“Thank you,” she says. She’s polite enough to say that first. “But you can’t bribe me into staying. I’m taking my dad and we’re getting the hell out of here. You know that.”

“Of course,” Danny says.

“Sure,” Carrie says.

She gets the distinct impression they’re humoring her.

“I mean it. You only paid for a nicer moving van.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Oh, screw you both.”

They don’t talk about Eric much, apart from arranging the details. The service will be this weekend. His mother was difficult to track down, but after a great deal of negotiation and argument, she agreed to come. His father is flying from New York, and cannot speak to any of them on the phone without breaking into tears. They have to figure out who will deliver the eulogy.

Alana is still angry at Eric. Carrie is just sad. Danny believes Eric will leap out from behind a curtain and yell, “Abracadabra” and return from the dead. Alana has told him, repeatedly, that this will not happen. Danny just shrugs. “I have faith,” he says.

Whatever else Eric did, he saved them all. And a part of Alana will miss him terribly, and will always mourn what he could have been.

She blinks rapidly, then turns to watch the kids again.

Jeremy laughs and runs after Grace, who appears to be winning this game, whatever it is. He looks happy.

“Do you think it’s safe?”

Carrie knows what she means. She’s watching Jeremy and Grace too.

“No,” she says. “Not completely. But nothing is.”

Carrie and Danny have agreed to take Jeremy, until they can find his parents, or if they really are dead, the next closest relatives. But no matter what, they will take responsibility for him. He is going to be a very powerful magician. None of them have any doubt about that. He will need watching.

Alana isn’t sure they’re up for it. To be honest, neither is Carrie. (Danny is, but he’s always had that kind of blazing overconfidence in the face of the actual odds.)

“You’re taking an awfully big chance.”

“After what he’s been through, he deserves a chance,” Carrie says.

She had that line prepped and ready to go, Alana thinks but doesn’t say. Instead, she asks, “What happens when his powers come back? What if you take away his TV privileges and he decides to turn you into a fungus? Parenting is hard enough when your kid isn’t a necromancer, Carrie.”

Carrie looks at her evenly. “We’ll call you if we need you.”

Alana scowls and shakes her head.

She has to admit, though, that Grace doesn’t seem worried about Jeremy either. It is sort of amazing to her. Grace saw Jeremy — or rather, Colchester — at the center of a storm of horrors. Despite all of that, now she treats Jeremy like the little brother she’s never had.