What if this could be my life? What if I actually survive until graduation, move to a city with rainbow-stickered doors, look through my own windows at a world that continues turning? Maybe my life doesn’t have to end in tragedy and become someone else’s story to tell, after all.

Maybe I’ll actually get to tell it myself.

As the sun sets the next evening—three more days to go—I pull out that strange collection of witchy things I found under the sink. Over the past day, I’ve finally come to realize something I should have understood about them from the beginning. Somehow, despite seeing the future multiple times, I still missed what was right in front of me.

Clearing my mind, I reach out for my two remaining allies. I’m miles away from Fulton Heights, and this power is changing every day, but I’ve been inside both their heads before, and finding them again—even at a great distance—proves easier than I expected. All I have to do is plant a suggestion, and within minutes I know that first one of them and then the other is on the way.

The next time there’s a knock at my door, that recognizable whisper is already traveling over my skin, and his scent even seems to hang in the air—lemongrass and cigarettes. When I open the door, Jude Marlowe appears nervous, his brow furrowed, his pouty lips turned down at the edges. He’s wearing the same jacket and ripped jeans he had on the day we met, and I try not to check out his knees. I need to play it cool.

“August.” He peers past me, looking into the empty apartment. “What … am I doing here? What are you doing here?”

“It’s a long story.” I don’t elaborate, because whatever I think I can count on him for, it’s still better to share only what’s necessary. He still works for the Syndicate. “You can come in. I mean, if you need an invitation. I don’t own the place, so…”

He crosses the threshold and stops in front of me, worried eyes studying my face. “You disappeared yesterday. I went looking for you, and you were gone, and I … I started to panic. I thought maybe Rasputin—”

“Don’t worry, I’m okay.” I’m stating the obvious, but I’m a little flustered. I’d planned on offering Jude a seat, playing the part of considerate host, but he’s standing really close to me—his lips are really close to mine—and there’s this constant woogah woogah siren coming from between my legs now. I’m a mess. “I kind of had to get out of town.”