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started tacking it up on his wall. Written in cursive and blocked with different colors of ink were names, dates, and acronyms. It was a timeline of sorts. “We don’t mean you need to evolve into mathletes or cheerleaders.”
    I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Tens would make an awesome cheerman. Bottom of the pyramid?”
That’s a picture!
    Tens sent me a scathing glance and replied, “I think quarterback, or striker, is more my style.”
    “In your delusional dreams, emo-wannabe-delinquent!” I teased him.
    He nodded his agreement with a red face that had usall laughing. Rumi stood back, quite pleased with himself. Tens’s curiosity was both his strongest trait and his weakness. “What’s that?” Tens walked over to the scroll, peering at the writing.
    Rumi traced the chart with his finger, thrilled he’d snagged the interest of one of us. “This marks dates and any information we have on the girls and your kind. We had to be covert, in case anyone else saw it, so there is a text that matches the notations. We only used knowledge that’s proven as truth, a priori.”
    Tony held up one of his old books; inside it hid a spiral notebook.
    “Clever.” The fake book was a dictionary from the nineteenth century.
Not gonna be stumbled over there. Unless Rumi needs more archaic words
.
    Rumi continued. “But these are the Fenestras, Protectors, and Nocti we think we know about. The underlines are the for-certains. That’s four.”
    “Four?”
    “Meridian, Tens, Juliet, and your Auntie,” Rumi answered. “We don’t have confirmation yet that Roshana, Juliet’s mom, was a Fenestra, right? Anything substantial?”
    I shook my head. “I think she was, but I haven’t figured out how, or why, she’s disfigured or aging on that side of the window.”
Big questions. Without easy answers
.
    Tony smoothed Juliet’s hair as if trying to reassure her with his touch. “What your Sangre Josiah told me has resonated in the months since.” Josiah had visited Tony withmessages and medicine that helped us temporarily defeat Ms. Asura. The Sangre were warrior angels higher up the chain than Fenestras, but Josiah wasn’t forthcoming, so my understanding was frustratingly limited. “When I approached Rumi, he’d been thinking the same thing.”
    “Which part of Josiah’s edicts are you referring to?” Tens asked before I could.
    “Josiah said that united we’re stronger,” Tony answered.
    Rumi agreed. “Part of uniting, of accreting together, is having as much knowledge as possible. It will help us stay resolute, be pertinacious.”
    “I’ve read Auntie’s journal. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle with a million pieces.” My ancestors wrote cryptic bits and seemed to think they’d get around to writing the full stories later. They never did. Irritated, I continued. “We don’t know anything concrete.”
    Rumi’s eyes lit up with excitement. “But that’s not true. We’re assuming a lot of lack here. And we do know pieces. Don’t you see? We don’t know what we don’t know. We need Cognoscenti.”
    Confusing much?
I rubbed my temples.
    “A who?” Tens asked, as if he followed Rumi.
    Tony took over. “Rumi’s right. We haven’t examined what we know with fresh eyes and with people who bring more knowledge to the conversation. Even without Auntie’s journal, there’s plenty to study. Religions. History. People. Anthropology. Myth. Cultures. Dying practices around the world. We don’t know which paths might leadus to more of you. Cognoscenti are experts. We need more in our coalition. To build strength with knowledge.”
    I shook my head. “I don’t want to tell random people.”
Besides, who would believe us?
    “I don’t either.” Juliet spoke up; her voice wavered until Mini jumped into her lap and rubbed on her face. Mini, the enormous cat who’d shown up at Dunklebarger, came and went as she pleased, but she soothed Juliet. She scratched me.
    Rumi grabbed a pen and started writing topics,