“No,” said Allie. “I understand.” Then Allie reached into her pocket, and pulled out something that had been sitting there, waiting for years. An Everlost coin. When Allie held it in her hand, the coin stayed cold and inert. As long as she could skinjack, the coin wouldn’t work for her. But it would work for Lacey. Allie held it out to the girl. “Would you like to have this?”

Lacey looked at the coin warily. “Mary said we should make a wish with it and throw it away—she said it wasn’t good for anything else—but you know what? I think she was lying.”

“It will get you out of Everlost,” Allie told her.

“Will it take me home like the ruby slippers?”

Allie thought about the question. “Yes,” she told Lacey. “Not the home where you’ve been, but the one you’re going to.”

Lacey shrugged. “I don’t remember the home I came from, anyway. All I remember is Everlost, Mary, and tictac-toe.” Lacey looked at the coin, still afraid to take it. “They say skinjackers can see the tunnel when people go in, and they know what’s there. Can you tell me?”

Allie shook her head. “We can see the tunnel, but the light at the end is too bright to see what’s there. . . . But I’ll bet you still remember how it felt in the tunnel, before you came to Everlost, don’t you?”

Lacey looked off into the sun to remind her. “I remember feeling . . . kind of good about it. But then I tripped over my laces and fell.”

“Maybe you’ll feel good this time too.”

Then Lacey grabbed her arm, tightly as if something might grab her at that very moment and take her away. “But what if it’s a trick? What if it’s a lie? What if the light’s bad—or what if it’s fake and there’s nothing there at all? What then?”

Allie grabbed Lacey and held her close, trying to comfort her, but how do you comfort someone from something you’re not sure of yourself? “I don’t know what’s in the light,” Allie said. “Only the people who get there know for sure. . . . But I do know this: Everyone who has ever lived has gone down the tunnel, and everyone who ever will live will go there too. So you’re in good company.”

“Not everyone gets where they’re going,” Lacey pointed out. “What about the souls who sink?”

“They’ll get there eventually, even if eventually means a long time.”

And then Lacey said, “Squirrel didn’t go into the light. He didn’t go anywhere at all. What about him?”

Allie closed her eyes. She never liked Squirrel, but he didn’t deserve to be extinguished. “Well,” Allie said, “that’s the exception that proves the rule.”