Emmett is folding Boris, signaling that I’d better be ready to talk again, when a shiver of realization goes down my spine.

If the Horangi were trying to use the seventh artifact for their own benefit, chances are they’d want the eighth one, too. They may well have found it by now. And the bearded man had told me to return to the very beginning, to where I first started. He and the Haetae’s visions were both telling me the same thing.

I swallow hard. “I…I think I’ve figured it out, Em. But you’re not gonna like the answer….”

He crosses his arms. “Try me.”

I force out the words. “We need to find the Horangi clan.”

Emmett cracks up. “Good one, Rye. You almost had me there.”

I stay silent, and he abruptly stops laughing. “You’re kidding, right?”

I shake my head.

“The bearded man and the Haetae said we need to go to the cursed scholars to find the last fallen star?”

I nod. “You saw it in the letter, too. The Horangi were keeping track of the artifacts, and hiding the seventh one. I think they wanted to use it to become divine. If we want to find the eighth artifact, we need to find the scholars.”

“But you know what they did to my mom.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and nod, focusing on a spot on his forehead. “I know.”

“They’re dangerous.”

“I know.”

“And cursed!”

I cringe. “I know.”

Emmett throws his head back and starts cackling maniacally. “You can’t be serious right now.” Spit gathers at the edges of his mouth. “You’re basing this on the words of a giant scaly lion, who was probably a hallucination, and a bearded man who tried to kill us. Who even was he? Why would we trust him? There must be another way. There has to be!”

He looks down at his ring, then stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I can’t, Riley, I just can’t….”

I pinch my thigh. “I know, Em. I know.” I take a big breath. “Which is why I’ve decided to go on alone.”

He screws up his face but doesn’t say anything. So I continue.

“I don’t want to go there, either.” For more reasons than you know. “But I have to. I promised Hattie I would save her. But I can’t ask you to come with me. No—I don’t want you to come with me. You need to go home now.”

Emmett covers his face with his hands and kicks the pavement with his foot. “All of this scares me, Rye,” he finally says. “It scares the freaking jelly beans out of me.”