Under the stars and between the trees a few feet away, Ren was sound asleep and dreaming of home. Since this mission had started, she’d traveled around the world to battle Death Walkers and search for the Lost Spells and Alex’s mom. And along the way, her homesickness had progressed to something like home flu. Sleep was her only chance to visit.

Her mom and dad were at the table in the small kitchen of their New York City apartment. Ren could tell immediately that it was a workday. Her mom was dressed in a sharp jacket and pencil skirt combo, set for another day of high-powered public relations work. She didn’t yet know which of the company’s clients had said or done something stupid, but she was prepared for anything. Her dad was in one of his familiar button-down shirts, the sleeves already rolled, the mechanical pencil in the chest pocket. Ready to solve problems of a more precise variety.

They talked softly over the last of their coffee, slipping into Spanish now and then as they sometimes did. Ren understood every word this time. That wasn’t always the case at home, but she was dreaming these words, after all. As she slept, a tear slipped through the corner of one closed eye. They were talking about her.

They were wondering how she was doing in London. They were proud of her internship at the British Museum. They missed her.

I miss you, too, Ren wanted to say. The rest of it she wouldn’t mention, because she was a long way from London now — a long way from a fake internship. But it didn’t matter. She had no voice in this dream.

The phone began to ring. Her father stood up. But something was wrong. He walked over to the sink and dumped out the dregs of his coffee, ignoring the phone entirely. And that ring — or tone, rather — flat and electronic. Generic, like …

A disposable cell phone.

Ren’s eyes drifted open.

She reached up to wipe the tear away with one hand and reached down for her phone with the other. But her phone was quiet and still. “Alex,” she said, turning toward her friend. “Your phone.”

And that’s when she saw it. Alex was flopping limply, like a fish too long on the dock, and a dark shape was looming over him. A human shape. Weak light filtered into the park from the streetlamps at its margins and the moon above, and it all ended at the edges of this entity. Its hand was clamped down over Alex’s face, and a thin vaporous line ran from his open mouth to the creature’s. Right away, Ren knew it was killing him.

“Stop it!” she screamed.

The sheut turned and regarded her with softly glowing eyes. It was strong now, unthreatened.

Ren balled up her fists. She was small for her age, but brave for anyone’s. This thing was terrifying and she felt her own chest tighten with fear, but she was not going to let it take her friend. She. Was. Not. She needed to knock it loose, to allow him to breathe. She took a deep breath — and leapt at it!

She passed straight through, feeling nothing but a profound chill, and crashed to the ground on the other side. She looked back, baffled and desperate. The line of vapor was almost gone now. She got up and swung at it with her fists.

Nothing. It felt like dipping them in cold milk but had no effect at all.

Think, she told herself. Be smart.

My amulet.

She reached up. The ibis was a symbol of Thoth, the ancient Egyptian god of wisdom, writing, and moonlight, and its main power was to show her images and provide information. She’d grown a little more comfortable with it lately, but she still distrusted the magic behind it. It just felt weird having it in her head like that — like letting a wild horse into a quiet study hall. But now she needed that power. She needed that wild horse — for once, she didn’t even care if she could rein it in.

Her hand closed around the ibis. This time she asked it not for answers, but for justice. Thoth was the one who wrote down the verdict at the weighing of the heart ceremony, the test to determine whether a soul gained entrance into the afterlife. He was the divine scribe, the one who made sure everything was in the right place, written in the right column. Ren liked things in their right place, too, and she knew for a fact that this deathly presence did not belong here.

She squeezed the ibis tight, feeling its edges dig into her palm.

“Go!” she shouted. And as she did, a burst of blinding white light flashed outward, like the full moon pressed down to the size of one small, fierce fist and then released again.

The sheut hissed against the light and was torn to shreds, like a cheap black suit caught up in a hurricane.

When the light faded, it was gone.

Alex gasped for breath.

His phone beeped once. Voice mail.

The sheut had popped like a black balloon in the moonlight. Now, a few last wisps of Alex’s breath hung over him like a pale white cloud in the warm night. So that’s it, he thought, looking up at the slowly scattering vapor. That’s what all this is about. It was more than breath, he knew; it was life.

How can this little cloud of breath be worth so much trouble? he wondered as the last gasp dissolved. How can I be worth so much trouble? Ren saved me this time, but how many others have died because I lived? How many more will die before we can find the Spells and end all of this? If we even can. The doorway to the afterlife seems to open wider every day. All because of me …

Ren knelt down by his side. “How do you feel?” she asked.

Alex forced a smile. “Awful,” he said. It was a familiar feeling and one he’d hoped he’d never feel again. There were painful pinpricks in his arms and legs, fingers and toes, as if he’d just come in from too long in the cold. He felt tired and nauseous. He’d felt this way nearly his whole life, before the Spells had transformed him. He looked up at Ren. “I feel like before.”

“Oh no,” she said. Apart from his mom, Ren was the one person who knew just how bad “before” had been. She shook off her concerned expression and forced a smile of her own. “You just need to recover your strength.”

Alex nodded and sat there breathing and rubbing his arms. The more he breathed, the better he felt. Finally, Alex reached for his phone to check the missed call. Now he smiled for real.

“Todtman?” said Ren hopefully.

Alex gave her a big thumbs-up and put the phone on speaker so Ren could hear the message, too.

“Hello, Alex. I got your message. I am sorry for the … delay. I am glad to hear from you.” Alex leaned closer to the phone. He was glad to hear the crisp consonants of Todtman’s familiar German accent again, but his voice was obscured by a faint buzzing. “Things have gotten worse in Cairo. The voices of the dead are everywhere now; the city is in chaos. I had to leave. I can be in Vienna by tomorrow, mid-morning. There is a small restaurant on Linke Wienzeile, near the Naschmarkt.” As he rattled off the address, Alex heard Ren rustling around for her ever-present pen. “I will meet you there at ten thirty. Stay safe.”

They played the message again with the last of the battery power, just to make sure they had the address right.

“I am going to eat so much at that restaurant,” said Ren.

But Alex didn’t want to talk about Wiener schnitzel. He pictured the terrible darkness that had loomed over him just minutes earlier. “Thanks,” he said. “You saved my life.”

“Saved your life again. But,” Ren added, “I have no idea how.”

“You banished it,” Alex said, “with the light from your amulet.”

Ren considered that. “I just knew that thing didn’t belong here,” she said. “And you’re welcome.”

Alex didn’t get much sleep for the rest of the night. Instead, he kept watch. He was sure the sheut had followed them from the afterlife. What if something else had?

And there was another shadow that wasn’t so easy to dismiss. This one wasn’t looming over him, but lurking inside. Ren’s words played on a loop in his head: That thing didn’t belong here, she’d said. And she was right. It had returned from the afterlife, after all.

But then, hadn’t Alex done the same thing when his mom brought him back?

He watched the new day dawn in softly glowing purples and pinks and wondered: Do I have any more right to this sunrise than that desperate spirit did?