I rejoin with my body and wake up flat on my back, the sun shining low through the trees and into my eyes, making me wince. I feel shivery and stiff, and my head aches.

Elza lies beside me. I reach out with one hand and close her eyes. Her face is cold and feels strange. She’s really gone.

What am I going to do?

“Sorry about this, mate,” Ryan says.

“Yeah. We’ll take care of her, don’t worry.”

“What do you mean ‘take care of her’?” I ask.

“Well,” Andy says, “she’s dead now, right? One of the town ghosts.”

“No,” I say. “She’s not —”

“Look,” Jack says, “she’s gone, Luke, mate. Crossed over. She’ll be around somewhere. Don’t worry, it ain’t so bad. We’re all used to it.”

“She won’t have to get used to it,” I say. “I can bring her back.”

Ham licks my hand.

“How you gonna do that?” Ryan asks.

“The nonpareil,” I say. “Ash said it could resurrect people if they were killed by the demon. I just need to find where Ash is and get the nonpareil from her, and then —”

“You’ve lost me, mate,” Ryan says.

“No, see, Ash went into Deadside, so I just need to follow her —”

My sigil. Where’s my sigil?

It was on my finger, but I took it off last night. I start to search my pockets. Ham and the ghosts look at me, bemused. At last I find something cold and round in my smallest jeans pocket, and I pull out the black ring. Ash clearly didn’t search me, or she would have taken it. Even though I don’t know what her plan is now, she must be in a hurry.

“See!” I’m saying. “I have this. I still have power. I just need the Book and . . .”

Ash has the Book of Eight. It’s still inside her reading machine, which was in her house. It’s gone over to Deadside with her. I’m so stupid. . . . How did I ever trust her? She’s been leading us right where she wants us this entire time . . . and she has the Book.

I almost throw up.

Without the Book of Eight, I’m powerless. If they’ve gone to Deadside, then I have to follow Ash there, but I’ve no idea how to do that. I know the Devil’s Footsteps is supposed to be a place you can cross over, but how is it done? I doubt you just walk up to the stone circle and say “Open sesame.” My only chance to follow them, to fight Ash in any effective way, was in the Book.

This is it. I’ve lost Elza.

“No,” I’m saying, “no, no, no . . .”

She’s gone, really gone. There’s no coming back from this. I’ll never see her again. The last time I ever saw her, she was in pain and I couldn’t help her. . . .

“Luke,” one of the ghosts says, “it’s all right, mate. We’ll look after her.”

“No!” I shout. “You won’t! Shut up! You don’t even know what you’re talking about! Bunch of ghouls who died in a car crash! Go away! I don’t need your help!”

I glare at them, my eyes clouded with tears.

“We can see you’re very upset,” Andy says after a pause. “We’ll see you around, mate.”

The three ghosts turn and glide away into the trees, leaving me with Ham and Elza’s corpse.

“Sorry, Elza,” I say. “Sorry. I don’t know what to do.”

Ham whines.

“She’s gone, mate,” I say. “She’s gone.”

She’s still lying there, in the same position we found her, head fallen to one side and her arms lying at strange angles. Leaves in her black hair. Mud on her jeans and combat boots.

There’s nothing I can do. Everything we went through together, and this is the end of it. Ash wins. All my magic, everything I’ve learned about death, and I can’t save her.

I hug Ham and sob.

When my tears have ebbed away, I feel strangely calm, numb. I can’t sit out here with her all afternoon. I need to do something, go somewhere. If someone sees me leaving the woods where the dead body of my girlfriend is found, I’ll be in even more serious trouble. I need to get back home, work out what I’ll say.

I pull the plastic sheet back over her body, make it as inconspicuous as I can. I leave the forest and press straight into the fog that coats the field, hiding myself from view. I make my way through the foggy gray building site, and when I come out the other side, with Ham trotting at my heels, the late sun on my face seems like an insult. How can it be sunny when she’s dead? How can birds still be chirping and wheeling above the trees? We pass an old man walking his terrier, and he smiles at me and I want to punch him. How can anyone smile at me now?

We reach Wormwood Drive, and I try to compose myself. Mum knows me well, and she’ll know something isn’t right, but I can’t give too much away. I’m scared she’ll look me in the eye and see Elza’s death somehow, see my guilt. I stand on our front step for five full minutes, digging my fingernails into my palms, trying to make myself feel normal, until I worry one of the neighbors will see me out here and say something. I quietly open the front door.

“Luke?” Mum’s voice comes immediately from the kitchen. “Is that you?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Can you come through here? I’ve got some bad news.”

“What?” I ask, walking into the kitchen.

“I’m afraid Ham’s gone missing, love. He ran away.”

“He’s with me,” I say, trying to sound cheerful. She must see something’s wrong.

“Is he?”

Right on cue, Ham comes bowling into the kitchen after me, leaping up at Mum.

“Where did you find him?” Mum asks, astonished.

“He came to find me.”

“Well, you could have called me! I’ve been ringing you all day. It kept going to voice mail. . . . I’ve been worried sick! He leaped over the garden wall this morning and ran away! Where have you been?”

“My phone battery died,” I say, then wince at my choice of words. “Sorry. I was with Elza, I thought I said.”

“Are you all right, love?” she asks, petting Ham, looking at me properly for the first time.

“I’m fine,” I say quickly.

“You don’t look well, love.”

“I’m just tired.”

“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” Mum asks, frowning. “You haven’t been getting any flashes or anything, have you? No headaches? You look very poorly. Would you like some herbal tea?”

“No, thanks.”

“Some dinner?”

“No, I’ve already eaten,” I say, but I’m not sure if she believes me.

“You haven’t had another fit, have you?”

“No, Mum.”

If I stand here another second, I’m going to start bawling again.

“You’re still having a scan at the hospital on Monday, don’t forget. And if something happens in the meantime, please tell me, won’t you, love?”

“I’m just tired,” I repeat. “I’m going upstairs to lie down.”

“Are things all right with Elza?” Mum asks.

“Fine.”

“You know you can talk to me if something’s wrong, don’t you?”

“I’m OK,” I say. “I’m just going to my room.”

I take the stairs three at a time so she won’t see me crying. I walk into my room and see the impression on the beanbag from where we slept that night, the impression of her body, and that makes it worse. I don’t want to touch the beanbag. I want to keep that impression there forever. I lie down on my bed. The photograph of her, one I took with her camera, smiles at me from its place on the wardrobe door.

I’m sorry, Elza. I’m sorry.

I remember that night on the beanbag, her voice, whispering against my neck.

Just let me go.

I can’t. How can you ask that?

“How, Elza?” I’m saying. “How?”

I need to watch out.

Talking to myself.

Shit!

I punch the bed as hard as I can. I don’t feel much better. I punch it again, and there’s a solid thump as my fist hits something under the pillow.

That’s weird. Why would there be something under my pillow?

I move the pillow aside. To my disbelief, I see a book. A green book, a book bound in green leather, with silvery clasps and a golden eight-pointed star on the cover.

How?

Is this . . . ?

I pick it up. It really is the Book of Eight. How on earth can it be in my bedroom?

It really is here. I run my finger over the cold clasps.

Elza.

Elza was sitting here, on my bed, Wednesday night. When Ash had the Book in her reading device . . . I run through the night in my head. Ash went to throw up, and then we went downstairs, outside . . . and Elza followed later. She was alone up here with the Book of Eight. She hid it under my pillow . . . and when we came back upstairs, the reading machine was already closed up, ready to be carried away. We thought the Book was inside, but Ash never actually looked. . . .

“You genius,” I whisper to the photograph of Elza. “I love you. You genius.”

Ash thought she had the Book of Eight when she crossed over, but she didn’t. Elza didn’t trust her with it.

It’s right here.

I can get her back. I know it. I can follow Ash to wherever she’s gone. I get up and lock the door to my bedroom. Then I walk back over to my bed, slipping Dad’s sigil ring onto my finger.

Without fear or hesitation, I stroke my finger along the Book’s green spine. The clasps open with a muted click. I look at the blank pages. Now that I’ve read the Book before, the path seems clearer somehow. I remember the start of Dad’s sequence. . . .

Seven. I turn seven pages to the right. One reversed. I flip one page back, toward the front cover. Four, three reversed, seven, five, four, nine . . . I turn the pages, and they flow beneath my touch, the Book responding to its true owner. I see the pages begin to fill with sigils, marks of power.

And soon I’m not in the room at all.

When I come back into myself, the room is dark, the sky barely dawn-lit. For a moment my heart nearly stops, thinking I’ve been reading the Book for days, weeks, but I was only under for about eight hours. It could’ve been much worse. I snap the Book shut. I close my eyes, and sigils flow unbidden across my eyelids. I may be destroying my brain, but right now I don’t care. Elza’s all I care about. And there is a way to get her back. I know it.

One who wishes to tread the paths of the dead would be advised to bring a guide. I haven’t read that, not those exact words, but that’s how I remember what the Book told me. Those rare spirits who have journeyed deep into death and returned are gifted with eyes that have the aspect of liquid darkness. The Widow’s been to Deadside before, and she’ll be helping Ash, guiding her in whatever they’re doing there. I can’t face them on my own. But I know someone who might be able to help me.

It’s the stupidest plan I’ve ever made, but I don’t see another option.

I take the Book, my sigil, and one of Dad’s rings, a silver band set with jade. I leave the house quietly, locking the door behind me, and walk alone through Dunbarrow, too late for the milk vans and too early for anyone else. The town sleeps. I walk across the bridge, past the park, up the hill to our school and beyond. I walk through the forest, feeling drawn on, like I’m a leaf in a raging river. Nothing could make me turn back.

Just let me go.

I can’t. I won’t.

The magic circle is still drawn around the Devil’s Footsteps, white lines of paint. The golden binding ring we used to summon the Fury is still lying in the center of the circle. I check that the lines are unbroken, and then I remove the golden ring and leave the jade ring in its place. I take my own position in the smaller circle. I raise my sigil, feel cold run through my body. I say the words, the names. I perform the Rite of Return.

I don’t have long to wait. Within moments, there’s a ghost standing inside the ring of stones; the ghost wears an old-fashioned black suit, black boots, a wide-brimmed black hat. He wears a white shirt fastened at the collar with a strange silver pin. His hair is gray, hanging down over his shoulders. He has a long beard and a waxy face that looks half-molten. His fingers are slender and white, with cobwebs of wispy hair at each knuckle. His eyes, those oil-black eyes, are hidden behind mirrored glasses.

The Shepherd paces around the magic circle, looking for breaks or imperfections. Having satisfied himself that he’s properly bound and imprisoned, the ghost turns to me.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asks.

“I can have you return to me if I want to,” I reply. “It’s my right.”

“You may swallow boiling lead if you please,” the Shepherd says. The look on his face suggests he’d enjoy seeing me do it. “That is your right, too. But I do not believe you would do so. Why have you called upon me?”

“I need your help,” I say, keeping my voice level. Now that I’m face-to-face with him, I don’t know how I imagined this would work, but I have to try. I need a guide.

The Shepherd throws back his head and laughs, the only time I’ve heard him do it. It’s a nasty sound, like a crow having a heart attack.

“I will never help you,” he says. “You have clearly lost your mind, Luke Manchett.”

“Where did the Devil take you?” I ask.

“It took me to the darkness,” the Shepherd spits. “And I have suffered. I suffered and suffered and suffered. Exactly as you intended. So I congratulate you.”

“Where are you now?” I ask him.

The Shepherd looks around us at the standing stones and the oak trees and the moss and the reeds. He looks at the bracken and the stony bank behind me.

“We appear to be at the Devil’s Footsteps. The site of your previous victory over me.”

“And where are you not?” I ask.

“I am currently not in a great many places,” the Shepherd says. “Say what you mean or keep your tongue still. I do not deal in riddles.”

“You’re not in Hell.”

“True,” the Shepherd says.

“I can send you back there whenever I want,” I say. I raise my right hand so he can see my sigil. “I say the words, and you’re right back in the darkness. You know I can do it.”

He swallows.

“You can,” he says.

“So, given that while I’m talking”— I gesture around at the stone circle —“you’ll be here, in Dunbarrow, on earth, do you not think it might be worth listening to what I have to say?”

The Shepherd says nothing.

“Well,” I say. “That’s a shame. I’ll have to try someone else.”

I raise my sigil to dismiss him.

“Wait!” he snaps. “Wait. Perhaps I have been . . . hasty.”

“Perhaps,” I say.

“What is it that you need from me, exactly?” he asks me.

I explain what’s happened in the past week. I tell him about Ash, Ilana, the Widow. I describe the witch blade, the magic mirror, our summoning of the Fury. I tell him about the ritual yesterday at dawn, Elza screaming in pain as spirit fire spewed from her mouth and eyes. That Ash’s house is gone, and there’s a passing place where it used to be. I tell him as much as I can as fast as I can, and he listens without saying a word.

When I’m done, the Shepherd bursts out laughing a second time. He cackles like a hyena, slapping his bony knees with his palms.

“You fool,” he says. “You blind, trusting fool!”

“Look —” I say.

“She is a fool as well,” he says, still chuckling. “How the years fly by! I remember Ashana when she was knee-high. Magnus Ahlgren’s whelp. She did not even think to check that the Book of Eight was within this reading device?”

“Well, lucky for me, right?” I say.

“Yes,” the Shepherd says, “lucky. If this is how the next generation conducts its affairs . . . I shudder to think. You are both incompetents. Necromancers cannot make such errors.”

“So what do I do?” I ask him. “Can you help me or not?”

The Shepherd sighs and takes off his glasses. I look into his wet black eyes. They don’t scare me like they used to, if I’m honest. I meet his gaze without even shivering.

“Elza Moss is gone,” the Shepherd says. “Whichever luckless warrior slays a demon is consumed by the creature’s own fire. This has been the way since the first man drew breath. Her animus has been consumed. She is part of the nonpareil now.”

“So how do we —”

“Ashana Ahlgren has this nonpareil, correct? Even now she travels through the lands of the dead with this precious object.”

“Yes, so I need to —”

“You cannot.” The Shepherd spits the words across the stone circle. “Elza is gone. You cannot bring her back. Live your life, boy. She is gone.”

“No,” I say. “I know there’s a way.”

“You asked my advice. I have given it to you. The girl is gone.”

“So there’s nothing you can do.”

“I did not say exactly that —”

“Well, that’s a shame,” I say, raising my sigil once more to dismiss him.

“Wait,” the Shepherd splutters, “wait!”

“So there is something you can do?”

“Perhaps,” he says, muttering something. “Perhaps if we . . . When did the Ahlgren girl cross over into the world of the dead?”

“I don’t know. Yesterday. She was gone by midafternoon.”

The Shepherd mumbles to himself, counting on his fingers.

“It is difficult to make proper calculations,” he tells me, “seeing as time between the two worlds does not run concurrently. But the journey she intends to make is long and arduous.”

“What is Ash doing?” I ask him.

“Acquiring a nonpareil is difficult in itself,” the Shepherd says. “I have only seen one before, and that was hundreds of years ago. But to properly make use of a nonpareil . . . it is no small task. Ashana Ahlgren must travel to a deep region of the spirit world. It lies far beyond this land of the living. She must travel through the Gray Meadows and the lands beyond. . . . She must reach the source of the underworld’s eight rivers, the Shrouded Lake, and offer the nonpareil to the entity that resides below its waters.”

“She’s going to the Shrouded Lake?”

“An ancient place. There is strange power there. But it is far away. Without a copy of the Book on hand, the world of the dead is ten times more arduous to traverse. She will make slow progress.”

“So someone could catch her,” I say. “They could go into Deadside, catch up with her, and take the nonpareil for themselves.”

“You do not know what you ask,” the Shepherd says. “The spirit world is no place for a living person to go. Few dare to tread those lands. Your father never set foot there.”

“But you’ve been, haven’t you?” I ask him.

“I have,” the ghost says. He replaces his glasses.

“I want you to take me there,” I tell him.

The Shepherd chuckles.

“You are my sworn foe, Luke,” he says. “You have gone mad. The loss of the witch child has dulled your reason.”

“Take me to Deadside,” I tell him again. “I want to catch Ash and take the nonpareil for myself. And then we’ll offer it to the Shrouded Lake —”

“Madness,” he says. “You will perish.”

“I’ll offer it there. And I’ll have Elza back.”

“Do you understand what you are asking?”

“Something difficult and dangerous,” I say. “I don’t care. Can you take me or not?”

The Shepherd licks his lips.

“What do I get from this, exactly?” he asks.

“The satisfaction that comes from helping your fellow man,” I say.

He just smiles. Says nothing.

“I’ll set you free,” I tell him.

“In what sense?” he asks.

“Free,” I say, waving my hand. “You can go where you like. You won’t be in Hell.”

“I want a new body,” he says. “Another life.”

“Can I give you that?”

The Shepherd looks at me hungrily.

“If I am present at a conception,” he says, softly, “I can do the rest.”

So this is what it comes down to. More debts and pacts. Remaking Dad’s Host, bringing my old enemy back into my life. Promising him something I don’t even want to think about. I don’t have a choice. I need a guide. I can’t just wander into the world of the dead on my own. Ash has the Widow, and she has a head start on me.

I have a good reason to do this. It’s either this or let Elza go, let Ash win, and the moment I saw Elza lying in the dirt under that plastic sheet, I knew I couldn’t let that happen. I don’t have a choice.

“If that’s your price.” Think of Elza. Just think about Elza, and try not to think of what she’d say about this deal. “I’ll do that for you. If we get back from Deadside with Elza. Not before then.”

“Of course,” the Shepherd says.

“Then . . . I’m going to bind you into my Host once more,” I tell him.

“You say that as if I have a choice in the matter.”

“I know that if you accept the role, the ritual is much shorter.”

“You truly do love this girl, don’t you? It’s absurd. You’re prepared to make your foe your brother in pursuit of the slightest chance that she may live again.”

“Do we have a deal, or not?” I ask.

The wind rummages in the oak boughs overhead. The Shepherd examines the tattooed palm of one hand. “The task you wish to undertake is difficult in the extreme,” he says quietly. “Even with my great expertise and skill, I make no guarantee of success. If we cannot resurrect the witch girl —”

“As long as I think you’ve wholeheartedly helped me,” I say, “I’ll keep my side of the bargain. I promise.”

“Swear by your sigil,” he says.

“I swear by my sigil that if you wholeheartedly help in this matter, I will keep my promise to you,” I say.

“Excellent,” the Shepherd says, clapping his hands. “Excellent. Onward to the Gray Meadows, then. Onward, on this ridiculous quest. Name me your Shepherd.”

I raise my sigil above my head. The ring pulses with cold.

“Honorable leader,” I say. “Beloved left hand. Speaker for the dead. I name you Shepherd.”

“I accept this name in turn,” the Shepherd replies. “I bind my soul to the Manchett Host, now and for eternity.”

My sigil hums, and I feel a rush of coldness as the Shepherd’s power joins with mine. For a moment the clearing is frozen in place, and we exist together outside time, an endless instant in which no wind blows and no grass grows and the secret language of the world seems written on the sky in the spread of the oak trees’ branches.

The feeling subsides, and I’m left standing in my magic circle, bound to a spirit I thought I’d defeated and sent into Hell. And this is my best plan. This is absurd. I feel like I’m climbing a tall, dangerous cliff face, and I need to remember not to look down. Keep going forward. You need to save Elza. That’s what this is all about.

What was it Dad said, that night when I saw him again?

You’ve got to live the life you have, rather than the life you wanted.

Experimentally, I step out of the magic circle. The Shepherd does the same, and we stand facing each other, just in front of the tallest standing stone. Then, as the wind rises, the ghost bends on one knee, and plants a cold kiss on my sigil ring.

We make our way down the path from the stone circle to Dunbarrow High in awkward silence. The Shepherd is one of my least favorite people, alive or dead. I just promised him something so horrible that I don’t even want to think about it. I know what Elza would say about all of this. Just let me go.

No. How could I let you go? You didn’t know what you were asking. If you could feel what I felt when I saw you lying dead in the dirt, with leaves in your hair . . . you’d know why I’m doing this. You’d realize, Elza, that I can’t do anything else.

The Shepherd has a sour expression, like there’s something offensive about the spring woods. He walks stiffly, with his shoulders held rigid. I’m shocked, as I sometimes am, by how real the ghost is, how vivid and present. I can see a loose thread hanging from one of the buttons on his waistcoat. There’s a tiny yellow stain on the white collar of his shirt. The toes of his black boots are scuffed and worn.

“This isn’t going to be like last time,” I say.

“Whatever could you mean, Luke?” he asks.

“Any of it,” I say. “I know what I’m doing this time. So behave.”

“Yes,” the Shepherd says, “you have every appearance of a man utterly in control of his destiny.”

I don’t dignify this with a response. We walk across the playing fields in silence. We walk through the high-school grounds, empty on a Saturday afternoon, and down the same hill I’ve walked down from school a thousand times before. As we pass through the school gates, I remember seeing Elza smoking just beside them, that first day we spoke properly, and it feels like being stabbed. I have to look away.

The silence lasts through Dunbarrow, which is heaving with weekend traffic. The Shepherd makes no comment on any of it. We walk across the bridge, up the hill to Wormwood Drive. There’s a familiar silver car parked in our driveway, alongside Mum’s yellow one. I should have been expecting this . . . too busy thinking about magic. I see Mum standing at the front window, looking right at me. She turns to speak to someone else in the room. If I run away now, it’s going to look bad. There’s nothing I can do. I’ll just have to deny everything. I walk up the driveway like I haven’t got a care in the world and open the front door, which is unlocked.

Ham comes rushing out of the kitchen to greet me, and then sees the Shepherd. His ears flatten back against the sides of his head, and he snarls at the ghost.

“It’s fine, boy,” I whisper. “He’s with me.”

Ham gives me a disbelieving look and backs off into the kitchen, still growling.

“Luke?” Mum calls to me from the front room.

“Yeah?” I say with feigned lightness.

“Could you come in here, please?”

Her voice is stern. I go to find her.

As expected, Mr. and Mrs. Moss are sitting on the sofa with Mum. Mrs. Moss is small, broad-faced, with curly rust-colored hair. Mr. Moss, Elza’s dad, is tall and stringy, with thick glasses, a sparse beard, and receding brown hair. His smile is always apologetic. Elza gets her long, sharp face from her dad, but almost everything else from her mother. They’ve got cups of tea on the low table in front of them.

“Would you sit down, please?” Mum asks.

I sit in an armchair opposite the sofa, one that’s rarely used because you can’t see the TV from here.

“Hey,” I say to Elza’s parents. They give me thin smiles.

“Luke,” Mum says, “Mr. and Mrs. Moss wanted to speak to us. It’s about Elza.”

“Has something happened?” I ask, trying my hardest to look puzzled.

Unseen by the adults, the Shepherd is standing in the corner of the living room. His hands are clasped at his waist. It’s impossible to see where exactly he’s looking, because of his eyeglasses. His expression is equally opaque.

“We haven’t seen Elza since Wednesday morning,” Elza’s mum says. “It’s now Saturday. She was supposed to help her father with the gardening. We were wondering if you knew where she was.”

She’s wrapped in plastic in the woods on the far side of Dunbarrow. I can take you all there now. It’s my fault.

“I thought she was at home?” I say.

“She called me on Thursday evening,” Mr. Moss says, “to say she was staying here again with you, like she did on Wednesday.”

I haven’t been thinking about this. I’ve been thinking about the Book, the Shepherd. I’ve almost lost track of our lies.

Mum rang Elza’s mum on Wednesday, but on Thursday evening, we’d just captured the demon. We drove back to Pilgrim Grove with Ash. And we both called our parents and said —

“Luke,” Mum says, “you told me you were staying with the Mosses that night. Elza didn’t stay here. What were you doing?”

“We changed our minds, stayed at a friend’s,” I say. “The blond girl, Ashley. You met her on Wednesday. Remember?”

“We haven’t heard from Elza since then,” Mrs. Moss says to me. “We’ve tried calling her, and she doesn’t pick up. Her phone isn’t receiving calls.”

“I don’t know anything,” I say, immediately realizing how guilty that makes me sound. “Last time I saw her, she said she was going home.”

“Luke,” Mum says softly, “this is serious. We’re all really worried about Elza.”

“It’s not like her,” Mr. Moss says, frowning. He’s a strange person, quiet almost to the point of being comical, but the fear in his voice now hits me harder than Mrs. Moss’s anger. I feel the chair moving under me, like I’m floating in space. I keep seeing Elza lying in the dirt. Keep folding the tarpaulin back over her face.

“She’s a very conscientious girl,” Mrs. Moss says to Mum.

“She’ll be fine,” I say, feeling my tongue move by itself.

There’s a general silence.

“How do you know that?” Mrs. Moss asks me. “You just told us you didn’t know anything.”

“She’s . . . busy,” I say. “Elza is busy.”

“Luke, if you know where she is . . .” Mum begins.

“Where is our daughter?” Mrs. Moss asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. My body feels hot and enormous, like I’m inflating. Guilt. I’m being pumped full of it.

“Where is she?” Mrs. Moss asks again.

“Luke,” Mum says.

Mrs. Moss is breathing hard. “We’ll have to get the police,” she says.

I want to scream. How am I going to get out of this? Every moment I sit here is a moment I’m not busy saving her. Ash is getting closer to the Shrouded Lake with every second that passes. I give the Shepherd a despairing look.

“There’s really no need,” I say.

Mrs. Moss looks at her husband and Mum in disbelief. “Why is he lying to us like this? What are you hiding?”

“Luke,” Mum starts to say, “if you and Elza are in trouble —”

She stops halfway through the sentence. She seems like she’s having trouble moving her mouth. Her eyes roll up into the top of her head, and she collapses onto the sofa. Her eyes close. She’s snoring. Elza’s parents are also asleep, Mrs. Moss’s head resting on Mr. Moss’s shoulder.

“Our time is not endless,” the Shepherd announces.

“Did you . . . ?”

“I have induced them to sleep. It is no great sorcery. No harm will come to them, I assure you. But we cannot delay. If you mean to catch up with the Ahlgren girl, we cannot wait another moment.”

“Sure.” I look at the parents, asleep on our big sofa. I take a deep breath. Part of me is just glad he stopped Mr. and Mrs. Moss from looking at me like that. I walk over to the window and draw the blinds. “Will they really be OK?” I ask. The scene is quietly gruesome, three limp bodies with their heads lolling against the cushions. You can hear them breathing, but they look dead.

“They will sleep until you return to the house, or until three days have passed, whichever arrives first. They will awaken disoriented and remember little of the circumstances that brought them to this room.”

“All right,” I say. I can’t think what else to do with our parents. “So what do we need to do?”

“Preparations . . .” The Shepherd strokes his beard. “You will leave your body behind at the threshold of the gateway. It would be wise to provide shelter for it, while you are occupied.”

“So a tent,” I say. “We’ve got one in the garage.”

“As for what we will need in the spirit world, the Book of Eight and your sigil are paramount, for they are the tools with which your will may be imposed. You should feast before you attempt the crossing: your body needs sustenance while the spirit wanders. I might also suggest you bring your familiar.”

“What? Ham?”

“He may accompany you. It is his right. I have no love of the beast, but he is an extension of your spiritual power. If he agrees to the journey, it would be to our advantage when it comes to battle.”

I find Ham cowering in his crate in the laundry room. He whines bitterly when me and the Shepherd come to find him. Ham’s such an incredible coward, and the idea of him following us into Deadside is bizarre. But if the Shepherd thinks it would help, then I suppose I should try and convince him to come along.

“Look, boy,” I say. “I’m going on a journey. I want to get Elza back. He thinks we can do it. If you don’t want to come, then I understand. But I’d really appreciate your company.”

Ham looks from me to the Shepherd and back again. He whines and flattens his ears against his head. Then he gets up out of his crate, with a long-suffering look, and pads over to lick my hand.

I’ve only ever backed Mum’s car out of the driveway before, but driving on the roads doesn’t seem too difficult. I have this unfortunate incident with a delivery van just at the bottom of Wormwood Drive, but we don’t actually hit it, and we head on up to Pilgrim Grove without further excitement, with Ham lying on a sleeping bag in the backseat. At first I was convinced we’d meet a police car at a corner, get pulled over, and be put in jail, but with a bitter thrill I realized that it doesn’t matter. The Shepherd can take care of that. I can do whatever I need to do. We make our way through the half-finished houses and the fog.

“Rather extraordinary,” the Shepherd remarks, looking out through the passenger-side window at the mist.

“I know. I’m actually a natural at driving! Who knew?”

“I was referring to the gate to the spirit world,” he says without a trace of mirth.

“You’re really easy to tease,” I say, and then realize it was what Elza used to say to me. Will say to me, I decide. She will say that again, and she’ll give me one of her infuriating grins as well.

We drive through the development and across the field until we find the place, then get out of the car. Elza is still where I left her, hidden under plastic. The Shepherd kneels beside her. His face doesn’t show any emotion. She’s just a minor detail to him, her corpse only a small variable in our plan. He wets two fingers in his mouth and strokes them over her forehead. Somehow they leave a black smudge, like ink, trailing from Elza’s hairline down to the top of her nose. The Shepherd leans back on his heels, examining the corpse from another angle.

“The decay is not too far advanced,” he announces, “and I have halted it, for a time. Worms will not make a meal of her today.”

I hadn’t thought about that. A few hours, and she was already starting to rot. I don’t want to think about it.

I lift her into the trunk of the car while the Shepherd goes to examine the gateway Ash made into Deadside. I’ve lifted her up before, carried her on my back and stuff, but she seems heavier now, and she’s cold, too. Her arm hangs down and swings as I walk. I feel like a murderer, wrestling Elza’s body into the trunk of a car.

“I’m sorry,” I say as I close the trunk. “I’m going to fix this.”

Ham gazes anxiously over the headrests. I leave the car and walk through the thickening fog to find the Shepherd. He’s standing right where the front gate to Ash’s place used to be. He seems to be feeling for something in the air, some kind of flaw or opening. I wait silently.

“No,” the Shepherd says, almost to himself, “no.”

He turns and sees me standing beside him.

“How did she do this?” I ask.

“The Ahlgren girl chose her plot well,” he says. “There are hidden pathways in the earth. Lines of force. Where they converge —”

“Yeah, ley lines. Mum’s always talking about those.”

“Where they converge,” he continues, “you will find a passing place. The stone circle you called the Devil’s Footsteps is one such location. This house appears to have been built at another.”

“She chose this place deliberately?”

“It would appear so. The house itself is built upon a passing place of sorts. A minor spot, apparently not even worthy of the attentions of the ancient people who first settled in Dunbarrow. There most likely was a single oak tree growing here, before the development began. Perhaps a ring of mushrooms . . . no matter. Even a minor crack between the worlds can become a great gateway, if opened with enough force. The Ahlgren girl appears to have transported her entire house into the spirit world.”

“You can do that?”

“King Solomon supposedly had an entire wing of his palace that existed only within the realm of the dead. It’s uncommon, but quite possible. The spirit Kasmut, the Ahlgren Host’s Widow, has considerable power at her disposal. I knew her in life, and I have no reason to believe time has lessened her abilities, nor increased her supply of mercy. The opening of this new gateway would not be possible without an enormous reserve of magical strength. We must be cautious when meeting that woman in battle.”

I remember the way the Widow fought the demon: the delirious fluidity of her movements, the terrible force behind her spear thrusts. Scary as the Shepherd can be, I’ve never seen him actually fight anything. I’m not sure how I’d rate his chances against Ash’s bodyguard.

“Do not fear,” he says, clearly reading my unease. “You have a powerful spirit at your disposal as well.” He flashes his rank of gray teeth. I grimace back. “Powerful and cunning. In life, there were kings who came to me on bended knee. We will vanquish this upstart coven of women. You have my word.”

“Glad you’ve got my back,” I say.

Probably he’s got my back just long enough to slide a knife into it. Plus who says stuff like “upstart coven”? Why am I trusting this ghost? This is insane.

I need to get Elza back.

This is going to work.

Trust yourself. Not him.

Trust yourself.

“So what do we do?” I ask.

“I had hoped we could force an entry here, perhaps even find Ashana’s body unguarded. But the gateway is warded. I cannot break through.”

“So?”

“You will open the gateway at the Devil’s Footsteps, and we will proceed from there.”

The drive out of Dunbarrow and around to the Footsteps, mimicking the drive we made with Ash on Thursday evening, isn’t as tense as making our way up to Pilgrim Grove was. Seeing Elza’s body, touching it, has reminded me that the worst has already happened. The idea of being stopped with a corpse in the trunk doesn’t scare me like it ought to. She’s already gone. Every mile we drive is another mile closer to bringing her back. In the end, we barely even see another car on the country lanes. I don’t think the Footsteps is a particular draw for weekend sightseers. We make our way down the rutted path, stop more or less in the same place where we came just days ago with Ash, the same spot where I found Mum’s car that morning last October. I remember Ham running to it, Elza getting out, the smile on her face when she saw I was alive —

I cut the engine. The Shepherd waits without speaking a word while I cry. When I’m done sniffling, he says in a voice like ice, “The world is cruel.”

“What?” I say, realizing there’s snot on my upper lip. I dab it with my sleeve, not caring. The Shepherd gives me a look of disgust.

“The world is cruel,” he says again. “It does not care about your suffering. Magic is the art of changing the world to suit you. In order to bend the world to your will, you must be cruel as well. Mastery and empathy do not complement one another.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because,” the ghost says, “you are forcing me into a dangerous journey with you. I want you to understand what may be necessary in order to achieve your goal. The spirit world, Deadside, is not Dunbarrow.”

“I’ve seen it,” I say. “I know.”

The Shepherd snorts. “You were under the influence of the Black Goat. That spirit moves at will through both worlds like a great shark in a reef. This time it will be different. We must travel on foot, with only our will and our wisdom as guides. We will be vulnerable to the spirits that dwell there. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” I say.

“You think so?” The Shepherd reaches out and sinks his spectral fingers right into my arm. I feel a cold bite, like someone laid ice on my skin. I shudder. “You must know so,” he hisses. “You must know that you want what we seek, that you truly want it. You do not have this in the spirit world. You will leave your flesh behind. What is the spirit?”

“I don’t know. Ectoplasm? It’s made of dark matter?”

“Your spirit”— his mirrored glasses are inches from my eyes —“is what dwells within the flesh. It is will, Luke. Will, and wisdom. Do you understand me now? It is not your muscles that will make you strong in the spirit world. It is your will, the will to power, the will that drives you to dominate and destroy. This is how you can survive.”

“I understand.”

“Do you really? You want what you say you want? You want it so badly you are willing to risk all?”

“I do,” I say. “We’ve come this far. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“I hope that you do,” the Shepherd says. He lets go of my arm. “I do not know what we will face in the spirit world, but we will not reach the Shrouded Lake without incident. All that men fear in life is death, but within death itself, there are fates far graver. If your will is weak, turn back now, not once the threshold is crossed. I do not wish to find myself tethered to a master who lacks the courage to see our journey to the end. It would go badly for us both.”

“No,” I say. “We’re going on.”

Before he can say another word, I open the car door and get out. It’s late afternoon now, with crisp air and long shadows. Birds squabble in the oak trees overhead. I decide to head down to the Footsteps with the tent first, set it up, and then get Ham and Elza. I shoulder it, make my way down the muddy path, over the stony bank, through the bracken. As I reach the stone circle, I hear someone break a branch behind me. I turn.

It’s a boy wearing a rain jacket, tracksuit pants, dirty hiking boots. He’s got his hood raised, and although his face is wild and gaunt, I recognize him. It’s Mark Ellsmith, my old mate. He seems to be pointing a gun at me.

“Mark?” I say slowly. “Ash said you were in a hotel —”

“Luke,” he says. He’s got a look in his eyes that I don’t like, as though he’s been staring at the sun too long. He moves his mouth several times without speaking, like he’s trying to choose the right words. The gun — a shotgun, with a smooth, oily barrel and an expensive walnut stock — remains trained on me, visibly trembling, along with his arms.

“That’s your dad’s, isn’t it?” I ask, being sure not to make a sudden move. Mark’s dad is one of these types you’d think was born in a Barbour jacket and flatcap, even though he actually grew up in West London. He likes nothing better than blasting pheasants out of the sky, wringing fluffy rabbit necks with his bare hands.

“Yeah,” Mark says.

“How about you put that down?” I say.

“She said she’d make it stop,” Mark says. “Said to wait in the woods and see if he comes.”

“She” has to be Ash, surely? She trapped me in the mirror and warded off the passing place she made, but just in case . . . she left someone to guard this one as well. Covering all possibilities.

The Shepherd is approaching through the trees. She didn’t anticipate that I’d summon him again. I try to catch his gaze, signal with my face that Mark has a weapon.

“Ash,” Mark’s saying. “She’s got a way to make me forget. Forget what you told me. And she said I could have it. Just wait out here, she said. What’s so special about this place anyway, Luke?”

“What did Ash promise you?”

“What you said to me, that day in the park. She said there was a way I could forget. If I just —” He swallows. “She called me. Said to wait at the stones, and if you come, I should stop you.”

“Stop me how?”

“Not shoot. I don’t have to shoot. I just need you to . . . sit down. She said not to let you near the stones. That’s what I have to do. . . .”

“Mark,” I say, “please put the gun down. Ash isn’t a good person. She’s using you.”

The Shepherd is standing right beside him, unseen, examining the angle of the shotgun. What’s he going to do? Why doesn’t he help me? Maybe he’ll let Mark shoot me. He’d be free. It depends how much he wants what I promised him. I’m imagining the gun firing, the bullets embedding themselves in my chest. . . .

“Why would you say that to me?” Mark screams suddenly. “Why?”

“I don’t know what I said to you,” I say. “It wasn’t . . . Mark, it wasn’t me.”

“I haven’t been able to forget,” he says. “I can’t forget. Ash said there was a way. . . .”

“What did the de — What did I tell you, Mark?”

He swallows. The gun remains aimed at my chest.

“You said —”

The Shepherd grabs the barrel of the shotgun and yanks it upward. Mark whoops with fear and pulls the trigger, both barrels discharging their shot into the canopy of trees. I feel the reverberations of the gunshot in my bones. My ears are ringing like a fire alarm.

“Mark!”

Mark is still staring at the shotgun in disbelief. The Shepherd has wrestled it from his grasp and now swings the butt directly into Mark’s face, cracking his nose open. Mark goes down, howling with pain. I’m not sure what’s affecting him worse: the nose, which looks broken, or the fact that, from his perspective, his shotgun just decided to float into the air and beat the shit out of him. The Shepherd throws the gun into the undergrowth. The ghost raises his hands, and to my astonishment, green flames boil out of his fingers, flowing over Mark’s body like a rippling cocoon of fire.

Mark convulses, clutching at his burst nose, blood streaming over his chin. The Shepherd smiles, and green fire erupts again from his hands, oozing through the air and landing on Mark’s fallen body. Mark’s feet drum against the earth. His fingers clutch at nothing. There’s white foam coming from his mouth, mixing with the blood.

The Shepherd raises his hands a third time —

I come back to myself.

“Stop!” I scream. “You’re going to kill him!”

The ghost pauses, flames dripping from his white fingers.

“That was my intent, yes,” the Shepherd says.

Mark is trying to crawl away, but he’s so disoriented that he’s crawling toward the Devil’s Footsteps, toward me.

“Please, Luke,” he says, “please . . .”

“He was my friend. We’re not going to kill him.”

“He is an agent of Ashana,” the Shepherd says.

“He barely knows what’s going on! The demon told him something that’s been eating his mind! Ash said she could help him! I hardly blame him!”

“I have sympathy for my enemies only once they are defeated,” the Shepherd says, and unleashes a third barrage of flames onto Mark. This time they hit his back and thighs, boiling their way into his clothes and skin. Mark clutches at the dirt as if he’s trying to dig into it and get away from us.

I raise my sigil, and it blazes with cold. A wave of power strikes the Shepherd, knocking him backward into the dirt. White lightning crackles around his chest and head. He yells in anger. I stand over him, pointing the sigil down at his chest.

“You know what I can do with this,” I say. “You’re my Shepherd. My Shepherd. If I say not to kill someone, I mean it.”

“You are weak!” he spits. “Does my counsel mean nothing to you? The realm of the spirits has no place for mercy. Without the will —”

“I have plenty of will,” I tell him, voice steady. “I’m using it now. Mark is already defeated. I’m not letting you torture him to death.”

The Shepherd seems about to say something more, but then his face hardens into its usual mask-like stillness.

“I have overstepped,” he agrees, and calmly gets to his feet. The flames around his hands evaporate. “I hope,” he says as Mark groans in the mud, “that you will not hesitate to do what needs to be done when we face the Ahlgren party, however.”

“Don’t worry,” I say. “We’ll handle them.”

“I am worried,” the Shepherd says, giving me a hard look. “But I suppose the time for objections is gone. What shall we do with the boy?”

I look down at Mark.

“Send him to sleep,” I say. “Actual sleep. That’s not a euphemism.”

Here’s how our journey begins: I set up the tent near the Footsteps, behind a thick wall of bushes. Even if you approach from the path and stand right by the stones, our campsite isn’t visible. It’s a six-man tent, plenty big, and I haul Mark into one sleeping compartment, blood drying on his face. I wish there was time to take him to the hospital or something, but there’s just no way. The Shepherd put him under, so at least he’s not in pain.

I carry Elza’s corpse to the tent and put her in the other compartment. When she’s lying there, I stop and kneel next to her, quaking as I cry silently. I don’t want the Shepherd to hear me. He doesn’t understand. He never even liked Elza, and she hated him. She’d have hated this, me crossing over, all of it. For a moment I feel like I ought to stop, call the whole thing off, send the Shepherd back to Hell, but as I look at her lying there, I realize I can’t. While there’s even a chance of seeing her again, I can’t stop.

I zip up the compartment. She’s safe in there. There’s no other option for me. I have to do this. I take a breath and go back outside. The tent should spare us the attentions of any wandering animals, at least for the few days I’ll be away. I hope it’ll be only a few days, anyway. I seem to be trusting the Shepherd on a lot of the details. He waits silently by the Devil’s Footsteps while I prepare, gathering stones and arranging them around the tent in the pattern he showed me. This is the other part of our defense: a ward against wandering spirits who might want a ride inside one of our bodies while we’re gone. Yes, our bodies: me and Ham will be lying here, too. Apparently spirits like that are rare, but I don’t want to take chances.

The next step is gluttony. I eat the biggest meal I can, cereal bars and dried fruit and as much milk as I can manage without puking. It’s not quite feasting for eight days and eight nights, like the shamans used to do, but it’s close enough. When I’m full, and my stomach feels like a bloated bag of rocks, I lie down in the tent, in the “lobby” area that separates the two sleeping compartments. Ham pads in to join me, and I zip the door shut behind us. We lie down, me with one hand resting on the back of his neck. It’s uncomfortable and humid, and I’m already feeling sweaty. To my left Mark sleeps, and on my right Elza lies dead. I wear my sigil on my finger, and the Book of Eight is tucked inside my raincoat.

I lie still next to Ham and stare unblinking at the ceiling. I focus on the play of light that the low sun shining through tree branches makes on the tent’s roof.

I step outside of myself. I pass through the wall of the tent, cross my ward of stone, and I’m standing in the clearing next to the Shepherd. He looks me up and down.

“You have the necessaries?” he asks.

I show him my sigil and unzip my jacket to find the Book of Eight nestled inside.

“How can I take this with me?” I ask him. “I’m a spirit, but I still have the Book.”

“The Book is a creation of both worlds: therefore, it can travel between them.”

“That’s all the explanation you’ll give?”

“I told you, magic is not about asking why. That is science, which I gladly leave to the scientists. Magic is beyond why. Magic is about changing what is.”

“Good answer,” I say. “Where’s Ham?”

“Call him,” the Shepherd says.

I turn back to the tent and raise my sigil.

“Ham!” I shout, a strange echo of every time I’ve waited by the kitchen door for him to come in from the garden. The sigil flares with cold. I’m not exactly sure how this is going to work, but the Shepherd assured me it would.

After a moment, Ham leaps straight through the wall of the tent and bounds up to us.

“How’s that for you, boy?” I ask.

Ham barks and cavorts. He looks different in spirit form, more smoky than flesh and blood, lit in a strange way, as though there were some distant spotlight that highlighted only him. He looks unearthly, in a way me and the Shepherd don’t.

“Why does he look like that?”

“As I said, the spirit world is a place of will. Your beast does not have as strong a sense of how he should appear as you and I, so he appears vaguer and less defined.”

Ham the luminous spirit dog licks my hand.

“So what do we do?” I ask the Shepherd.

“The gateway is before us,” he says. “It remains only for you, the Necromancer, master of two worlds, to open the gate and pass through it.”

At first, as I make my way across the clearing, I can’t see what he’s talking about. The stone circle looks no different than it did when I had a body. Then I catch a strange glimpse, a seam in the air, and I know in that moment the gate is open.