“I know none of it makes sense,” I whispered at last. “I can’t explain it. And I don’t expect you to—”

“We know how to perform a cleansing ritual,” he blurted. “To clear a property of spirts. As investigators . . . it’s pretty much all we’ve got.”

Turning my head to stare forward, I went silent. Because what he was telling me was that SPOoKy was equipped to handle ghosts . . . and ghosts only. Still . . . the cleansing ritual was something. And Zedok at least had been a ghost. Or something like one. He’d dissolved into nothing when I’d pulled his mask free. Perhaps a cleansing ritual could get rid of him.

Then again, hadn’t an exorcism ritual almost killed Rastin Shirazi in front of a camera?

“Spirits,” said Lucas, “certain kinds of darker entities can make you see things. They can cause hallucinations.”

“You think Zedok made me see those things?”

“I think something did.”

“What about Erik?”

“I . . . I’m not ready to tell you what I think about Erik,” he said, a comment that caused my stomach to unwind so that it could twist itself the other way.

“Why?” I demanded.

“I’ll tell you,” he promised. “But . . . only after we do this. For now, just know that I have my reasons.”

What did he think? That Erik wasn’t who he said he was? That he could somehow be in league with this thing? Or even that he didn’t exist at all? Whatever Lucas thought, I had no other choice but to wait and find out.

“What happens to us if it doesn’t work?” I asked instead of pressing the issue.

“Then, whatever this thing is, it’s out of our league anyway,” he replied, like he’d already thought that part through. “And we’ll have to try something else. But right now, I think you have to agree, as far as options go, this is the only one we have.”

I frowned, still discomfited by his refusal to see things from my perspective—to even bend just a little. “But just in case it’s not a ghost we’re trying to get rid of—”

“Stephanie.”

“What?”

“Do you trust me?” he asked, turning his head to me with those beautiful, oceanic eyes.

In response, I could only gape at him. Because why did he have to ask me that question?

“I’m afraid to,” I said. “Especially when you don’t know what we’re up against.”

“That’s just it,” he said. “I think I do.”

“I see,” I said, reading the subtext loud and clear. My opinion couldn’t be trusted.

He went silent. Which at first made me even angrier. But then I asked myself what it would mean if Lucas was right about my having hallucinated. I’d done my job by telling him what had happened to me. Now it was up to him to tell me what that meant. I didn’t like it. But he’d asked me for my trust—something I wanted to give him. And he’d never given me a reason not to grant it.