Behind him, bugs are everywhere—swarming the trees, the grass, all over the tree trunks. There is such a huge number of them that I can hear the sounds of millions of tiny mouths devouring the leaves, the pitter-patter of thousands of minuscule feet, possibly even the sound of bug poop falling.

“What’s with the bugs?” Germ asks as Ebb approaches us.

“They think I’m gonna fight witches and save the world,” I say.

“Oh,” Germ says flatly.

“We’re looking for the Murderer,” Germ explains to Ebb as he reaches us. “Is he here?

Ebb glances over his shoulder, and then looks back at us and shakes his head.

“He’s not with us tonight. He went the other way.”

I nod. “To the hospital?” I say. “We’ll go find him there.”

Ebb looks uncertain, then looks up at the sky. “I don’t know if it’s the best night to go looking for the Murderer or anyone else. So cloudy tonight, the moon is blocked. It worries me. What if…”

But I’m already climbing back onto my bike, because it’s too important to wait. And before Ebb can finish, Germ and I are careening down the driveway and barreling onto Waterside Road.

“Be careful!” Ebb calls to us helplessly from the driveway, and I cast one look at him over my shoulder and nod before we vanish behind the trees.

Within half an hour we’re on the lonely, woodsy road to Saint Ignatius. I’ve clipped my Harry Potter Lumos flashlight into a place I made on my handlebars to act as a headlight. Patches of fog roll by us as we ride north. Crickets and tree frogs sing from the trees.

Finally the broken-toothed silhouette of the hospital looms up ahead. Even Germ slows down at the sight, her feet going still on her pedals.

In the dark, with the magic fabric visible, the place is transformed.

The yard around the hospital is full to the brim with soldiers—young men in green uniforms, some in much older-looking blue ones, some missing arms or legs, some with bandages around their heads—too many to count. There are also nurses in old-fashioned dresses, doctors in old-fashioned attire, one doctor with a beard all the way to his waist. Scattered among them are a few other patients—women and men in civilian clothes, but not many.

The night is growing dark, but the gathering of ghosts casts a glow big enough to light the whole hospital. They all turn to look at us as we inch slowly toward them.

I scan the crowd for the Murderer, but my heart sinks—he’s not in the outer yard.