I focused my eyes on the tall, gaunt figure of Mitchell Wate, just as I had so often since Ethan died. Once he was fixed in my sight, I slowly began reciting the words of the Oblivio Cast that Gramma had taught me to repeat every time I saw Ethan’s dad.

He stared at me, curious. My eyes didn’t even flicker. Only my lips began to move, and I whispered the words as they formed in my mind.

“Oblivio, Oblivio, Non Abest.

Oblivion, Oblivion, He Is Not Gone.”

A bubble expanded inside my chest the moment I formed the Cast, pushing past me toward Ethan’s father, reaching right across the room and wrapping itself around him. The room seemed to stretch and contract, and I thought for a moment the bubble was about to pop.

Then I felt the air snap around us, and suddenly it was over, and the air was just air, and everything seemed normal again.

As normal as things could be.

Mr. Wate’s eyes brightened and glazed over. He shrugged, smiling at me, sticking one hand back inside the cereal box. “Ah well, what are you going to do? He’s a good kid. But if Ethan doesn’t get his tail home from Caroline’s soon, he’s going to be mighty behind when he gets back. At this rate, he’ll be doing homework all the way through spring break. You tell him that for me, will you?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll tell him.” I smiled, wiping at my eye before anything like a tear could fall. “I’ll tell him the next time I talk to him.”

That’s when Amma almost threw the pan of pork chops down on the burner. Link shook his head.

I turned and fled. I tried not to think, but the words followed me, like a curse, like a hex.

oblivion eyes on a cereal box,

the warm blinds of a father

lost and last to know

lost and last to love

last boy lost

you can’t see

even a bubble

once it’s

popped

I fought off the words.

But you couldn’t unpop a bubble.

Even I knew that.

CHAPTER 20

A Deal with the Devil

This is freakin’ nuts. We don’t even have the stupid Book a Moons. You sure The Stars and Sucks didn’t say anythin’ else?”

Link was sitting on the floor again, with only his feet sticking out from under the table—this time the one in Macon’s study. We’d made no progress, but here we were again. New table. Same people. Same problems.

Only the presence of my Uncle Macon, half-hidden in the flickering shadows of the fireplace, changed the conversation. That, and the fact that we’d left Amma back at Wate’s Landing to keep an eye on Ethan’s father.

“I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but maybe Link’s right. Even if we all agreed—even if we knew we had no choice but to get Ethan The Book of Moons—it still wouldn’t matter. We don’t know where it is, and we don’t know how to get it to him.” Liv said what we all were thinking.

I said nothing, twisting my charm necklace between my fingers.

It was Macon who finally answered. “Yes. Well. These things are difficulties, not impossibilities.”

Link sat up. “The whole death thing, yeah, I’d say that’s pretty difficult, sir. I mean, no offense, Mr. Ravenwood.”

“Finding The Book of Moons is not out of the question, Mr. Lincoln. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you where we last saw it and who last had it.”

“Abraham.” We all knew who he was talking about, but it was Liv who said it. “He had it with him at the Seventeenth Moon, in the cave. And he used it to bring up the Vexes, right before—”

“The Eighteenth Moon,” John said quietly. None of us ever wanted to talk about the night at the water tower.

All of which just set Link off more. “Oh well. That’s easy. Find the Book. How about we just find our way over to whatever backwoods swamp hole Colonel Sanders has been livin’ in for the last two hundred years, and ask him real nice if he wouldn’t mind handin’ over his creepy book? So our dead friend can use it for who knows what, over in who knows where.”

I flicked my wrist at Link, annoyed. A spark flew from the fire grating, singeing his leg.

He jerked away. “Cut it out!”

“Uncle Macon’s right. It’s not impossible,” I said.

Liv played with the rubber band holding her red notebook closed—an anxious habit that meant she was thinking. “And this time Sarafine’s dead. He won’t have her backing him up.”

Uncle Macon shook his head. “He never needed her, I’m afraid. Not really. You can’t rely on him being any weaker now than he ever was. Don’t underestimate Abraham.”

Liv looked somber. “What about Hunting and his pack?”

Macon stared into the fire. I watched the flames grow taller, deepening into purple and red and orange. I couldn’t tell if my uncle really believed me or not. I didn’t know if he thought for a minute there was a way to bring Ethan back.

I didn’t care what he thought, as long as he was willing to help me.

He looked at me as if he knew what I was thinking. “Hunting, though stupid, is a powerful Incubus. But Abraham alone is a formidable threat. If fear is going to stop us, we should concede failure right now.”

Link huffed from the floor behind him.

Macon looked at him over his shoulder. “That is, if you’re frightened.”

“Who said anything about that?” Link was indignant. “I just like a better set a odds when I throw myself into a snake pit.”