Six days and counting. Things didn’t look good for us. That was all there was to say. So of course, we didn’t say it. At school, we did what we always did. We held hands in the hallway. We kissed by the back lockers until our lips ached and I felt close to being electrocuted. We stayed in our bubble, enjoyed what we tried to pretend were our ordinary lives, or what little we had left of them. And we talked, all day long, through every minute of every class, even the ones we didn’t have together.

Lena told me about Barbados, where the water and the sky met in a thin blue line until you couldn’t tell which was which, while I was supposed to be making a clay rope bowl in ceramics.

Lena told me about her Gramma, who let her drink 7-Up using red licorice as a straw, while we wrote our in-class Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde essays in English, and Savannah Snow smacked her gum.

Lena told me about Macon, who, despite everything, had been there for every birthday, wherever she’d been, since she could remember.

That night, after staying up for hour after hour with The Book of Moons, we watched the sun rise—even though she was at Ravenwood, and I was at home.

Ethan?

I’m here.

I’m scared.

I know. You should try to get some sleep, L.

I don’t want to waste time sleeping.

Me neither.

But we both knew that wasn’t it. Neither one of us felt much like dreaming.

“THE NYGHT OF THE CLAYMYNG BEING THE NYGHT OF GREATESTE WEAKNESSE, WHENNE THE DARKENESSE WITHINNE ENJOINS THE DARKENESSE WITHOUTE & THE PERSONNE OF POWERE OPENNES TO THE GREATE DARKNESSE, SO STRIPPED OF PROTECTIONS, BINDINGS & CASTS OF SHIELDE & IMMUNITIE. DEATH, AT THE HOURE OF CLAYMING, IS MOST FINALE & ETERNALLE…”

Lena shut the Book. “I can’t read any more of this.”

“No kidding. No wonder your uncle is so worried all the time.”

“It’s not enough that I could turn into some kind of evil demon. I could also suffer eternal death. Add that to the list under impending doom.”

“Got it. Demon. Death. Doom.”

We were in the garden at Greenbrier again. Lena handed me the Book and flopped on her back, staring up at the sky. I hoped she was playing with the clouds instead of thinking about how little we had figured out during these afternoons with the Book. But I didn’t ask her to help me as I paged through it, wearing Amma’s old garden gloves that were way too small.

There were thousands of pages in The Book of Moons, and some pages contained more than one Cast. There was no rhyme or reason to the way it was organized, at least none that I could see. The Table of Contents had turned out to be some kind of hoax that only loosely corresponded to some of what could actually be found inside. I turned the pages, hoping I would stumble across something. But most of the pages just looked like gibberish. I stared at the words I couldn’t understand.

I DDARGANFOD YR HYN SYDD AR GOLL

DATODWCH Y CWLWM, TROELLWCH A THROWCH EF

BWRIWCH Y RHWYMYN HWN

FEL Y CAF GANFOD

YR HYN RWY’N DYHEU AMDANO

YR HYN RWY’N EI GEISIO.

Something jumped out at me, a word I recognized from a quote tacked on the wall of my parents’ study: “Pete et invenies.” Seek and you shall find. “Invenies.” Find.

UT INVENIAS QUOD ABEST

EXPEDI NODUM, TORQUE ET CONVOLVE

ELICE HOC VINCULUM

UT INVENIAM

QUOD DESIDERO

QUOD PETO.

I tore through the pages of my mom’s Latin dictionary, scrawling the words in the back as I translated them. The words of the Cast stared back at me.

To Find What is Missing

Unravel the tie, twist and wind

Cast this Bind

So I may find

That which I yearn for

That which I seek.

“I found something!”

Lena sat up, peering over my shoulder. “What are you talking about?” She sounded less than convinced.

I held my chicken scratch handwriting up for her to read. “I translated this. It seems like you use it to find something.”

Lena leaned closer, checking my translation. Her eyes widened. “It’s a Locator Cast.”

“That sounds like something we can use to find the answer, so we can figure out how to undo the curse.”

Lena pulled the Book into her lap, staring at the page. She pointed to the other Cast above it. “That’s the same Cast in Welsh, I think.”

“But can it help us?”

“I don’t know. We don’t even really know what we’re looking for.” She frowned, suddenly less enthusiastic. “Besides, Spoken Casting isn’t as easy as it looks, and I’ve never done it before. Things can go wrong.” Was she kidding?

“Things can go wrong? Things worse than turning into a Dark Caster on your sixteenth birthday?” I grabbed the Book out of her hands, burning the daisies off the tips of the gloves. “Why did we dig up a grave to find this thing and waste weeks trying to figure out what it says, if we aren’t even going to try?” I held the Book up until one of the gloves started to smoke.

Lena shook her head. “Give me that.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll try, but I have no idea what will happen. This isn’t usually how I do it.”

“It?”

“You know, the way I use my powers, all the Natural stuff. I mean, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? It’s supposed to be natural. I don’t even know what I’m doing, half the time.”

“Okay, so this time you do, and I’ll help. What do I need to do? Draw a circle? Light some candles?”