“Where are we, Aunt Prue?”

“Don’t reckon I know. But I don’t have much time. They keep you pretty busy ’round here.” She unhooked her necklace and took something off it. I hadn’t seen her wearing the necklace in the hospital, but I recognized it. “From my daddy, from his daddy’s daddy, from way before you were even a thought in the mind a the Good Lord.”

It was a rose, hammered out of gold.

“This is for your girl. Ta help me keep an eye on her for ya. Tell her ta keep it with her.”

“Why are you worrying about Lena?”

“Now, don’t you go worryin’ ’bout that. You just do as I tell you.” She sniffed again.

“But Lena’s fine. I’ll always take care of her. You know that.” The thought that Aunt Prue was worried about Lena scared me more than anything that had happened in the last few months.

“All the same, you give it ta her.”

“I will.”

But Aunt Prue was gone, leaving only half a glass of lemonade and an empty rocking chair, still rocking.

I opened my eyes, squinting into the brightness of my aunt’s room, and I realized the sun was coming in sideways, much lower than when I’d arrived. I checked my cell. Three hours had passed.

What was happening to me? Why was it easier to slip into Aunt Prue’s world than to have a simple conversation in my own? The first time I spoke to her, it didn’t seem like any time had passed at all, and I couldn’t have done it without a powerful Natural at my side.

I heard the door open behind me.

“You all right, kid?” Leah was standing in the doorway.

I looked down at my hand, uncurling my fingers around a tiny gold rose. This is for your girl. I wasn’t all right. I was pretty sure nothing was.

I nodded. “Fine. Just tired. I’ll see you around, Leah.” She waved me off, and I left the room with the weight of a backpack full of rocks on my shoulders.

When I got into the car and the radio started playing, I wasn’t surprised to hear the familiar melody. After seeing Aunt Prue, I was relieved. Because there it was, as right as the rain that hadn’t fallen in months. My Shadowing Song.

Eighteen Moons, eighteen nears,

The Wheel of Fate herself appears,

Then the One Who Is Two

Will bring the Order back anew….

The One Who Is Two, whatever that meant, was tied to fixing the Order.

And what did it have to do with the Wheel of Fate—the Wheel that was a she? Who could be powerful enough to control the Order of Things and take human form?

There were Light and Dark Casters, Succubuses and Sirens, Sybils and Diviners. I remembered the previous verse of the song—the one about the Demon Queen. Possibly one who could take human form, like stepping into a Mortal’s body. There was only one Demon Queen I knew who could do that. Sarafine.

Finally, a piece of information I could wrap my mind around. Even though Liv and Macon had spent every day of the last week with John—treating him like Frankenstein, visiting royalty, or a prisoner of war, depending on the day—he hadn’t told them anything that explained his role in all this.

I still hadn’t told anyone except Lena about my visits with Aunt Prue. But I was beginning to feel like it all fit together, the same way everything in the bowl ends up in the biscuits, as Amma would say.

The Wheel of Fate. The One Who Is Two. Amma and the bokor. John Breed. The Eighteenth Moon. Aunt Prue. The Shadowing Song.

If only I could figure out how, before it was too late.

By the time I got to Ravenwood, Lena was sitting on the front porch. I could see her watching me as I drove through the crooked iron gate.

I remembered what Aunt Prue had said when she gave me the gold rose. This is for your girl. Ta help me keep an eye on her.

I didn’t want to think about it.

I sat down next to Lena on the top step. She held out her hand and took the charm from me, slipping it onto her necklace without a word.

It’s for you. From Aunt Prue.

I know. She told me.

“I fell asleep on the couch, and suddenly she was there,” Lena said. “It was exactly the way you described it—a dream, but it didn’t feel like a dream.” I nodded, and she leaned her head against my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Ethan.”

I looked out at the gardens, still green in spite of the heat and the lubbers and everything we had been through. “Did she tell you anything else?”

Lena nodded and reached up to touch my cheek with her hand. When she turned toward me, I could tell she had been crying.

I don’t think she has much time.

Why?

She said she came to say good-bye.

I never made it home that night. Instead, I found myself sitting alone on Marian’s doorstep. Even though she was in there, and I was out, I still felt better at her place than mine.

For now. I didn’t know how much longer she’d be there, and I didn’t want to think about where I would be without her.

I fell asleep on her carefully swept front porch. And if I dreamed that night, I don’t remember.

11.01

Crucibles

You know, babies are born without kneecaps.” Aunt Grace wedged herself between the sofa cushions before her sister could get there.

“Grace Ann, how could you say such a thing? It’s downright disturbin’.”

“Mercy, it’s the God’s honest truth. I read it in Reader’s Digestive. Those readers are fulla information.”

“Why on God’s green earth are you talkin’ ’bout babies’ knees, anyhow?”