I look at Jacob, but he’s still struggling to his feet.

And then a voice from the crypt over my head. A prim, English voice.

“Back off, reaper. She’s not going anywhere with you.”

The Emissary looks up, and so do I, and there’s Lara Chowdhury standing on the crypt roof, dressed in a pair of shorts, a gray blouse, and a bright red backpack.

I’m still trying to figure out how she’s there—if she’s there—when she disappears, jumping down from the crypt and out of sight.

Maybe she thought the Emissary would follow her, but it doesn’t.

“Lara?” I shout as the Emissary turns its focus back on me.

“Cassidy,” she says from the other side of the crypt. “You might want to get out of the way.”

The rotting tomb gives a violent groan against my back, and I realize what she’s doing. I lunge out of the way, just before the old crypt sways, and splits, and topples forward.

It doesn’t crush the Emissary, exactly. I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that can be crushed.

But the fall kicks up a lot of dust and debris, a thin gray cover. I hold my breath, trying not to inhale. A hand closes around my wrist, and I jump, stifling a shout, but it’s just Lara. Impossible, amazing Lara. Who’s really here.

“How are you here?” I ask, almost choking on crypt dust. “Where did you—”

“Questions later,” she says briskly. “Right now, run.”

I stumble, bending to scoop up my pendant from the weedy base of a grave, grimacing when I see the mirror is broken—not just splintered, but shattered. I pocket it as Lara pulls me up again and pushes me toward the gates.

Jacob staggers after us, still looking shaken and damp. “Are you okay?” I ask him.

“Zero out of ten,” he says with a shiver. “Do not recommend letting that thing touch you.”

“Less talk, more flee,” snaps Lara.

My ears are still ringing from the strange quiet that surrounds the Emissary, but as we near the graveyard gates, I swear I hear music. Not the eerie melody of the Veil but the high whine of a trumpet, followed by horns and a saxophone.

And then we hit the exit of St. Roch and I look up, and see a parade.

A very slow-moving parade. Cars crawl forward, and people walk on foot, some all in black and others in white, some holding flowers and others umbrellas. A marching band is staggered through the group like beads on a chain, gold instruments gleaming, as jazz rises through the street. And something moves at the center of it all, carried on either side by a pair of men.

It’s a casket.

And this, I realize, isn’t a parade.

It’s a funeral.

Lara pulls me straight toward it.