Haley's had better ideas. She can admit that even to herself. She's had much, much better ideas.

She's had worse ones, too, but not by much.

Marty doesn't seem to agree, though.

He clearly thinks this is the worst thing she could have possibly come up with.

"You're out of your mind," Marty says flatly. They're back at his place—he'd insisted they go, and she hadn't really wanted to explain her plan out in the open anyway—and she'd half-expected Fu to be there by the time they arrived, but he's not. Haley's not sure what that means or even if it's a good thing or a bad one. If Fu were here, she'd have to come up with another plan, but she doesn't know if his absence means he hasn't gotten Marty's message or if he's already in the middle of dealing with something else.

If it's something else, then it's something else she needs to know about. Something else that's her responsibility as the American Dragon. Something else that might throw a monkey wrench into what is already a questionable plan.

"More than a few bones short of a skeleton," continues Marty. "You shouldn't even be thinking about this. Do you know what Fu would say?"

She knows what Fu would say. She knows what Gramps would say, too. Neither of them would say things she should repeat.

"I need to get that skull back. Fu's obligated to stop me; you're not."

Marty shoots her a sharp look, and she wonders how much he's regretting trusting her with this once. "I don't need to be obligated to do something to do it."

Haley raises her chin. He'd let her have the skull even knowing that was a risk; he'd let her do this, too, if she didn't back down. "You know what's at stake here."

"I also know how well that place is guarded. My magic will allow me to get past their defenses to do my job, but I can't help you."

"You can."

"I can't tell you where it is. The laws—"

"I have an application," she interrupts, pulling it out from her pocket. "The Huntsmaster gave it to me when he took the skull."

"Really." Marty's tone tells her he knows there's far more to the story than she's told him, but if he's not asking her outright, Haley has even less reason to tell him the details.

"My point is, I know where it is. I just need to you tell Fu the address on the application. That wouldn't be breaking any rules, would it? Not if it's a message from me. Fu can tell Gramps where I am, and he can—" She hesitates. Fu really wouldn't like this any more than Gramps would, but despite what she'd said, she's not actually sure he'd be obligated to stop her.

Of course, even if he were obligated to stop her, even if he didn't like the idea, if he knew she'd try to sneak around him to do it anyway, his attempt at stopping her would be more for show than anything else. He'd still try to discourage her, he'd still try to talk her out of it, he'd almost certainly give her so much reading that he'd hope she'd fall asleep on the books and forget all about it, but if he knew she was going with or without him, he'd do what he could to support her. He'd rather do that than leave her all alone.

He could still do that now, providing her giving Marty a message to pass on doesn't put Marty's job in jeopardy. "So he can see if there are any back doors to help me out," she finishes, because even if she wouldn't want Fu to risk coming inside with her, it would be nice to have him scouting out the unofficial exits. Just in case.

"Because you know this will go wrong?" Marty huffs. "I found the other skull. I'll make sure the Huntsclan doesn't get it. You don't need to do any of this."

Haley waits.

And waits.

Eventually, Marty groans. "I'm not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I? Should I just sit on you until Fu can come and collect you?"

She ignores what she hopes is a threat he won't carry out (even though she's perfectly aware that he could) and waves the application at him. "Come on, this is invaluable. We've never been able to track down their headquarters, and it's listed here!"

"That could be a front for all you know."

"Is it?" She's not sure if Marty will be able to tell her if it is, so when he says nothing, she simply shrugs. "That's fine. I'll find it from there even if it is. It's still a starting point, and that's more than I've ever had before."

"You have a lot of confidence for someone who was in a sticky situation of their own making not that long ago," Marty says quietly, and it's enough to steal the wind from Haley's sails because he's right. She knows he's right.

"I'm the American Dragon. Sometimes I have to take risks like this. And you know I'll have to do something about the skulls sooner rather than later. I gave one up tonight, and I won't have a better opportunity to do something about it than I do now."

Marty pinches the bridge of his nose. He's probably regretting giving her that skull to lose in the first place. "There's a sliding scale of risks. You know that, right?" He looks up at her again. "This is so ridiculous it's not even on the scale. You do realize they test new initiates to prevent exactly this, don't you? The only ones who escape that trial are those who are born with the Mark."

Haley bites her lip. She does know—or rather, she'd suspected it. This is the reason why she'd ultimately decided to confide in Marty.

There's no guarantee Fu will find a back door even if he does know where to look for it, after all.

Chances are good that she'll be on her own.

"That's why I need you to cut out my chi," she whispers. "I can't risk doing this as a dragon."

"No!"

That's the response she expects, so she's prepared for it. "You can do it, can't you? I know your scythe can cut more than souls. Jerry said so."

"It doesn't matter if I can do it when I won't. It's a matter for the living. If you're so insistent, petition the Dragon Council to see if they can get your cousin to cover for you as the American Dragon in the meantime."

Haley pulls a face. Andrew hasn't gotten his powers yet, which means Marty means Gregory, and even Haley can see that that would be a disaster waiting to happen. There's a reason she was chosen over him. In an emergency, sure, maybe he could cover for her, but she doesn't think they're quite that desperate yet. Besides, Gregory being the American Dragon would even make the Dragon Council reconsider their choices. "Anyone else would be better."

"If anyone else were eligible and more suitable right now, they'd be the American Dragon, not you. Which is another reason you shouldn't take this big of a risk. The potential pool of replacements is small."

"It can't be that bad," Haley insists. "If Jake had grown up with us, he'd have been the American Dragon, not me."

"But he didn't," Marty says, "and the Dragon Council won't accept him as a replacement for you even if it is temporary. They won't trust him as far as they can throw him." He pauses. "I'll bet if you told him about this plan of yours, he'd tell you to forget it."

"You don't know what he'd say!"

"I know what he'd say if he cares about you even a little. If he'd tell you to go for it, you should already be running for the hills."

Haley sighs. "Please? What Jake would say doesn't matter, and I need to do this. What if you have the last of the skulls the Huntsclan needs? They'll do whatever they can to get their hands on it. If I can get some more information, it'll be easier to stop them." Ideally, she'd steal at least the one skull back to slow them down while she figured out how to stop them, but she wouldn't have any idea if she'd get the opportunity until she was inside.

Going in blind isn't a good idea, but going in blind while still being a dragon is worse, and Marty must see that.

"Taking my chi right now would protect me," she adds. "You know it would. I'd be caged and slain before I could fight my way out if they found out about me."

"Not going would protect you even better."

"Yeah, but I'm going either way. Are you willing to bet my chances are better as a dragon?"

Marty scrubs a hand over his face. "How does Fu deal with you?" he mutters, and Haley knows she's won.


The address on the application form takes Haley to what, on the surface, looks like a private school. A boarding school, maybe—she's less sure on that—but definitely a school. Barring what looks like security lighting, the place is dark, but Haley tries the front door anyway. It refuses to turn against the lock at first, and she has enough time to wonder if there's a second entrance somewhere on the side before there's a faint click of the lock releasing.

The door doesn't creak open, but by all rights it should.

Haley closes it behind her and stares out at what must be the lobby. As she stands in the darkness, thinking now would be an excellent time to be able to use the Eye of the Dragon, she tries to feel out the magic of this place. She knows it's here—the locked door proved that; she's not sure she'd have gotten in without an application—but she's used to sensing magic by the way it resonates with her dragon chi, and she can't feel anything right now.

"Hello?" she calls out, her voice tentative even to her own ears. "Is anyone here?"

A light clicks on ten feet from her, and a split second later, more lights come on—about every third lamp on either side of the room, from the looks of it, but it's enough to light her way forward. She sticks to the right to avoid the central columns and walks past chairs and lockers, past the occasional stairway spiralling around a column to grant access to the upper floors, past dark doors that only bear a tiny placard of a room number overhead, and finally gives a cautious knock on the first door she's seen with light coming through the tiny window.

"Door's open," someone calls from inside, and Haley slips in.

The receptionist—is she a receptionist?—had been painting her nails; her left hand hovers in the air, elbow balanced on the arm of her rolling chair, while the right (still unpainted, from what Haley can see) screws the cap back onto the bright red nail polish that matches the woman's lipstick. She's young, barely out of her teens if at all if Haley were to guess, but she's not masked or in uniform.

There's no name plate on the desk, either.

The woman tucks a stray black curl behind her ear with her right hand before offering Haley a tired smile. "Application?"

Haley hands it over, and the woman hums as she reads it. After a moment, she reaches over to her computer, clicks a few buttons, types something in with one hand, clicks another few buttons, and then looks up at Haley with raised eyebrows and says, "Olivia Mears?"

A sinking feeling in her chest tells Haley she just failed her first test. "Yes?" It comes out too uncertain to be believable.

"Make up a name next time," advises the woman, "or at least pick the name of someone who looks a little more like you. You're better off making up a name, though. Harder to track that way. Not that hard for me to go from Olivia to you if I wanted to, y'know?"

Haley blinks, not sure if she should stutter out an okay.

"The fact that you didn't give your real name at least tells me you know something about us," continues the woman. "I mean, the fact that you got in here at this time of night tells me you know something about us. You'd be amazed how many people apply thinking this is all some elaborate game. Between you and me, there have been some bottom of the barrel recruits. We used to have higher standards. Seeing someone who meets the old standards is nice. You might be inexperienced, but at least we're starting with something."

Haley has absolutely no idea if this is another test. She wouldn't expect anyone in the Huntsclan to be so free with their information, but she has no idea how much of the information is false or whether the information given—because it's fairly useless to her even if it's true—is only designed to make her feel comfortable enough that she'll accidentally slip up.

"All right, I'm going to need you to sign this," the woman says as she pulls another form from her desk, slips it onto a clipboard, and places it within Haley's reach next to a holder full of pens. "It's just the usual waiver and nondisclosure agreement, outlines the privacy policy and all that, but you need to know it's binding regardless of what you use as a signature, okay?"

Which means there's magic in it somewhere.

Haley hadn't realized the Huntsclan knew how to weave magic into the words of their contracts.

Well, there's a chance they don't, but having a magician or three on their payroll would take care of that. Having one of them make it up and having others check it to confirm that it's done properly—assuming there isn't someone within their ranks trained to do so—would mean something like this is fairly basic by their standards.

"Take a seat," the woman adds, waving towards a set of padded chairs by the door. "I'll call someone up to take you through the obstacle course while I put your info into the system. You'll have a decent shot at being accepted if you pass a few more checks."

Haley swallows, wanting but not daring to ask what will happen if she's not accepted. She's never heard of the Huntsclan turning away recruits, especially once those recruits know what the Huntsclan really is, but that doesn't mean they don't. A memory potion, maybe, to rob them of the last day or so? Or is it worse than that?

Haley plucks up a pen and the clipboard and forces out, "Thank you."

The fact that the only response she gets is a laugh does nothing to make her feel more comfortable. She perches on the edge of the nearest chair and starts to read through the contract, one hand reaching up to clutch at the locket Marty had given her through the fabric of her shirt. Knowing it's there helps her feel less hollow inside, though she knows the fact that it was her choice to give up her dragon chi is helping immensely as well, as is the assurance that it's not forever.

Well, it's not forever unless she's caught, and if she is caught, forever won't be very long anyway.

She tries not to think about that.

She can't feel her magic inside of the locket. Hopefully, that means the Huntsclan has no way of detecting it, either, but that's hardly a guarantee. Who knows what the other checks are? It's not a magical artefact, exactly, but Marty's magic will only be able to shield hers to a certain extent, and if it's not enough, if they can somehow see past the skin-warmed silver—

What if this is another mistake?


The obstacle course is tough, even by Haley's standards, and she's had Lao Shi as a dragon master for the past year.

It's also filled with things designed to weed out magical creatures in disguise.

There are silver handholds on the climbing wall, iron rungs for the monkey bars, a sphinx hair rope, instant sunshine that's meant to do more than blaze and blind—

The man who's been her guide for the obstacle course clicks his stopwatch when she finally finishes, bent over with her hands on her knees and panting, and hums a note. She doesn't know if it's a good hum or a bad hum. She doesn't have the breath to ask.

She isn't the given the opportunity to change or shower, even though she'd tucked a spare set of clothes into her borrowed backpack before coming here. They might not fit well—it was whatever Marty had been able to scrounge up—but she would have felt more comfortable in them than she does now.

That's probably the point, though.

She's exhausted and uncomfortable, which no doubt makes it easier for her taskmaster to usher her to an elevator and take them down. There are three unlabelled buttons and a fourth in red she guesses is the emergency button, but he ignores that one and punches the lowest. The elevator drops for longer than one floor, and when the doors open, it's just onto a windowless hallway.

Underground.

They must be.

She doesn't have much time to contemplate this before he takes her to another room that turns out to be a classroom. He gestures for her to take a seat, and she drops into the nearest desk. She should have been expecting the written test, but somehow she wasn't. It's a mix of general knowledge and questions about the magical world. Only half of it is multiple choice; the rest are short answer. She doesn't know how much she should get wrong on purpose. She doesn't know if she should get any of it wrong on purpose. When the test is taken away from her, she doesn't even remember what she wrote.

She doesn't realize her backpack is gone until she's taken down another hallway and eventually to what might as well be an interrogation room. There's a metal table with two metal chairs on either side, a single light overhead, and what she'd bet anything is a two-way mirror on the other side.

Part of her expects another handoff to have taken place, for someone higher up in the Huntsclan to come in with threats and demands for information, but the man who sits opposite her is the same one she's been with since she left the receptionist, all pale and freckles but with hard lines to his otherwise blank face.

"Name?" he asks when she says nothing.

"Olivia Mears." She's too tired to come up with anything else.

"Reason for leaving your family?"

"Got more reasons to leave than to stay."

"Just answer the question."

Haley rolls up her sleeves to show off her raw wrists and points to her face where Marco had struck her, knowing it must be bruising by now. It's tender enough to the touch, and she didn't bother trying to cover up any of her injuries. "Take a wild guess."

It helps her case, she thinks. He doesn't demand more of an answer from her, anyway; he simply asks, "You aware of your other options?"

Haley cocks her head at him. "You and I both know I don't have other options. No good ones, anyway. You might've, but I don't."

She doesn't expect an argument, exactly, but thought she might get a protest. Instead, he moves on to the next question, and then the next, and she answers each as best she can and hopes that whatever is coming next isn't worse.

Eventually, the man leaves. She can hear the door lock behind him.

Haley doesn't know how long she waits, but she puts her head onto her arms and tries to rest.

She's horribly thirsty, and she thinks she's desperate enough to take whatever water they offer her at this point, even if it's spiked with a potion to loosen her tongue. If it's anything like the one Marco used, she'd taste it the moment it hits her tongue. Even if it's not, there's nothing stopping her from taking a sip and waiting to see if she can feel any effects from it whatsoever before having a proper drink.

Of course, trying to slip her a potion like that would make more sense before questioning her, but this is the Huntsclan. She hardly knows if this is the only interrogation in her future. Assuming it is the only one she'll face as part of the application process is foolish. She can't assume anything.

Haley doesn't sit up until she hears the door opening again. It's someone new, a boy twice her height if he's an inch, but he's wearing a uniform, and he's carrying—

He's carrying a uniform, too. And what looks like it might be a handbook.

"You can hold on to this till we get to a washroom," he says as he hands them to her. "I'll show you to the nearest one with a shower. There'll be clean towels in the side room when you go in, and the dirty laundry goes in a basket to the left of the sink; you won't be able to miss it. 74 figures this'll fit you, and she's got a better eye for this than the rest of us, but if she's wrong, we can get you something that'll fit."

Haley unfolds the uniform and holds it up to herself. "I think it'll fit," she says, but this feels surreal. She's the American Dragon, or at least she was when she woke up this morning, and now she's been accepted into the Huntsclan.

Technically, she is part of the Huntsclan—and will be until she renounces them.

"Awesome. 38 bet she'd have it wrong this time, which means he's gotta take kitchen duty for me next time I pull it." The boy is grinning at her, his deep brown eyes alight with a warmth and mirth she's never associated with the Huntsclan. "We've got a few patches available. You have a favourite number? We're supposed to assign them, but 74 likes you, and she's our supervisor tonight."

Haley doesn't have a favourite number, but when she's given the choice, she picks 98 because it's close to Jake's number.

"Pleased to meet you, 98," the boy says solemnly as he reaches to shake her hand. "I'm 25, and I'll be your tour guide tonight. We'll swing by the kitchens once you're changed. 38 always pushes people when he's in charge of testing—the last pair of initiates threw up before they were even halfway through the obstacle course—so the elders give prospective initiates some leeway when he's testing, but I hear you didn't need it."

Haley shrugs, not sure what to say. "Thanks."

"Hey, don't be modest about it. Be proud. It's good to start with a strong reputation."

She doesn't know how to tell him she doesn't want a strong reputation. She wants to fade into the background, and once she gets what she wants and has done what she needs to do, she wants to fade away entirely.

25 starts leading her down another hallway. "You impressed more than 74, you know. Rumour has it even the Huntsmaster himself thought we should keep an eye on you, and he's the head of the Huntsmen and Huntswomen at our branch."

Huh.

If the Huntsmaster didn't come straight back here with the skull, he made short work of whatever he encountered along the way.

Which doesn't say much for her chances of pulling any part of this off successfully from here on out.

Haley suppresses a shiver and decides against telling 25 she'd spoken to the Huntsmaster earlier and asked him about joining the Huntsclan in the first place. She doesn't want people to know there's truth to the rumour that the Huntsmaster might be watching her. She doesn't want the Huntsmaster to be watching her, period. It'll be a lot harder to find the skulls if everyone's watching her.

25 chatters throughout the tour, but Haley doesn't mind it as much once she's washed up and has scooped more than one handful of tap water into her parched mouth. Someone—maybe 74?—had left the clothes she'd brought on the counter by the sink in the washroom, so she's able to wear them beneath the uniform, but the backpack is nowhere in sight, so Haley reluctantly leaves her own clothes in the pile to be laundered. She's surprised to find she doesn't mind the uniform, though. There's a measure of safety when she's blending in as best she can with everyone else, and the creeping fear that someone might somehow recognize her as the American Dragon quiets.

For all of 25's talking, though, he never mentions Huntsgirl.

Haley still doesn't know what happened to her, and she can't exactly ask.

She can't ask about the skulls, either, but that doesn't mean she can't ask about anything else. "Are those who've pledged allowed to use magical artefacts on missions? To even the playing field when fighting creatures who have their own magic?"

25 pulls a face. "You have to be pretty high up to get that privilege. Most you'll see of one is when you study some of the safer ones."

He still points out where some of the magical artefacts are kept, though.

Haley isn't sure if the skulls will be there, but knowing what the Huntsclan might try to use against her in the future would be incredibly useful even if she can't steal or sabotage them. She's pretty sure the room will be locked, but picking locks is one of the first non-magical skills Fu taught her; she only needs to find something to pick the lock with.

Considering where she is and what they do, she thinks it'll be easier than it would be elsewhere.

For all she knows, lockpicking is something they teach here, too.

"Normally, we stay out of the kitchens unless we're on kitchen duty," 25 says as they pass what he named as the cafeteria and near a set of swinging double doors, "but this is one of those rules you can bend sometimes, y'know? Like when you arrive in the middle of the night because you've just run away. Or when you're practicing stealing stuff without getting caught." Unlike Huntsgirl's mask, his doesn't hide his grin, and she has a feeling she'd know it was genuine even if she could only see it reflected in his eyes. She has to bite her tongue to keep from asking him why he's here. He doesn't feel like he belongs in the Huntsclan. He strikes her as someone that could be a friend were their circumstances different.

Then again, Huntsgirl struck her as someone who could be a friend under different circumstances.

Maybe 25's cut from the same cloth as she is.

"We're doing both tonight," 25 continues, "so keep quiet and follow my lead if you've never done this before. Once we've got some food, we'll go over the rest of the rules."

Haley wants a proper drink more than she does food, but she nods. Her second attempt at thievery tonight cannot go worse than the first, and if they are caught, 25 might be able to talk their way out of it. She imagines he's good at that. It's not likely they'll force a potion down her throat just for this, anyway.

That might come later, though. If things go wrong.

After all, if she hasn't found herself locked up somewhere after this because they've realized who she is, maybe she can find an excuse to leave her guide behind and try her third attempt at thievery.

Third time's the charm, right?