Liv went back to examining the papers in front of her. “But then, quite soon, his messages began to change. It’s like he figured something out. What he needed to do.”

“To come home,” I said.

“Lena, I know you want to think that’s what’s happenin’.” Amma’s voice was bleak. “And I felt my boy here, same as you. But we don’t know which end is up. There are no easy answers, not when it comes to gettin’ someone in or outta the Otherworld. Believe me, if there was an easy way, I would’ve already done it.”

She sounded so haggard and tired. I knew she had been working on getting Ethan home as hard as I had. And I’d tried everything at first—everything and everyone. The problem was trying to get Light Casters to talk about raising the dead. And I didn’t have quite the access to the Dark Casters that I used to. Uncle Macon had come for me the moment I’d set foot in Exile. I suspected he made some kind of deal with the bartender, a shifty-looking Blood Incubus who looked like he’d do anything if he was thirsty enough.

“But we don’t know that’s not it,” I said, looking at Liv.

“True. The logical assumption would be that wherever Ethan was, he would be trying to get back.” Liv carefully erased a small mark in the margin. “To where you are.” She didn’t look at me, but I knew what she meant. Liv and Ethan had a history of their own, and even though Liv had found something better for her with John, she was always very careful of how she spoke about Ethan, especially to me.

She tapped the pencil. “First the river rock. Now The Book of Moons. He must need them for something.”

John pulled the last puzzle toward him. “If he needs The Book of Moons, it’s a good sign. It has to be.”

“A mighty powerful book, on this side or the other. A book like that would be worth bargaining for.” Amma rubbed my shoulders as she spoke, and I felt a shiver go down my spine.

John looked at both of us. “Bargaining for what? Why?”

Amma said nothing. I suspected she knew more than she was saying, which was usually the case. Plus, she hadn’t even mentioned the Greats in weeks, which was unlike her. Especially now that Ethan was in their care, technically speaking. But I had no idea what Amma was up to any more than I knew what Ethan was planning.

I finally answered for both of us, because there was only one possible answer. “I don’t know. It’s not like I can ask him.”

“Why not? Can’t you Cast something?” John looked frustrated.

“It doesn’t work like that.” I wished it did.

“Some kind of Reveal Cast?”

“There’s nothing to Cast it on.”

“His grave?” John looked at Liv, but she shook her head. No one had an answer, because none of us had ever even contemplated anything like this before. A Cast on someone who wasn’t even on this plane of existence? Short of raising the dead—which Genevieve had done to start this whole mess in the first place, and I had done again, more than a hundred years later—what could anyone do?

I shook my head. “What does it matter? Ethan wants it, and we have to get it to him. That’s the important thing.”

Amma chimed in. “Besides, only one kind a bargain my boy would be makin’ over there. Only one thing he wants bad enough. And that would be to get himself back home again, sure as the sunrise.”

“Amma’s right.” I looked at them. “We have to get him the Book.”

Link sat up. “Are you sure, Lena? Are you absolutely death-and-taxes sure it’s Ethan who’s even sendin’ us these messages? What if it’s Sarafine? Or even Colonel Sanders?” He shuddered.

I knew who Link meant. Abraham, in his rumpled white suit and his string tie. Satan himself, at least as far as Gatlin County was concerned.

That really would be the worst-case scenario.

“It’s not Sarafine. I’d know.”

“Would you really know if it was her?” Link rubbed his hair, which was sticking out in a thousand different directions. “How?”

Through the window, I watched as Mr. Wate’s Volvo pulled into the driveway. I knew the conversation was over, even before I felt Amma’s hands stiffen on my shoulders. “I just would.”

Wouldn’t I?

I stared at the stupid crossword puzzle as if it could give me some kind of answer, when all it could tell me was that I knew nothing at all.

The front door opened as the back door banged shut. John and Liv must have disappeared out the back. I braced for the inevitable.

“Afternoon, kids. You waitin’ for Ethan to get home?” Mr. Wate looked at Amma hopefully. Link scrambled to his feet, but I looked away. I couldn’t bear to answer.

More than anything. More than you know.

“Yes, sir. Waitin’s hardly the word. Bored outta my thick skull without Ethan around.” Link tried to smile, but even he looked like he was about to cry.

“Cheer up, Wesley. I miss him as much as you do.” Mr. Wate reached for Link’s spiked hair, rubbing it with one hand. Then he opened the pantry and looked inside. “You hear anything from our boy today, Amma?”

“Afraid not, Mitchell.”

Mr. Wate stopped short, frozen in place with a box of cereal in his hand. “I’ve half a mind to drive down to Savannah myself. It makes no sense, keeping a boy out of school this long. Something’s not right.” His face clouded over.