EMBER’S POV

“Absolutely not,” Nathaniel says. “I refuse.”

“You don’t get to refuse.” Queenie doesn’t look up from the tablet. “You’re the getaway.”

“I am the strategist. I engineer the plan. I do not sit in a car.”

“You sit in a car.”

We’ve been at it for two hours, spread across the war table in Knox’s east study — me, Knox, Queenie, and Nathaniel, who arrived this morning with three encrypted drives and a face like a man who has slept four hours in the last three days.

And I have learned two things.

One: planning a heist is much less glamorous than the word “heist” would suggest.

Two,...