Jacob, on the other hand, looks like a ghost. He stands there staring out into the mist, thin and pale as a sliver of ice, and I remember the horrible feeling I had when the Emissary had him, like the thing between us was breaking. Like I was losing him.

Jacob, I think, but he doesn’t glance over.

“Look at me,” I say, catching his face in my hands. “Your name is Jacob Ellis Hale, you have two brothers, you lived and drowned in upstate New York and then you saved my life, and now we’re best friends.”

He stares straight at me for a long moment, and then he scrunches up his face. “I know,” he says, as if I’ve lost my mind.

I throw my arms around his shoulders and try not to think about how light he feels, like he’s not all there.

“I thought I lost you,” I say.

“Rule number eighty-one of friendship,” he answers. “Friends don’t let friends get murdered by horrifying skull monsters on the bridge between the Veil and the place beyond.”

I laugh, and pull back to look at him.

And then I punch him in the shoulder.

“Ow!”

“You don’t feel pain,” I say.

“Says you,” he says, rubbing his arm. “What was that for?”

“You could have died,” I snap. “Again.”

“Yeah, well. It worked, didn’t it?”

“If it’s all the same to you,” says Lara, swinging her red backpack onto her shoulder, “I’d really like to get out of here.”

“Agreed,” says Jacob.

“Yeah,” I chime in. Even without the Emissary, the Bridge of Souls is not a friendly place.

We start back, side by side, Jacob recounting our adventure like a highlight reel, telling Lara about the hearse and the river before diving into the parts she was there for. It feels like we walked so far. But going back the other way, the bridge is short. Soon the mist clears, and the edge of the lake comes into sight. We step off the bridge, back into the pale gray landscape of the Veil, the space flat and blank as paper.

I’m already reaching for the curtain of the Veil, already dreaming of solid ground and a hot shower, and a long night’s sleep, when Jacob clears his throat.

“Hey,” he says. “Um, I think something’s wrong.”

I look back over my shoulder. “What?”

Jacob reaches out, as if for the Veil, opens and closes his hand, but there’s nothing there. His fingers fall back to his side.

“I don’t think I can …”