Hovering in the doorway, looking very dim, and grumpier than ever, Ebb frowns at me for a moment. Then a smile lights up his face.

We sit near the edge of the cliffs looking out at the ocean, me in my coat and wrapped in a blanket, and Ebb undisturbed by the cold. The haze of the Beyond is extra-bright pink in the pitch-dark sky, putting on a rare show. I think how Ebb will be tied to my house forever, even if it crumbles to nothing—until he moves on to the pink haze above us.

“So we just need to find a weapon that’s close to your heart,” Ebb says. “Surely there’s something lying around here you can use.”

“Believe me, there are no weapons close to my heart,” I say flatly, leaning back on my mittened hands, frustrated. “I’m not really a weapon-y kind of person? I have bitten a few people.”

We’re quiet for a long time, and I feel a little shy around Ebb suddenly. Even though he’s a dead boy and an older one, it’s a little awkward to sit alone with a boy at night. Maybe not for him, but definitely for me.

“Are you going to leave if you can’t figure it out?”

“I guess I have no choice,” I say.

“Especially with the Time Witch involved,” Ebb adds, his face hardening.

“To think of leaving my mom and Germ…” I trail off because I can’t put it into words, what this feels like. “My mom’s already forgotten me. What if Germ forgets me too?”

Ebb is silent, just listening.

“I wish she and I could make a pact, like we did when we were little. To always be each other’s favorite person in the world, best friends. But you can’t promise stuff like that.”

Ebb looks at me openly.

“I doubt you’ll ever really lose Germ. Maybe you just don’t have to hold on so tight.”

He looks full of something he wants to say.

“I’m sorry I brought all this on you. I’m sorry I showed you the witch book, and the memory moths that night. Things would be so much easier for you if I hadn’t.”

I consider this, then shake my head. “The hidden world is full of all this terrible stuff. But it’s also full of incredible things, and bigger than what I knew before. It feels like something I always longed for, to know there was more than just what I see around me. As scared as I am, I wouldn’t go back to not knowing.”

Ebb goes dim, then bright, then dim.

“You were right about my dad,” I finally say. “He’s not out there. He’s just gone.”