We get closer to the airport, and the fear of splitting up weighs heavily on us. Sam tries to distract himself by studying the papers Six took from his dad’s office. “I wish I could spread these out in some library’s reference section.”

“After West Virginia,” I say. “I promise.”

Six gives me and Sam careful instructions on how to find the map that’ll take us to the cave. The rest of the trip passes in silence. We pull into a McDonald’s parking lot a mile from Dulles.

“There are three things you guys have to know.”

I sigh. “Why do I have the feeling that none of these things are going to be good?”

She ignores me and writes something on the back of a receipt. “First, here’s the address that I’ll be at in exactly two weeks at five p.m. Meet me there. If I’m not there, or, if for some reason you aren’t, then return in another week and I’ll do the same. If one of us doesn’t make it after the second week, then I think we can assume the other isn’t coming.” She hands it to Sam, who reads it and shoves it into his jeans pocket.

“Two weeks, five p.m.,” I say. “Got it. The second thing?”

“Bernie Kosar can’t go into the cave with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’ll kill him. I don’t understand it completely, but the Mogadorians control their beasts by filtering some sort of gas throughout the cave that only affects animals. If one leaves its designated place, it drops dead. When I finally got out, there was a heap of dead animals right at the cave’s entrance. Animals that had gotten too close.”

“Gross,” Sam says.

“And the last thing?”

“Their cave is equipped with every detection device you can think of. Cameras, motion detectors, body temperature gauges, infrared. Everything. The Xitharis will allow you to get past everything; but once it’s out of juice, look out, because they’re going to find you.”

“Where do we go?” I ask Adelina. Now that the Chest is gone, I feel directionless. Even with the amulet around my neck.

“We go to the belfry, and you use your telekinesis to get us into the yard. Then we run.”

I take her hand and start running when a ball of fire suddenly roars from the back of the nave. The fire takes hold of the back pews and rages towards the high ceiling. The nave is now brighter than it is during Sunday Mass. A man in a trench coat with long blond hair walks confidently out of the northern hallway, our path to freedom, and every muscle in my body seems to come unwound at the same time; every inch of skin breaks out with goose bumps.