And then Imogen. She was the first good thing that Emma Hart ever found. Imogen is the happiness she waited for, years and decades.

Almost a century.

I step back from Emma, finally understanding why Imogen risked so much to find her. Imogen lays her head on Emma’s shoulder, and Emma runs a hand over Imogen’s hair. I’ve found the heart of another secret: the Grays are always touching and kissing each other because so many before us couldn’t. Each kiss carries the weight of so many kisses that never were.

Every touch is an invisible battle won.

“I first thought I might be able to bring Emma back when I saw the cut that June’s athame made,” Imogen says. “And then . . . and then after what happened with Rush, I didn’t know if I should try it. But it always felt like Emma should be right there with me. Even when I wanted to kiss Rush, even when I dreamed of leaving Tempest someday. There was a space for Emma that wasn’t for anyone else.”

Emma looks at Imogen like she’s the moon, shining hard enough to light the whole dark world.

Imogen gets lost in that look for a second, and then she comes back to me. “It took time to build the spell. I had to find Emma’s name. She’d lost it a long time ago. It would have been easier to tell the Grays, to have them help me, but . . . I didn’t think they would understand. Or they would, and then they’d be mad at me for keeping so much of my life a secret.”

Imogen kept parts of herself hidden. Imogen did magic by herself.

Imogen was not the perfect girl the Grays needed her to be, and she knew it.

But Hawthorn was right: Imogen should have trusted them. She could have shown them every so-called imperfection, every strange longing and rough patch in her heart. They would have loved her anyway. Maybe they would have loved her better if they knew all of her.

“Why are you still here?” I ask. “If the whole point was to bring Emma back?”

“Blowback.” Imogen hesitates, and I nod at her to keep going. I know what blowback is, thanks to Hawthorn and the failed wards. “The spell brought me here, to Emma, and I thought I would be able to carry her out with me. But I couldn’t. My magic wasn’t enough, or it wasn’t the right kind, and I just . . . couldn’t.”

Emma gives Imogen a pained smile. She turns to me with a prim set to her features that I realize is worry. “We needed a witch with just the right ability.” I look down at my arm. Haven’s storm washed away most of the map, but the last smudges are there, a faint but visible X lodged in the softness near my wrist.