For a good minute, I stood there in the graveyard, letting the truth sink into me. I was not a child any longer, and I wasn’t going to deny what was happening, what I was seeing with my own eyes and feeling under my skin.

“Into the darkness,” I said softly, making my feet move. “And find the lights along the way.”

Whatever Gran had done, she’d done it for a reason.

Which meant I wasn’t slowing down.

The path took us under a long line of trees, the branches reaching low, tugging on my hair in places. Now that my eyes were adjusted to the darkness, there were other shapes darting around, ducking behind trees as they followed me and Robert. But none popped out the way he had.

“Any idea who is out there, Robert?” I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.

“Dead.”

Well, maybe I was wrong about that.

“Not exactly the most comforting answer.” I rubbed at my lower back, already feeling the jarring in my spine stiffening from riding the bucking, twisting wolf. I wasn’t going to let the growing aches stop me. I’d go back to the loft after this, take a couple Advil chased with that whiskey Corb thought he was hiding in the top cupboard above the fridge, run a hot bath, and call it a night to remember.

“I won’t forget this night, not if I live to be a hundred,” I said.

Robert grunted.

“Don’t you sass me,” I said. No, I had no idea what the grunt meant, but let’s be honest, men grunting usually means they’re thinking something smart-assy.

Robert twisted his head to the side and shrugged.

The path came to a crossroads intersection, giving me three options. I paused and stared at the ground in the middle. As I crouched, the clouds shifted and the moon made an appearance, showing off the solid black stone in the middle of the juncture.

I dropped lower yet to get a better look with a grimace and the pulling of muscles that had only recently been activated after years of dormancy. A compass was set into the stone, its moveable parts made of bright, shining silver. I bent and pushed the little arrow and it swung around and around, finally pointing north. “What do you think, Robert?”

According to the compass, I’d come in from the east, so I could go north, south, or east.

His skeletal finger traced the compass and tapped the E.

“East it is.” I stood and took a step, but Robert didn’t come with me. I looked back at him. “Can’t come any farther?”

He sat there, crouched over the compass, swaying faster and faster. Agitated, if I were to guess. “Dead.”