GOOSE BUMPS RAISE ON MY ARMS. I SWIVEL IN MY seat, stare blindly into the fog for whoever could’ve … what, put the sign here? They would’ve had to have known in advance what we’d be talking about, our exact wording, exactly where we’d be when we said it.

“How?” is all I can manage.

Elliott’s gaze is still glued to the white lettering. “The other signs,” he says.

I hit the gas again. We reverse back down the road at an unsafe speed, swerving crazily. Confusion and foreboding tangle in the pit of my stomach.

The prior sign comes back into view. I slow enough to read it. THAT’S WHY I BECAME THE SHADOWSEEKER, AFTER ALL.

“What,” Elliott says quietly, “the hell.”

I hit the gas again, doing forty in reverse now. It’s reckless. I don’t care. My confusion strengthens, the foreboding mushrooming into fear.

The third sign rises out of the mist. Before the car comes to a complete stop, Elliott has the door open and he’s climbing out, striding through the waist-high wire grass to read it. It’s incredibly dangerous in this fog, with the mainland full of who knows how many Beings lurking who knows where, but I clamber out too. Fuzzy tufts of grass shed onto my jeans as I come around the car and join Elliott in front of the sign.

THERE SHOULD BE ROAD SIGNS AROUND HERE AT SOME POINT, AND I DON’T WANT TO MISS THEM.

“I never said that.” My voice is too loud. It rings in my ears.

Elliott frowns. “It doesn’t match the others, then. So, what? It’s … a pattern? A puzzle? A message? This one is important for some reason?”

“No,” I correct his assumption, unable to tear my eyes away from the reflective white letters. “I never said that out loud.”

Elliott looks at me. He looks back at the sign.

“I thought it,” I tell him. Something—my heartbeat?—is roaring in my ears. “I thought it, in this exact wording, and then it appeared on a road sign ahead of us.”

Elliott stares at me for a long moment. Then: “Get back in the car.” The words crack through the fog like gunshots.

I bolt. The doors slam. He buckles his seat belt. I do mine too, but it doesn’t make me feel safer. I shift back into drive and put my foot on the pedal, shoving it to the floor.

Forty miles per hour. Fifty. Seventy. The engine sputters and then catches again, running on fumes now.

“The road signs know our thoughts,” Elliott says at last.

“I don’t—I don’t know.” I keep my eyes glued on the road, afraid to look at anything other than the asphalt.

“Is this the aliens messing with us? Are they mind readers or something?” His voice is too calm. He shouldn’t be calm. He should be raging, panicked, petrified.