Later that evening, Gordy and his mom returned to the basement carrying two trays of food for Ms. Bimini and Carlisle’s dinner. Carlisle sat in the chair, hands folded in his lap, staring at the wall. Ms. Bimini’s bed had been stripped of its sheets and blankets, and the medical equipment had been powered down and shoved into one corner of the room. The ancient woman’s faded maroon pantsuit was splayed out on the bare mattress, but the elderly woman was nowhere to be found.

“Your mother?” Gordy’s mom waved her fingers in front of Carlisle’s vacant expression. “Where has she gone, Carlisle?”

And why wasn’t she wearing her clothes?

Carlisle lowered his eyes and studied his hands. They were calloused and cracking at the knuckles. But they were also arthritic. Gordy wondered if they caused him pain.

“She couldn’t have just vanished,” Mrs. Stitser said. Then she glanced at Gordy, and they exchanged a knowing look.

When Ms. Bimini had access to Silt, she frequently turned invisible whenever she fancied it. Maybe she had just been waiting for the right moment to try it again. And yet Gordy didn’t believe that was what had happened. She had been too weak. He felt a chill in his shoulders, goose bumps prickling his skin as though he had seen a ghost. As an Elixirist, he knew there were weird things in the world, but of all the potions Gordy had mastered, he had never known of one that could make someone vanish for good.

“Is she gone?” Gordy asked Carlisle. “Really gone?”

Carlisle dragged his tongue across his lips, giving no indication he even understood the question. Gordy glanced at the mattress and the outfit Ms. Bimini had worn throughout her stay in Tobias’s basement. He half expected he’d see gray dust buried under the maroon fabric if he examined it closely.

“Gordy, come with me for a moment.” His mom pulled him back to the stairs by his sleeve, but they paused halfway up, the wooden boards straining beneath their weight. “We’re going to let Carlisle go free,” she said. “Saturday afternoon, before we travel into the Swigs, we’re going to release him. It makes no sense to leave him here unattended. I doubt Bolter took that into consideration when he decided to abandon ship. In any case, Carlisle can’t stay here.”

“We’re going to let him go?” Gordy asked a little louder than he intended.

She held her finger to her lips and fixed him with a stern glare. “We may be forced to relocate sooner rather than later, and there’s no need to keep him prisoner anymore,” she said. “He’s not a threat.”

Gordy shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. Carlisle’s old. Way old. And if . . .” He swallowed, his mouth dry. “If she’s really gone, what’s he going to do?”

He felt a little weird worrying about an eighty-plus-year-old man now that his one-hundred-and-fifty-plus-year-old mother had . . . well, disappeared, but Carlisle’s situation felt different. He needed assistance and someone to watch over him, especially if he was still aging rapidly. What would happen to Carlisle if he woke up one morning unexpectedly ten years older and unable to walk?

“If we’re on the move, we can’t worry about transporting a prisoner.” His mom looked away guiltily for a moment. “I don’t want you blaming yourself for any of this.”

“But it’s not right, Mom.” Carlisle may have once been an enemy, but all that changed the moment he aged twenty years in a couple of days. And since his capture, Carlisle had been nothing but cooperative.

“What’s right is making sure he’s as safe as we can make him. We’ll see that he has plenty of supplies, anything he needs. But, Gordy, we’re headed into a potion war with a dangerous enemy. These other inconveniences we’ve had this past year—”

“Inconveniences?” Did she really consider Esmeralda Faustus and Ms. Bimini nothing more than inconveniences?

“Listen!” She squeezed Gordy’s arm while raising a warning finger. “Mezzarix has control of the Vessel. You have no idea what he’s capable of. Nothing can get in the way of us stopping him.” She closed her eyes and exhaled before rubbing Gordy’s arm affectionately. “If Carlisle remains with us, we’ll be dragging him into the cross fire. Do you understand?”

Gordy thought for a moment, struggling against the idea, but then finally nodded. When the potions started flying, the real nasty ones Mezzarix was skilled at concocting, Carlisle would be in danger—they all would.

Gordy ducked down a little to glance back into the room. Carlisle still sat in his chair, hands still folded in his lap, gazing at the floor, eyes unfocused. He wasn’t listening. He might not have even cared.

Poor guy. Where would he go? Gordy wondered. In any case, he had a few more nights to sleep in Tobias’s musty basement. By Saturday afternoon, Carlisle would be gone.