“I accept!” I blurt out, figuring the goddess will supply more details. “I will find the Godrealm’s last fallen star and bring it to you.”

The goddess grabs her ladle and jumps up to her feet. “Well, isn’t that delightful news!”

“But how will we find you once we have it?” Emmett asks. His voice is trembling, but I’m glad he had the guts to ask, because it’s a good question. Without Hattie, we won’t be able to summon the goddess again.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little heads about that,” says the Cave Bear Goddess. “I will find you.”

She lifts her sand-covered ladle to the sky, and Hattie’s limp body rises from the ground and levitates. “I will take your witch with me for now, for safekeeping, but leave you with a memento of her. However, you should know, the Godrealm is no place for a wee mortal, even if she is a witch. She won’t last long there. When your time is up, the memento will help me locate you.”

The goddess snaps her fingers, and suddenly Hattie’s body disappears into the night air. Emmett and I gasp and leap to our feet.

“Wait…How long—?” I start.

“Well, I’d better be going now,” she says. And, as if on cue, her stomach rumbles. “My stew awaits. But it was a treat meeting you today. I really mean that. And I will see you two very soon.” She gives us a little wave of her ladle, and then just like that, she vanishes, too.

“But you didn’t…” I look at where she was standing a moment ago, and my mind reels. “Em, can you believe—”

But Emmett’s eyes are locked on a spot on the beach.

I follow his gaze and drop to my knees. Something under the sand is glowing.

“What is it?” I dig inside Hattie’s still-fresh outline.

Emmett picks up a small, dark object. “My ring’s here, but I don’t know what that is.”

I keep digging. My fingers land on something hard. I brush off the sand and hold it up to the moonlight. It’s a glass vial, small enough to fit in my palm.

It’s warm, and casting a red light.

And whatever is inside is beating.

I gasp, nearly dropping it back onto the sand. Floating inside the clear glass is a miniature human organ, veined and bloody and pumping steadily.

“What is it?” Emmett bites his lip so hard, a drop of blood blooms on it. “It looks like—”

“A heart. It looks like a heart,” I whisper, the words sticking in my throat.

“Ugh!” Emmett shrieks. “But how? Why?”

“The goddess said she’d leave a memento of Hattie with us. This must be it.”

Emmett undoes his black cord necklace and throws it at me. “Here, use this.”