“Stick very close to me,” I say, before opening the door to the lair below. We slip down the rungs in the silence and move down the dimly lit passageway toward a stir of voices. I slip past an empty door and crack open two others. Where are the voices coming from? The corridor is drafty, but I’m dripping with sweat. The hall curves the familiar way. Dim light paints the corridor. Beds protrude from the walls, thin slivers of metal topped with blankets and stuffing. Still no sign of someone on duty. That’s not smart. Even I know that. The air is a mix of snores and people tossing in their sleep. Every several feet we pass a door like the one to the room where Bri and I had pored over spell books before leaving here. No indication anything’s even off.

“I badee, ya lilo,” a low voice says.

I freeze, but it’s just someone mumbling in their sleep. We tiptoe past, and something brushes my thigh. I jump. Shit! But it’s a hand dangling over the bedside. I scoot aside and pick up the pace. The hall opens up and snakes in opposite directions. Julius looks at me and I can hear the question in his head. Which way?

The rooms, from what I recall, are off to the left. We hang a left and I can feel Julius’s breathing at my back. This hallway isn’t lined with beds, just glass domes around flames pressed into the gritty walls.

“He should be somewhere down here,” I whisper, and Julius nods.

Creak.

My heart stammers in my chest and I yank Julius beside me, back to the wall, in shadow. Voices swell. I look but don’t see anyone. A door creaks open and the sliver of light cuts a slice out of the hallway. I creep closer, trying to make sense of the voices. They are whispered and… familiar.

“How long must I wait?” someone says, her voice sharp but high.

“I don’t know,” Jhamal’s voice is tight, laced with panic.

“That’s ole dude, ain’t it?” Julius asks, but I shush him. I can’t see who’s talking but I’d know that voice anywhere.

“Just don’t be rash,” Jhamal says, uneasiness in his tone, like each word makes him nauseous. Just hearing him makes my heart beat faster—raises my temperature.

“You’d said you’d keep her close,” the girl says with biting irritation, “but she’s off gallivanting around the island.”

She…?

Me?

“To find the spell,” he says. “Reaching the Ancestors, we agree, is the priority.”

“Yes, if only your fellow Beerchi saw it that way. She will complete the spell here, yes?”

That matter-of-fact tone. Is that…?