "Why are we arguing and not leaving to find Huntsgirl?"

Susan's voice is purposefully neutral as she says, "It's not just Huntsgirl. They're your family."

"They're your family," he corrects, not bothering to take the care necessary to smooth the harshness from his tone. "I don't know them well enough to claim them."

Even if he did, they haven't any idea where to look for the American Dragon, and stopping to search every remote possibility would only end in his capture right now. Conversely, they do know where to look for Rose and Susan's husband, so it only makes sense to find them, sooner rather than later, even if it is only wishful thinking on Susan's part that they might have some information about her daughter.

The sting in his words steals the wind from Susan's sails, and he sees her shoulders slump. "Very well. Let's go."

He doesn't waste his breath attempting to soothe her. If they've any hope of catching up to Rose, they need to press on. He's transformed in seconds, and she's on his back shortly thereafter, murmuring directions he wouldn't catch with human ears as they regain altitude.

In the end, they're still too late.

He recognizes and avoids a few favoured spots of the Huntsclan, and he doesn't want to think that caution is what cost them, but he's confident that Rose is gone even before he sees confusion settle on the face of the woman who greets them as they enter the restaurant.

"Susan, what a pleasant surprise. I hadn't thought I'd see you here tonight."

Susan doesn't bother with any pretense of introduction. "Is Jonathan still here?"

Jonathan. That must be his father's name. Susan has guarded it for so long that Jake's almost surprised she's let it slip now.

Almost.

The familiarity between the two women makes him reasonably confident Susan's relationship to Jonathan is no secret, but Jake doubts it would have been easy for Susan to ask after him without saying his name.

It shouldn't feel like a risk, saying something as simple as a name aloud, but Jake is painfully aware that the restaurant's background music is doing little to hide this conversation. A boy surrounded by a mess of papers is doing a poor job of disguising his curiosity, outright staring at them more often than not, and Jake's not sure if he's a greater liability than the two teenagers he can see from the corner of his eye. He hasn't looked directly at them, and he's turning away from them and trying to keep Susan between them as best he can, but he's reasonably sure it's 88 and 89.

He can't think of anyone else foolish enough to wear their uniforms without their masks, and Dolores had said she'd seen them.

Trouble is, if those two are still here, that makes this place an even bigger target for other members of the Huntsclan seeking clues, since anyone who's not familiar with their reputation would assume they were here because they'd found something interesting.

Jake cannot afford to be here when someone else comes to investigate. His name wouldn't have been distributed, but his face and number would be. Everyone with clearance would know he'd gone missing, and if 88 and 89 were assigned to the case with Rose, that means everyone in their division knows he's gone missing. He can't hide in plain sight as a human any more than he could as a dragon.

At Susan's question, the—waitress? Restaurateur?—doesn't frown, exactly, but her brow creases as she says, "I'm afraid they left a few minutes ago."

They.

Rose is still with him.

At least Rose is still with him.

Jake would have a better chance of tracking them if he used his dragon senses, but he doesn't dare do anything that would require even a partial transformation here. They're too open, too exposed, and it's too high risk a location to seriously contemplate it. Even if 88 and 89 don't notice, they're hardly the real threat. Other eyes might well be on this place, might well be on him if they weren't before, and he can't—

No, he shouldn't. He won't know if he can't unless he tries and his magic prevents him. This isn't a boundary worth testing, not when doing so risks endangering Rose and himself as much as it does his birth family.

Jake touches Susan's arm to draw her attention and says, "We can still catch up."

He ignores the way the woman is watching them, watching him, but Susan does not. "I'm sorry, Maria; I can't imagine where my manners have gone. This is Jake. We're hoping to have him stay with us, so if all goes well, you'll be seeing more of him in the future."

Maria is quiet for a beat, her sharp eyes flicking between the two of them, and then she asks quietly, "Exchange student?"

Rose's excuse, no doubt.

"Something more permanent than that, I hope," Susan says easily, "but it's still too early to know if things will go our way."

It's not a lie, but Jake has to bite back a correction anyway.

He's still not sure if Susan's way will be his way, once this is over.

Assuming there's anything left for him once this is all over.

He can't hope for that before he has a chance to talk to Rose. "We should go before we lose them," he insists. If Susan intends to stay here chitchatting for much longer, he'll leave her behind. He's so close—

"We'll see them at home," Susan says, as if none of this matters, as if she weren't the one panicking earlier—

But she says it because the others are watching them. Maria, the boy at the table, maybe even 88 and 89 but Jake still refuses to look in their direction—

"Please," Jake grits out, because he doesn't know how to hurry this along without playing the role expected of him, and Maria gives Susan what is very clearly a sympathetic look.

"Don't you two be strangers, all right? I'd love to learn more about you, Jake."

She'd like the business, more like, but Jake's not foolish enough to say that out loud—especially not when she's letting them go without trying to talk them into buying something to eat before they leave. "Looking forward to it," he says with enthusiasm so forced it might as well have been carved from oak.

Maria's smile is too practiced to waver, and Jake waits only a few heartbeats out of politeness for Susan to make her goodbyes before heading back out to the street.

88 and 89 aren't immediately following, so he'll take the stroke of luck for what it is.

Despite what he'd said to Susan, though, he really isn't sure if they'll be able to catch up with Rose. And Jonathan. Jake picks a direction that isn't the way they'd come and walks, and Susan falls in step beside him. "You were in a hurry to get out of there," she murmurs.

"88 and 89 were there. I don't know if they recognized me." They should have overheard his name, but then again, Jake's not sure if they know his name. Rose certainly wouldn't have told them. "I don't know if anyone else recognized me, either."

Jake's trying to watch the rooftops around them without being too obvious about it, but it's harder than it should be without using a dragon's sight. He hadn't realized how much he'd started to rely upon those accursed gifts.

"If someone were watching the restaurant, they would have followed Huntsgirl, would they not?"

"They would have tried."

"But she's Huntsgirl for a reason?"

"She's good at what she does."

Susan hums, accepting Jake's answer even though she's heard it before. Maybe she knows he isn't in the mood to talk. Maybe she's realized how worried he is that someone tracking Huntsgirl, upon losing her, could circle back and find them.

Rose wouldn't take someone inexperienced to the rooftops, at least not at night, and if she were worried about a tail, they wouldn't stay on street level. Trying to track her from the air is useless if they're already underground. Trouble is, he doesn't know if she'd take the subway, the tunnels, or the sewers—or which combination thereof, though he doubts the sewers would be her first choice if she could avoid it. Alone would be a different matter, but with someone inexperienced….

Subway, then, at least to start, even if cameras would be a problem. If she'd gained a tail or three, it would give her ample opportunity to spot them and the chance to lose them by changing lines. She wouldn't need to waste time convincing anyone that it was the best route, either.

But the best route to where?

Jake hesitates before he reaches the corner and the circle of streetlight surrounding it, chewing on his lip as he tries to figure out what Rose would have done. He doesn't think they would have gone to Susan's home—that was a lie to appease Maria in the guise of placating him—but he doesn't want to think that Rose would have gone back to the Huntsclan, either. She might still try to protect Jake, but she doesn't have any reason to protect the American Dragon, and information about Haley would be more valuable than her father, especially when he's human.

Jonathan has every reason to protect his daughter, and since he's human, whatever he knows is bound to be limited. Whatever he could tell the Huntsclan once they succeeded in breaking him would be little more than Rose herself could already tell them, and they could put her information to use much more quickly; it wouldn't need to be verified first.

He wouldn't be a good hostage, either. He'd rot in the cells before anyone with any sense would barter for his exchange or release. Susan would, if she could find something to barter with, and the American Dragon would if she were foolish enough to try, but Jake doubts that kindness would go much farther.

No, Rose wouldn't have gone to the Huntsclan.

Would she go to the cave because she knows there's a decent chance of Jake hiding there, or would she avoid it for that very reason? There are only so many routes she could take from here if that were her plan, and if he and Susan tried to head them off before the beach—

But where would she go if that isn't her plan? If not the cave, anywhere associated with the Huntsclan, or Susan's home?

The school, maybe? The one to which she was supposed to transfer? He'd helped her study up on it, poring over the blueprints until they both had every nook and cranny memorized. It would be laughably easy for her to break in, but after that— What was there for her to do there after that? Especially if she was still with Jonathan?

Maybe she'd go to the shop. If Jonathan suggested going home or going to the shop, she'd surely choose the shop in the hopes that it would hold some clue.

But that's assuming she doesn't already know about the shop. That she hasn't already searched it. And Jake doesn't know where she might have found the father of the American Dragon and deduced who he was if it weren't at the shop that practically reeks of magic once you pass the threshold of its protective barriers.

Unless she doesn't know who Jonathan is?

She might have thought him the protector at first, at least if she had reason to connect the shop with the American Dragon in the first place, but Jake can't fathom that she wouldn't check. She must know he's human—or, at the very least, not a dragon.

Maybe she thinks he's a wizard or an oracle or someone else who's part of the magical world but retains their humanity. Maybe she does think he'll have useful information and she's willing to bring forth his information to supplement her own so she doesn't have to sacrifice it all—

"Jake."

It's not a question in Susan's voice, not a prompt for him to say what he's thinking.

It's a warning.

He looks for the shadows and then looks up without tilting his head. There, perched on a rooftop across the street and looking down, is a figure looming a little too far forward to properly blend into the darkness. Careful but not precise; trained but not top of their class. It's someone who knows better than hold a weapon that might catch the light and give them away, but Jake knows exactly how easy it is to conceal weapons and how quickly those weapons can find their way into trained hands and fly towards their targets.

They might not have recognized Jake yet, but they will if he gets any closer, and if he turns away now, he'll only be inviting a chase. Even if they run all the way to Bowery Station, there would be a threat at their back. He has a better chance if he faces it head on. Susan will have a better chance, too, if she's smart and runs.

She might, for the sake of her daughter.

"You have to go," Jake says, trying to pour authority into his voice without raising it enough for his words to be distinguished by their watcher. "You need to find your husband and tell him about your daughter. I'll buy you time to get away."

"I'm not leaving you."

"If you don't, it'll only make things worse."

"I can handle worse."

A dragonish growl rumbles in his throat before he can stop it, and he has to force himself to relax. If she's fine with worse, then fine, they can take a risk that things will go worse and hope that it works out for the better. She won't be able to claim that he hadn't given her the opportunity to leave. As long as his wretched magic doesn't stop his words from leaving his mouth, he might be able to pull this off.

"Follow my lead," he warns her, and then he steps into the light and turns his face up.

He's not surprised when the figure above reacts, pulling back and then picking the quickest path down to street level. In the time they're not focused on him, he slips the knife from his wrist sheath into his hand, just in case.

"Brave of you to show your face so brazenly," a voice taunts what feels like only seconds later. Jake can't quite place it—18? 23? 32?—until the girl moves forward enough for him to recognize her golden brown ponytail. 23 looks smug, which is better than he'd feared, because she wouldn't be smug if she knew what he was. She's often paired with 32, so 32 should be around somewhere, but Jake can't afford to turn his back on 23 to search for her.

23's eyes flick to Susan, but she keeps Jake in her sight as she continues, "Unless you've come to surrender to me?"

"I escaped capture," Jake counters. "I have no need to surrender to anyone, least of all to you."

23 smirks. "Don't think we don't know your crimes." Her head tips toward Susan. "Let me guess, this is the woman you've convinced yourself is your family?"

Jake's breath catches in his throat. He hadn't expected 23 to know his relation to Susan, even if she doesn't believe that relation is real. It puts a wrench in his plans. He can hardly use Susan as bait—hardly dangle her as a source of information on the magical world—without destroying the last vestiges of plausible deniability he has.

"He is my son," Susan says, completely ignoring his request that she let him take the reins in this conversation. "I love him, as I'm sure your family loves you."

"Funny way they have of showing it if they do," sneers 23, and Jake abruptly remembers that she's the one who spent weeks recovering before she was fit enough to join the light training regime undertaken by the newest initiates. She might not have even made it to them were it not for 32. "99's better off facing his due than staying with you if you're the same."

"I'm not." Her voice is quiet but confident, which does absolutely nothing to help him. "If half of what you imply is true, he'd be as safe with the Huntsclan as you would be with your birth family. Why take him back to such a situation?"

"This is different." The answer is automatic, coming to Jake's lips as well even if it only leaves 23's. He swallows it back as she continues, "He's coming with me. Nothing you do can change that."

"Are you sure you should be so confident about that?" Susan asks, and the smile on her face is as subtle as the tilt of her head which suggests she's an adult indulging a child in conversation.

23 ducks as she steps towards Susan, her own knife in hand, but Jake knows how she moves. His knife scores her arm as Susan twists forward to get past 23's guard. He's too busy dodging 23's kick to see what Susan does next, but the confrontation ends with 23 unconscious on the ground and Susan unmarred.

Jake's staring even as Susan takes the knife from his fingers and cleans it on 23's uniform. "How—?"

"I didn't have to become the American Dragon to learn how to defend myself." It's nothing she hasn't hinted at before—her knowledge of the magical world is evidence of her training, and there's no reason learning how to fight wouldn't have been part of that—but 23 rarely makes mistakes in the field. Even accounting for the fact that she'd underestimated Susan—

The hilt is pressed into his fingers, which curl around it automatically. "We need to keep moving," Susan says, and Jake can see 23 already beginning to rouse. He wishes he had something he could use to tie her up; she probably has something, but that would mean taking the time to go through her pockets, and if she recovered before he noticed, it would give her far too much opportunity to turn the tables on him. He could cut something important like her Achilles tendon—maiming other members of the Huntsclan would not be seen as the worst of his crimes by this point—but he's not convinced Susan wouldn't stop him if he tried.

He's not convinced she shouldn't stop him, either.

Maybe that's why he doesn't stomp on 23's knee while she's down, even though he knows her right is weaker than her left.

Or maybe he's being foolish and not noble, and this is only one of many decisions he will regret before the end of the night.

"Which way?"

Jake still doesn't know which way because he hasn't figured out where Rose might go. He wants to offer to split up again, but he knows Susan won't take him up on it, and they don't have time to debate it when they need to be out of 23's sight sooner rather than later.

He wishes they did have time, though, and that Susan would agree to leave.

Of course, seconds might not be enough time to change Susan's mind, but seconds could still make a difference, and he could get them those.

Biting his lip, Jake raises one hand and points, and Susan sets off at a brisk pace he matches with an uneasy feeling in his gut.

He can't afford to be noble, not when he's already being foolish for a different reason.

If he accidentally-on-purpose steps on 23's foot before he follows, feeling more than hearing something snap with his use of a dragon's strength and hurrying on as 23 lets out a sharp cry of pain, well, it won't keep her down for long, but it will buy them a little bit of desperately needed time.

Consequently, 23 might be aware enough to see the direction they're starting off in, but they'll be out of her sight in seconds, not minutes, and Jake doubts she'll guess where they're going.

He might not be able to find Rose, might not be able to get Susan back to her husband, but from what 23 had said, he's not merely viewed as a missing agent. If the Huntsclan knows about Susan, he needs to know what else they know. They could try to get answers from 23, but that's just asking for 32 to ambush them. He'll have better luck finding out what he needs to know if he goes back to the Huntsclan and searches for answers himself. If he can change into one of his spare uniforms and turn his patch upside down so he's no longer 99, it'll buy him enough time to have a chance.

And there can't be that many people looking for him on the inside or even particularly close to headquarters, not if they think he's run.

Still.

His magic hadn't stopped him from pointing towards their headquarters, and he's not sure what that means beyond the fact that something could have changed. He doesn't know if he wishes his hand would have stilled of its own accord, either. He doesn't know if this is a mistake, if trusting Susan was his mistake, or if trusting him has become hers.

His magic's inaction might be because a direction doesn't necessarily equate a destination, because he's already taken Susan to the cave and therefore the Huntsclan isn't their first stop, or because their pact is already broken.