He shifted where he sat, trying to get comfortable, and tried to think what he would be doing at this moment if he were at home and not sitting deep in the woods in Germany, trying to raise the dead for his two-hundred-year-old grandfather. Double math. He still couldn’t decide which was worse.

He lay back and pulled out his phone. Nothing new. He tapped a message to David—Hey, I’m away just now with my grandad. Short notice trip. Back in a couple of days. I hope—just to send some contact back to normality. It would be nice to keep in touch. The message wouldn’t go. “No signal,” Alex said, and laughed bleakly.

Raindrops spattered the screen as he scrolled through the pictures of the stolen paintings. He stopped at the one called The Great Last Judgment, struck by the blues and reds of the garments some of the figures wore, very vivid in his gloomy surroundings.

“The dead have risen . . .”

He stared at the last message from Kenzie.

You need to go to the right I think.

He shook himself. He was putting off what he had to do, just like he always did with his math homework. The Prince of Procrastination, his mum called him. He pulled out his notebook and puzzled over the lines he’d scribbled to himself, searching for a clue. He hesitated, uncertain. The idea that was forming didn’t make sense. He decided not to think about that—what did make sense anymore?—and just follow the feeling that it somehow seemed to fit.

He resolved to make one last try at contacting the power, give it everything. But this time, he would line up a new set of mental doors to guide him: the old toy, then the tablet, and then . . . Okay—something to do with Kenzie Mitchell. Then the light.

He cleared his mind, put those thoughts in order, and focused.

The forest was hushed around him, and before long he was sunk inside his mental journey. He passed the old tin toy and opened the door that led on to the old clay tablet. Now he held the tablet in his mind. For a moment, he glimpsed himself from above, a boy sitting in the woods in flickering light. The mountain quietly urged him on. He opened the door and pushed his thoughts through.

And now there was Kenzie.

Alex concentrated hard on the other boy. It was easy to bring him into focus. The face had given him nightmares during the long years Kenzie had bullied him. Kenzie was trying to talk, but he didn’t seem to know how.

Alex directed his entire concentration at Kenzie. He told him to be quiet. He could see the door that led to the light behind Kenzie now. Kenzie was blocking the way. He couldn’t get around him. There was only one thing to do. Alex gathered his mind and used it to shove Kenzie. Kenzie made a protesting gesture, but he fell easily backward, fell against the door, opening it, fell through the door, fell into the light.