“Abby,” said Jade. But it wasn’t the exasperated Abby of stolen sweatshirts and snoring and forgetting to take Obi out. Or the Abby of Grow up, Abby and Stop whining, Abby and Turn off the lights, Abby, I’m sleeping.

It was an I’m sorry, Abby.

An I understand, Abby.

“I thought it would help Blair,” I told her. I realized I had started crying. “I thought I could fix it.”

She shook her head and put her hands on my shoulders. “Abby. You can’t fix Blair. I can’t fix Blair. Mom or Aleksander or the doctor or definitely Leo what’s-his-face can’t fix Blair. Only Blair can fix Blair.”

“I thought of it like a person,” I said, knowing I wasn’t really making sense. “Anna Rexia. Some freak witch that lives in our house.”

“Really? Me, too, kind of,” she said. “I thought of it like an energy. I saw this thing on TV once where people cleansed their house with smelling salts, and I told Mom we should do that before Blair came home.”

“I have a plan,” I told her fiercely, but she just shook her head.

“You’re going to get busted. This is way too risky. Tell him to forget about it. Buy a new telescope, fancy doctor man. Move on.”

“It’s his telescope,” I told her. “That’s why he’s here. He wants me to dig it up during the eclipse. He’s been searching for it for years.”

“Do you even have any proof it’s his, Abby? Isn’t it worth a million dollars? You’re just going to give it to him, and say what? And say what to Harriet, who’s going to know it was you when there’s a big fresh dirt pile outside the library?”

“Leo and Simone will be halfway back to Massachusetts by then. And she won’t know I helped them.”

“She will,” said Jade, “and you know it.”

“Well, I haven’t gotten that far,” I bit out.

She sighed, pushing her hair behind her ears. She had a new blue streak, bright, like the sky.

“This sucks,” she said. “This whole summer. Without Blair. It sucks, doesn’t it?”

I was surprised. “You don’t even like Blair.”

She cracked a smile. “Yeah, well, I don’t like you, either. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you, idiot.”

She reached over to flick me on the temple and I batted her hand away.

“You two . . . you were always buddies. The same. I always felt like the third wheel,” she said. “Mom told me I should just try to make some of my own friends. So I did.”

I was surprised. “You never told me that.”

She shrugged. “I don’t like that nerd stuff. And Blair was always so defensive of you. I don’t know, it made me mad sometimes. But—I don’t have to be a jerk. I know that.”

“I didn’t think you missed her,” I said.

“Hello? I’m the one who’s been going to see her. I’m the one who’s been talking about feelings with some lady who smells like cats in a therapist’s office while Blair cries.”