Germ yanks on my arm, and after a moment I fall into step behind her. But as we launch into motion, I turn my head back to look once at the Murderer. Something strange is happening to him. He is holding out his hands, staring at them. A pink, sparkling dust has appeared around him. He looks at me and lets out a laugh.

This is the last glimpse I have of him—surrounded by sparkling dust and rising slowly from the ground as Germ and I turn away and race across the hospital lawn.

I don’t have time to wonder about his fate. I only run.

We’re on our bikes within seconds, standing on our pedals and thrusting up the hill. It’s so dark, we can’t see more than ten feet ahead of us, and that’s only thanks to my flashlight.

Heart pounding, iron taste in my mouth, I look up at the sky. If there’s a witch out there, it’s too dark to see her. I scan the darkness of the trees. I look for the sliver of the moon to show from behind the clouds.

“It’s too early,” I say to Germ as we pedal. “It’s not time. She can’t be coming.”

Germ casts me a doubtful look as we chug our exhausted legs up the incline. “I think maybe she’s going to take a chance,” she says.

We take a shortcut past the edge of town, soaring downhill. Germ is like lightning on her bike, but she keeps slowing to wait for me. It occurs to me for the millionth time that she’s much more of a fighter than I am.

“Strange weather,” someone calls out to us as we pedal past the convenience store. “Be careful, guys.”

And they’re right. Up ahead, lit from below by the lights of town, clouds are gathering very fast beyond the trees, in the direction of my house. I don’t like those clouds. And then, as we round the bend onto the beginning of Waterside Road, something happens that makes my heart falter. A luminous moth flutters past my face, just barely missing me. I watch it flap past—its iridescent, pattern-shifting wings are unmistakable. Germ and I exchange a panicked look.

A few minutes later, another slaps against my handlebars and tumbles off into the air.

The closer we get to home, the more memory moths fly out of the dark at us. We’re riding so fast, they only graze us as we whip past them.