Emma brought me here for a reason. Me, not one of the others. “You think I can help you leave.”

Imogen looks at the map on my arm. “I didn’t know you did that,” she says to Emma.

Emma looks down at the ground, and when I follow her gaze I see that it isn’t earth but a shiny black mirror. “I was afraid you would tell me not to.”

“You’re right,” Imogen says to Emma, and then she spins to me. “It was dangerous for you to come. You have to go home before you get stuck here, too.” She’s staring at me as if it makes all the difference whether I make it back — and that look brings her fully to life, just for a moment. I want to see Imogen walking down the main street of Tempest or standing on the mother tree, blazing red-haired, leaving magic in her wake like a trail of coins dropped from her pockets. I don’t want to leave Emma behind either. She waited even longer than I did to find the Grays.

“Come on,” I say, holding out a hand for each of them. “We’re leaving this party together.”

Part Six: After Midnight

Danny: Now

How did you plan to do it?” My words sound tissue thin. The breaths I’m taking barely dent my lungs. Or maybe I’m just remembering breathing; maybe I don’t breathe at all in this place. “How were you going to bring Emma back with you?”

“I was going to offer her a place in my body,” Imogen says.

I nod, gulping air that feels like frosted glass.

“It didn’t work,” Imogen adds. “I wanted to do it, but that’s not the same as being able to. I guess it’s not the kind of thing that any witch can do. I thought . . . I thought that loving Emma would be enough.”

I try to find something inside me, something that I can shine up and call bravery. If I want to get all three of us out of here, I need to offer them both a place. Find space for them. And if I carry them out, Emma still won’t have a body, and Imogen won’t be able to carry her spirit.

“You would have to stay with me,” I say to Emma.

Emma bows her head quickly, keeping her eyes — her truth — hidden. “I want you to save Imogen. That’s all.”

But she’s been stuck here for lifetimes.

I think of all the loneliness, all of the nights when I went looking for a feeling that was less empty. Maybe this is the reason the Grays’ spell pulled me here, of all the possible witches, all the dowsers in the world.