Dr. Aditi nodded politely as the cemetery lady let her have it.

“Yes, well, we have interns here, too, but ours know their place!”

“I’m sorry,” said Aditi. “I can assure you it won’t happen again.”

“Yes, well, I should hope it doesn’t.”

Aditi played her best card: “They are Americans. Spirited, but …”

“That’s one word for it, I suppose,” said the lady. She seemed to consider something, and then let it go. “Yes, yes, they certainly were spirited. And resourceful. I have no idea how they got that lock open.”

“I think they teach that in the schools over there,” said Aditi.

The lady shook her head lightly and let her frown slip away.

“Yanks …” said Aditi, and the two shared a playful, conspiratorial smile.

The lady handed her the letter Ren had dropped, the number she’d used to call her circled in blue pen at the top. “Yours, I believe.”

“Thank you,” Aditi said, taking the list of emergency contact numbers. “Let me know if the museum can do anything for you here.”

“Always looking for funds.”

Another shared smile, then the gatekeeper headed back to her post and Aditi headed up the hillside. She sighed heavily as she topped the stone stairs at the edge of the courtyard and saw the slightly muddy main path. She was wearing entirely the wrong shoes for this.

“Alex! Ren!” she called. “Come along, please! I’m not sure it’s quite … safe here!”

She paused to look up the path and then cast a quick, nervous glance over her shoulder. She checked her phone: still no response to her calls and texts. She pocketed it and began to trudge upward. Todtman had warned her about the kids’ “initiative,” as he called it. He seemed to think it was a good thing. She wasn’t so sure.

“Alex!” she called. “Ren!”

No answer. She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and then continued on. She turned a gentle corner and saw a dead tree branch, split in two and lying in the middle of the walking path.

Strange, she thought. The rest of the grounds seemed well maintained.

She looked up to make sure another branch wasn’t about to fall but heard heavy footsteps behind her. “Alex?” she said, turning. “Re …” Her voice trailed away.

The response came in a ragged rasp: “ ’Ello, luv.”

Two strong hands clamped down on her shoulders. She tried to shake free. She struggled hard and did everything right: two hands on one wrist, find the weak point. It didn’t matter. His grip was like stone.

Broken sounds spilled from the thing’s lips, and this time Aditi caught only one word: “Hungry.” The tussle with the Amulet Keeper had taken something out of him. He needed to feed.

Aditi glared up at the man. He was disfigured by both death and afterlife, but she recognized him just the same. “I know you,” she said, and then spat in his face.

If he reaches up to wipe it away, she thought, maybe I can slip free.

He didn’t.

His powerful hands dug into her shoulders as he opened his mouth wide and showed her oblivion. The world went cold, and the last thing she saw as her eyes turned white and her lips edged past purple was her very self, slipping away.

Alex’s head was throbbing as they rode the train back to the Campbell. Using the amulet had always left him with headaches, and they seemed to be getting worse the better he got with the thing. He turned things over in his aching head as best he could. One grave robbed of gold, another containing Egyptian jars, and a Death Walker in … what, exactly? He wasn’t entirely sure what was under all that filth, but he thought it might be … khaki? He pictured the man’s face: damaged but pale. Replayed his words: ragged and torn but English. But how could a Death Walker — revived by the Lost Spells of ancient Egypt — be English?

He turned his tender head toward Ren. If anyone could piece this together … But he could see right away that she wasn’t up for a debriefing. Shivering slightly in the seat next to him, she looked small and fragile.

She saw him looking. “I feel so … hollow,” she said. She opened her mouth to clarify but couldn’t find the words. She gazed down at the train floor, as if she might have dropped them there.

All Alex could do was nod. He knew exactly what she meant. He knew the ache in her heart and the dog-just-died feeling in her gut. He knew it well. His soul had slipped away before, after all. They rode on in heavy silence.

By the time they reached the Campbell Collection, his headache was a full-blown migraine. Somers was behind the front desk, and he had a single message to relay: “Aditi’s looking for you. You are both in trouble.”

They knew that already. There was a Death Walker in town. The two slunk upstairs, past a handful of late-day browsers. Alex rifled through his stuff for his bottle of headache pills, took two too many, and collapsed onto his bed.

The pressure inside his skull was unbearable. He edged toward unconsciousness, and hoped for it. Ren called through the wall, something about messages. She’d plugged in her phone.

Alex didn’t answer. He’d begun the day in a dark mood. He would end it in darkness.