“It’s important,” I say. “Please?”

She turns away and begins tidying the papers on her desk. Her movements are brusque. Efficient. “Will there be anything else?” she asks without looking up.

“Could you … could you at least find me the surname of one of the apprentices who trained with her? Someone she mentioned once? Maybe that will give me enough to go on.”

The librarian pauses. Cocks her head to one side as she considers my request. Then she sighs. “I don’t see how a name would hurt anything.”

“Thank you,” I say, taking my first deep breath since the conversation started. “That would be so helpful.”

She stands and motions toward a junior librarian to take her place behind the desk. “What is the apprentice’s first name?”

“Avalina,” I say. “She started the same year as my mother, Della Holte.”

“Old student records are on the sixth floor, so it’s going to take me some time. Wait here.”

And I do.

I wait and wait and wait some more.

The light in the library grows dim. Shadows fall across the shelves. I pace the length of the library, as if keeping my feet moving might speed the process. The junior librarian—a young man only a few years older than me—keeps casting anxious glances toward the staircase, as if he, too, thinks his superior has been away overly long.

Finally I hear the click of boots on the bone steps, and my pulse quickens.

The librarian rounds the corner, her arms empty. “I’m sorry. There’s no apprentice by that name in the records.”

“But that makes no sense. She trained here. How could there be nothing?”

“Sorry,” she repeats, lifting one shoulder, nonchalant. “I can’t produce something that doesn’t exist.” But there’s something in the set of her jaw, in the careful way her eyes avoid meeting mine. She knows more than she’s saying. She saw something in those records that she isn’t willing to share.

Anger flares in my chest, but losing my temper is unlikely to sway her. “What am I supposed to do now?” I ask under my breath. It’s a question directed more to myself than to the librarian, but she answers anyway.

“Maybe it’s time to let this project go. Your memories of your mother are the ones that matter most anyway.”

Her words make my throat ache, and I wish I could tell her that there’s so much more at stake than memories. Avalina is my best chance at finding Latham. And finding Latham is the only way I’ll find my mother’s bones.

But I’ll need a different plan. It seems I’m searching for a ghost.