“Watch out!” Lukas yelled in the front seat. “Other lane, other lane!”
I fell against Natalie as Simon took a sharp right, and I swear the wheels on the left side of the car caught some air.
When we didn’t all die in a fiery crash, Lukas said, “Dude, where did you learn to drive?”
“London,” Simon said calmly. “This is nothing.”
“Right side, right side!”
I pulled out my iPhone and googled Cambridge Memorial Church, then checked MapQuest for the directions. I handed the phone to Lukas, so he could help Simon navigate from the front seat, then settled back. What were we doing? What made me think we’d actually find that guy I’d seen when I’d flashed on the disk?
I pressed my hand against the pocket of my jacket, feeling the shape of the coin through the fabric. The metal still echoed with Neos’s twisted power, but I sensed deeper impressions than his. Maybe a faint tracing of Nicholas’s touch—and mine, too.
There was much tire squealing and seat gripping as we entered Cambridge, and I suddenly called, “Wait! Stop! Pull over.”
The car jerked toward the curb. Horns blared behind us, but Simon didn’t seem to notice. He parked beside a No Parking sign and turned in his seat, looking at me expectantly.
I pointed toward the door with the cheerful wreath. “I saw that in my vision. I chased him past here. Everybody out.”
Simon put on the hazard lights and we all piled out of the car. I stood a moment, unsure what to do. It looked like a regular morning in a nice part of town. No dark figures lurked, no tendrils of strange power coiled from the shadows.
We looked down the street, and a light fog began to move in, though the sun still shone. The fog seemed to rise from nowhere in particular, thick and silvery.
“Um,” Natalie said. “That’s not normal.”
“No.” Simon’s forehead furrowed. “That’s a spectral fog.”
“What does that mean?” Lukas asked.
“That it’s only visible to us, in the way that ghosts are visible, and will—”
“There!” I said, pointing, as the man from my vision slipped through the thickening mist.
I jogged after him, and Simon called, “Wait!”
When I glanced over my shoulder, the fog was already too thick to see them, ten feet behind. I said, “Over here.”
“Where?” Natalie said. Then she blurted, “Hey! Lukas!”
“Sorry, dude,” he apologized. “I thought you were a street sign.”
“Yeah? Well, it says, ‘No Groping.’ ”
Now I felt like saying “bloody teenagers.” Instead, I called back, “Follow me—follow my voice.”
I didn’t hear them answer as I passed the block of brick buildings and little cafés and ran into the alley that opened onto the square. When I stopped at the other end, I heard a scream behind me.
“Natalie!”
I heard scuffling, then the thud of a body hitting the ground. I raced back through the alley, my power blazing, and tripped over Simon’s limp form. I went sprawling across him and smacked into a trash can.
I stood in a crouch, my dagger in one hand and a blazing ball of dispelling lightning in the other, but there was nothing. No ghosts that I could sense, no waiting wraiths.
“Simon,” I hissed. “Are you okay? Natalie?”
“Here,” she said. “I’m good. He’s okay—that thing came outta nowhere, smacked Simon into the wall, and knocked Lukas on his butt.”
Simon groaned. “Did you feel his power?”
“I felt his right hook,” Lukas said, cupping his bloody nose in his hand.
“I don’t know what that was,” Simon said, “but it was powerful.”
“Stay here,” I told Natalie. “Keep them safe.”
“Me? I’m a summoner—what can I do?”
“I don’t know,” I said, trotting away. “But you’re the only one still standing.”
Across from the alley, I found the Cambridge Memorial Church, just like in my vision—and now I felt a hard swirl of power inside.
I didn’t stop running until I reached the front doors. They were grand and imposing, made of ancient oak with iron latches. I paused and caught my breath and drew my energy close.
Maybe I should’ve waited for the team, but my spine tingled with warning as ghostly energy radiated down my arms to my fingertips. Something very powerful was inside the church.
I opened the door and the fog billowed around me through the doorway, then dissipated in the church. Stained-glass windows lined the walls, and rows of pale wooden pews led to an intricately designed dais.
I slunk to one side of the room and crept forward, the rubber soles on my boots completely silent. I passed a little niche with candles and considered lighting one for strength. I had no idea what I was facing. By the time I reached the podium in front, my hand throbbed from gripping my dagger, and my breath sounded harsh in the enormous empty room.
Three steps later, a dark shape launched at me from behind a curtain.
I slashed with my dagger as his fist came flying at my face before stopping an inch away. I didn’t wonder at his hesitation, because I was already pivoting and sweeping his feet from beneath him.
He slammed to the ground and said, “Emma!”
I looked down and was shocked at my discovery. “Oh my God. Bennett! What are you doing here?”
“Getting my butt kicked.” He stood with a grunt. “How about you?”
“Chasing some new kind of wraith or something. There’s this spectral fog … we don’t know what’s behind it.”
“I know. I got lost in it outside. Something was following me. I couldn’t see what I was doing, couldn’t dispel, so I knocked them down and took refuge here.”
“Wait,” I said. “That was you? That was us, Bennett. Didn’t you recognize Natalie?”
His face darkened. “Was that her?”
I frowned. “How could you not—”
“This isn’t really how I imagined our reunion.” He half smiled.
“Yeah.” I couldn’t believe he was here. That he had been the figure in my vision. He’d seemed so villainous. I’d thought he must be Neos.
“Is that my sister’s jacket?” he asked.
“Oh. Yeah, sorry. Natalie said I should get a new one, but—”
“That’s okay,” he said, his gaze intent on my face, like he was trying to memorize me. “She’d want you to have it.”
He looked like he’d lost weight, his cheekbones more defined and dark circles under his eyes. Still, those cobalt blue eyes—I could lose myself in them forever. Okay, so maybe I didn’t completely trust him; that didn’t mean I didn’t still need him. I stepped closer, wanting to throw my arms around him, bury my face in his neck, and smell his boy scent that was so familiar and foreign at the same time.
I managed to restrain myself, and he brushed my hair back with his hand. I felt my heart hammering again—but no longer from fear.
“That looks dangerous.” He nodded toward my dagger.
I sheathed it. “It was Emma’s.”
“Oh, right.” He nodded. “From the battle of the ghasts.”
“Who reports to you?” I asked. “The Knell, or Natalie?”
“Are they telling me anything you don’t want me to know?” His tone was teasing and unrepentant about spying on me.
“No.” But I wasn’t telling the whole truth. I couldn’t get over my parents’ distrust of him. The little seed of doubt they’d planted.
I started to say more, when the front door of the church opened. “That must be Natalie and the others,” I said.
“Come here.” He took my hand and led me behind the curtain. “I’m not done with you yet.”
I liked the sound of that. We climbed stairs that led to a galley overlooking the room below, and Bennett drew me into a secluded nook, hidden from anyone entering the building.
I licked my lips as he pulled me closer, tracing my hair with his fingers. “I missed you,” he said. “Every day. Every night.”
“Me, too.” I moved to kiss him, but up close he looked even more exhausted, his skin and his eyes ringed with red. I stopped. “Are you all right?”
“I am now that you’re here.”
“You look terrible, Bennett, you look—”
He kissed me and I forgot everything but the touch of his lips and the feel of his hands. I stroked him with my eyes half closed … then noticed his fingers.
His nails had turned purple. A chill spread in my chest. “What are you doing?”
He saw me staring at his hands, and pulled them away. “It makes me stronger, Emma. It’s the only way to stop Neos. To be with you.”
“Simon says Asarum is addictive. And deadly.”
“Not as deadly as facing Neos without my full powers. I’m stronger than ever.” He loosed a glow of power. “I can help you bring him down.”
I swallowed. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the one stealing powers from ghostkeepers. You went to Abby and … and that guy in Maine, and—”
“I won’t let you face Neos alone,” he said.
“You’re gonna kill yourself with this stuff. Look at you.”
“I’d die for you.”
I could see the truth in his eyes. “No, Bennett. I don’t want you to die for me! I want us to live for each other, I want—”
Natalie’s voice called out from below. “Emma? Emma, where are you?”
“We’re here!” I cried.
“Don’t go,” Bennett begged, taking my arm.
I couldn’t help staring at his hands. “I have to. They’re worried.”
“Don’t be angry. There was no other way.”
“I’m not angry. I just … you look like you’re dying and—will you stop? You’re strong enough.”
“Not yet,” he said. “Not until he’s gone.”
I shook my head, tears in my eyes, as Natalie and the others called my name below. “I can’t do this without you,” I said. “I need you, I need you with me.”
His eyes held something suddenly fierce. “They expect you to do everything. Let Emma fight, let Emma die. I’m not just here to hold your hand, Emma, I’m here to fight beside you. And if this is what it takes—”
“Where are you?” Natalie called.
“I’m here,” I yelled, still looking at Bennett and blinking back tears. “Upstairs.”
“I love you,” he said. “Never doubt that.”
I pressed my lips against his, trying to compress all my love and worries and desires into one little kiss. We lingered a moment, cheeks pressed together, skin to skin, my hand pressed against his beating heart, neither of us wanting to let go.
“Emma!” Simon yelled. “Report in now!”
I buried my face in his neck one last time, then stepped from the nook and leaned against the railing of the galley, where I saw the team spread out among the pews in the room. Simon’s training was evident in how they kept their backs to each other, prepared for any attack.
“Up here,” I said. “I’m okay. I’m coming down.”
I heard the galley door close behind me and didn’t even turn around. I knew he was gone.