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aboard the Tokugawa. She didn’t even have to exaggerate to make it sound amazing.
    There was a sudden commotion at the rear of the room. Browning may have been an old man, but you wouldn’t know it by the speed his hand landed on the butt of the .45 automatic inside his suit. Several other Grimnoir reacted in the same manner, which just went to show that they were a jumpy bunch. One of the elders’ bodyguards was in the doorway, speaking rapidly in French. Someone else was asking him to slow down. “Just a messenger,” Browning removed his hand from his pistol and listened, scowling.
    “What is it?” Faye asked. The other Grimnoir were reacting with disbelief. The ones like her that didn’t speak the language were all asking questions, and that was most of them.
    Mr. Browning had gone as white as the movie screen. “An Active tried to murder President Roosevelt . . . It is unknown if he survived. Hundreds are dead.” He turned to face her. “This is horrible.”
    Francis and Heinrich were supposed to have met with the president today. She had spoken to Francis by mirror just that morning. She really liked Francis, and the idea of him being in danger made her sick, but he was smart and brave, so surely he’d be okay. Well, maybe not, because if anybody could get himself into trouble, it was Francis. At least Heinrich would have protected him and kept him from doing anything stupid. Heinrich was the reliable one. Francis was the cute one.
    “The Peace Ray and now this?” someone exclaimed. “The government will clamp down on Actives for sure!”
    Faye was sickened by the idea. There had been talk . . . But that couldn’t happen here. Could it?
    “This is dire news,” Mr. Browning told her.
    “What’s going to happen?”
    Mr. Browning looked very tired. “War, Faye. I believe someone just declared war.”
     
    The elders of the Grimnoir Society had not gone very far, and they reconvened a few minutes later in a room several floors below. The two that had been in the prior meeting were joined through a communication spell to the five other elders around the world. All had been listening in secret to the interview with Faye and the meeting afterward. The matter at hand was so important that it needed the full wisdom of all the Society’s leadership.
    The seven skipped the pleasantries. They had much to discuss.
    The prepared mirror gave the illusion of spinning to face the distant speaker. “Do we believe she’s the one?”
    “As mad as it seems, we have no reason to doubt her truthfulness,” the Englishman said as he turned to his companion. “Klaus?”
    “She’s very difficult to Read. Her thoughts are different. She is not unintelligent, quite the opposite in fact. She’s just uncomplicated . . . and quick . All I can say is that she certainly believes her own story.”
    “Could it be? Could the Chairman really be dead?” a woman asked.
    “Pershing’s knights are no fools, and their stories are consistent. The girl is extraordinarily gifted. Her connection to the Power is unrivaled,” Klaus pointed out.
    A French elder interjected, “It seems that she is not nearly as strong now, though. Transporting the Tempest nearly killed her. Yet that fits the pattern, and the events leading up to that certainly fit with what we are looking for. Harriet?”
    “She is about the right age.”
    “The battle that killed the Warlock was fifteen years ago,” Klaus said.
    “I know. I was there.”
    “As was I, Jacques . . .” Klaus told the French elder. “Only on the Kaiser’s side. Second Somme was a nightmare. I still wake up with chills.”
    “That poor Okie girl doesn’t know her own birthday, but she’s certainly older than fifteen,” the American elder spoke for the first time.
    “Yes, but if the Power connected to her when she was young, rather than at birth . . . Then, yes, it is possible. This has happened before.”
    Harriet broached the question that no one wished to ask. “Well, what