Kane seized on the name. Adeline, the girl who had tried to give him his homework in bio. Adeline Bishop. “Popular” didn’t do her justice. It was more like Reigning Sociopath of Amity Regional High. What someone like her was doing in a boiler room, Kane didn’t get. He pictured the scene he was spying on: Ursula Abernathy, alleged lesbian jock; Elliot Levi, jawline-blessed Adonis; Adeline Bishop, the gold-plated queen bee, all having a secret meeting in the basement of the high school. It was an after-school special on break.

“But what about the reveries?” said Ursula. “It’s Kane’s job to unravel them. And what about those things he said chased him? They sounded like they escaped from a reverie. I didn’t even know things could escape from reveries.”

“Maybe it’s the next reverie,” Adeline said. “Sometimes the stronger reveries formed partially at first, in bits and pieces. Kane called them visions. Maybe the next reverie will form near Harrow Creek?”

Elliot sighed. “No, the next reverie is going to be here at the school. I’m sure of it.”

“Because of the lobsters that started glowing in the bio lab?”

“They’re not lobsters, Adeline. They’re isopods. Completely different thing.”

Kane could not see Adeline, but the eye roll was clear in her voice. “Elliot. Focus. The glowing is what’s important, not the taxonomy.”

“But isopods are—”

“Who cares?” cut in Ursula. “What’s important is that Kane is the one who usually unravels the reveries, and he’s basically powerless right now.”

“Good,” said Elliot and Adeline at the same time. Elliot picked it up: “We can’t risk involving Kane, not as he is now. Not even if he regained his powers. Remember what happened to Maxine?”

Kane’s stomach twisted. They knew about Maxine. They knew what happened. If there was any doubt he was involved with Maxine’s death, it had just been obliterated by the horrible connection this conversation was creating.

“We can’t manage another cover-up,” said Elliot. “We’re barely getting through this one.”

“But Urs is right, Elliot. We’re not the Others without Kane. We need him so we can do it right. I know I said I could probably handle erasing the reveries when they form, but it’s not the same.”

“If they form,” said Ursula, hopefully.

“When they form,” Adeline snapped. “And they will form. You know that. We need Kane’s powers, but we can’t involve Kane until we figure out a way to fix him.”

Fix him.

“He’s not broken,” Ursula said. “He’s just lost.”

“Whatever,” Adeline said. “Right now, he’s deadweight.”

“He’s our leader.”

“Then why did he abandon us, Ursula?”

Tension silenced the boiler room, letting the din wash back over the secret meeting.

“Kane hid a lot from us, didn’t he?” asked Ursula.