Only the Good Spy Young (Gallagher Girls) by Ally Carter

is that it is an organization composed almost entirely of other organizations’ spies—I’m talking about double agents. Sleeper operatives. They have agents—traitors—at every level of every major security service in the world. They could be anywhere . . .” He moved around his desk. “Even here.”
    I watched my classmates’ eyes as the Circle became more than just some legend about Gilly and a ball gown and a traitor and a sword.
    “Of course, they operate so deeply underground that some in the clandestine services think the Circle is nothing but a ghost story—an elaborate legend. But in the past hundred years alone, they have been behind at least five assassinations—that we know of—and they’ve been strong instigators of three wars. They have sold the identities of dozens of CIA and MI6 undercover operatives to hostile governments, and they came closer than anyone outside the Secret Service will ever know to killing a sitting president of the United States.”
    He crossed his arms and stared at us. “So make no mistake, they are very real indeed .”
    We sat there for fifteen minutes, listening to him cite facts as if the Circle was just another group or movement or cause—as if this wasn’t personal.
    “What do they want?” I heard myself asking.
    “Money. Power. Control of—”
    “With me?” I interrupted. “What do they want with me?”
    I expected him to glance at my mother or avoid the question, but instead, he settled onto the corner of the desk. “That, we do not know. Yet.” He paused. “Anything you’d like to add, Rachel?”
    I thought she’d tell him that was enough, that class was over. But instead my mother crossed her long legs and placed her elbows on the desk. “Perhaps you could talk a little about their history.”
    He nodded. “Ioseph Cavan was Irish by birth, and conventional wisdom holds that his followers retreated to his ancestral home after Gillian Gallagher allegedly killed him.”
    “Allegedly?” Bex said.
    Townsend ignored her. “But now the Circle has strongholds in every corner of the world. It is important to understand that, unlike most political and religious-based groups, the Circle of Cavan has no cause—no calling or purpose beyond profit and power. They are large enough to be dangerous, and small enough to slip through cracks. They are mobile, careful, and very highly trained. And the scary thing is—for the most part—we’re the ones who trained them.”
    “What does that mean?” Tina asked.
    “It means I wasn’t lying when I said they are almost always double agents,” he snapped. “The Circle excels at isolating and recruiting agents who are young, vulnerable, or both.”
    “But how do you know?” Tina asked.
    A sly smile slid over his face as he stood and studied us all in turn. “Because I’m the man who tracks them.”
    If we hadn’t hated him a lot, we might have liked him a little at that moment. But we did. So we didn’t.
    “Make no mistake, girls, the Circle is dangerous not for what they are, but who they are. And where they are. And they could be anyone. They could be”—he turned to look at my mother— “anywhere.”

N umber of hours I wandered around the mansion, going nowhere: 6
    Number of secret passageways I looked for in the hopes of going somewhere: 27
    Number of secret passageways I found that were actually still working: 1 (But it only went to the kitchen.)
    Number of cookies I swiped while in the kitchen: 1 (Oh, okay, 3—but they were really little cookies.)
    Number of times I wanted to cry: 9
    Number of times I changed my mind: 9
    And so I just kept walking—through the library with its rows of books and dying fire, past the elevator that could no longer take me to Sublevel Two. The halls were quiet and dark, as if the mansion itself were sleeping—resting up for a new day. And then I stopped at the Hall of History and stared at the sword of Cavan, realizing that, for the first time since November, I was