“Right, the coffin. We call him Fred,” says Philippa. “He’s empty,” she adds, almost as an afterthought.

I sigh a little with relief, but then inhale sharply as Philippa swerves between two trucks and hits the gas. Lucas closes his eyes. And this, I think, is how I’m going to die. Again. Not in a river, and not at the Emissary’s hands, but in a hearse, hurtling through afternoon traffic toward Lake Pontchartrain.

I grip the broken evil eye charm in my pocket, squeezing until my fingers ache. I wasn’t sure if we were right about the bridge, but as the hearse races north, I can feel it, like a shadow at the edge of my sight, a patch of cold on a warm day, and I know we’re going the right way.

“Music?” asks Philippa, already switching on the radio. I don’t know what I expected—rock, or pop, even classical—but what spills out is a series of low gongs, a meditation track so at odds with the racing hearse and my rising panic I almost laugh.

As we drive on, I hold the red backpack in my lap, running my thumb over the stitched letter L I never noticed on the front.

“Do you think we’ll get there in time?” I ask.

I probably just want an adult to lie and tell me things are going to be okay, but Lucas says nothing, and Philippa looks at me in the rearview mirror and says, “I don’t know, Cassidy.”

And before I can get upset, she slams on the brakes, and if Jacob were corporeal, I’m pretty sure he would have gone through the front window. Instead, he braces himself against the back of the seat. I think of the display case shattering under his fist, of how strong he’s getting, how, until yesterday, my biggest fear was him becoming an out-of-control spirit I’d have to send on. Everything changes so fast.

“You’re staring,” he says, and I blink, too quick, the way Dad does when there’s a sappy commercial on and he’s trying not to cry.

“Because you look funny,” I say.

And he sticks out his tongue.

And I stick out mine, too.

I’m glad Jacob’s not a normal ghost.

I’m glad he’s stronger than ever.

I need him to be.

I don’t want to lose him.

I don’t want to lose Lara.

I don’t want to lose anyone.

There is no victory without defeat, said the fortune-teller, but Dad said you can’t tell the future, because we haven’t lived it yet. He said that the cards were only mirrors, reflecting our own thoughts, and hopes, and fears.

So I know what I’m scared of, but I also know it isn’t set in stone.

I know that I can save one of my friends without losing the other.