There was a long hesitation. “That’s what I like about you, Ray-ray,” he said as I heard the sound of a sliding book followed by a thump. “You say the sweetest things.”

I waited, my stomach knotting as the sound of turning pages came faintly over the phone.

“Dead people,” he murmured, not fazed at all, while the butterflies battered my stomach with jackhammers. “Dead fairies. Dead ghosts. Will an invocation for ghosts do?”

“No.” I picked at my nail polish, watching Trent watch me as he talked to Edden.

“Dead kings, dead livestock… ah, dead people.”

My pulse increased and I fumbled in my bag for a pen.

“Okay…” He was silent, reading it over. “It’s simple enough, but I don’t think you can use it during the daytime.”

“Why not?”

“You know how tombstones in our world show up in the ever-after? Well, the charm makes unmarked graves in our world do the same. But you have to be able to see into the ever-after with your second sight, and you can’t do that unless the sun is down.”

“I can if I’m standing in a ley line,” I whispered, feeling cold. I’d never seen that tidbit of information written in a book. My dad had told me when I was eight.

“Rachel,” he protested after a moment’s hesitation. “You can’t. If that demon knows you’re in a ley line, he’ll try to pull you the rest of the way into the ever-after.”

“It can’t. It doesn’t own my soul,” I whispered, turning to hide my moving lips.

He was silent, and my breath sounded loud to me. “I don’t like it,” he finally said.

“I don’t like you calling up demons. And it’s an it, not a him.”

The phone was silent. I glanced at Trent, then turned my back on him. I wondered how good his hearing was.

“Yes,” Nick said, “but he owns two-thirds of my soul, and one-third of yours. What if—”

“Souls don’t add up like numbers, Nick,” I said, my voice harsh with worry. “It’s an all or nothing affair. It doesn’t have enough on me. It doesn’t have enough on you. I’m not walking out of here without proving Trent killed that woman. What’s the incantation?”

I waited, my knees going weak. “Got a pen?” he finally said, and I nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see the gesture.

“Yes,” I said, jiggling the phone to write on my palm like a test cheat sheet.

“Okay. It’s not long. I’ll translate everything but the invocation word in English, only because we don’t have a word that means the glowing ashes of the dead, and I think it’s important you get that part exactly right. Give me a moment, and I can make it rhyme.”