It was chilly on Staten Island, a March day that felt more like winter than spring. Small waves lapped against the rocky shore as a light rain fell from a gray sky that mirrored the gray water.

Rory stared at the skyline in the distance. “Look at Manhattan.” He pushed his glasses up his nose, round black frames like his old ones but lenses about ten times nicer because Arthur had bought them, and apparently rich people even got to see better than poor folks. He could see every tiny whitecap on the waves here, where the ocean and the Hudson met.

He pointed to one of the skyscrapers under construction. “I think that’s the one I went up on with Arthur.”

“It’s lovely from a distance.” Sasha was repinning her new bobbed hair, probably to keep it out of her eyes from the constant breeze that smelled of salt and diesel. “It’s still likely that we’re all the only paranormals in the city. But...”

She trailed off. Rory wrapped his arms around himself. “But it is weird a boat caught on fire in the middle of the Hudson and had to turn around.”

They’d taken the first ferry from Manhattan to Staten Island that morning. It was a risk, leaving the magical protections that had been set in Manhattan, but if there was a chance someone was trying to breach those protections, Rory was going to find out.

Or at least, he’d planned to.

“Boats have oil,” Sasha said. “Perhaps someone threw their cigarette in the wrong place.”

“Boats also use lead paint.” He was still sore about it. “How am I supposed to see who’s lighting fires if I can’t see the past?”

“How rude of them not to take your psychometry into account when they painted the ferry,” she said, teasing.

He rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Fire happened to be on the one boat with a fresh coat of lead paint,” he said. “Could be a big coincidence. But all I’m saying is that if I were hiding my tracks from other paranormals, I’d pick that ferry too.”

She scrunched her nose. “True,” she admitted. “But even if you couldn’t scry, we can still carry out our other plan.”

Rory touched the heavy box in his pocket. She was right, because for this they’d needed to be somewhere without other people around.

From the ferry, they’d walked until they’d found a stretch of rocks with no one else to see. Pavel had walked up to the road for a quick scout, and now from behind them, he called down something in Russian.

“He’s ready,” said Sasha. “Come. Let’s set our barrier.”