Shireen didn’t look upset. She stepped over the rope to the magic items section and picked up a wand, turning it over in her hands. “I was shielding you while you were in her memories,” she said without looking. “I’ve had a lot of time to practice with Elsewhere. I was trying to hide your presence so she wouldn’t see you. Rachel must have become suspicious. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t think you could have warned me about that BEFORE?”

“I know.”

“Jesus.” I looked away. The customers were still in the shop, their conversation a gentle background murmur. Outside was the strange white glow of Elsewhere; at some point we’d left my dreams. I knew that I could go back if I wanted—Shireen couldn’t actually keep me in Elsewhere against my will—but I didn’t. There were things I wanted to know, and this time I knew the right questions to ask. “I know what you are now,” I said. “You told me when we first met, didn’t you? You told me you were a shadow. I didn’t know what you meant, but I should have figured it out from the start. Harvesting steals someone’s magic, but your magic’s part of you, isn’t it? You can’t take one without the other. When Rachel Harvested you, she wasn’t just taking your magic, she was taking you. And you’ve been living inside her head.”

Shireen was silent for a while. “At first I didn’t know what had happened,” she said at last. “I thought I’d died and gone to . . . I don’t know. The next life, maybe. I felt wrong, like there were bits of me missing. And there were new memories. I could remember things I’d done with Rachel, except when I remembered them I was looking at me, from the outside. And then I started to see other things. The present as well as the past. I could see what Rachel saw.” Shireen looked up at me. “And finally I found I could talk to her.”

I stared at Shireen. “She can see you, can’t she?”

Shireen nodded.

I covered my eyes. “Jesus.” I remembered my reunion with Rachel last year. She’d been talking to thin air, speaking to someone who didn’t answer. Now I knew who she’d been talking to. “So all these years she’s had you looking over her shoulder?” I shook my head. “She murdered her best friend and now she’s got her ghost following her around. No wonder she’s crazy . . .”

“It’s . . . worse than that,” Shireen said.

I stared at her. “How?”

“You saw something in Rachel’s memories, didn’t you?” Shireen said. “Something they couldn’t see.”

“That thing . . .” I remembered the spindly, inhuman form and had to hold back a shiver. “It’s real?”

“It’s real.”

“What is it?”