So how could he be standing here talking to someone he’d drawn? Someone who looked a bit like his mother but wasn’t his mother, someone he was sure he’d never seen anywhere but in his own head and flowing from his pencil? How had he conjured up a woman who had lived in the past? Was she the same woman who had teamed up with the Morningstarrs? Was she an entirely different person? Was her soul the same?

“Hey, Theo!” Tess barked, cracking Jaime and Theo out of their respective reveries. “Are you going to sit there all night or are you going to help us?”

Theo, who had been crouching by the empty trunk, said, “Yes.”

“Yes, you’re going to sit there all night, or yes, you’re going to help us?”

“What?” said Theo. He looked as if someone’s great-auntie had whacked him upside the head with a giant pocketbook.

“Are you okay?” Jaime said.

“Yeah,” Theo said. “Fine. I’m great. Good. Sure.”

“Uh-huh,” said Jaime.

Theo stuck his hand in his hair. “You take a lot of pictures. Do you know when was photography invented?”

Jaime was used to the twins’ non sequiturs, Theo’s especially. “Hmmm,” Jaime said. “I think daguerreotypes were the first kind of photos. Maybe 1830s or ’40s?”

“Okay,” Theo said, the arm dropping. “Thanks.”

“Why do you want to know about photographs?”

“No reason.”

“You always have a reason. You’re the king of reason.”

“No, I’m not,” Theo muttered. “I never was.”

“Right,” Jaime said. Jaime couldn’t blame Theo for his confusion. That same metaphorical pocketbook had whacked Jaime upside the head, too. He was surprised they all weren’t careening around the cemetery, keening like ghosts who had seen a ghost. Would a ghost be afraid of a ghost? These were the kinds of things he was thinking now.

“Oh no?” Ono burbled.

Jaime patted Ono’s little metal head. “Kings, Ono, Kings.”

And this was the kind of thing he was saying, the kind of thing he was doing. Nine, sensing the general and pervasive anxiety, went to Theo and to Jaime in turn, nibbling on their fingers and rubbing against their legs.

“Kings, Kings,” said Ono, and imitated the cat’s soothing purr.

Imogen dusted off her hands. “Evil people tied up. Hole filled. I think we’re done here.”

Omar hefted the trunk. “I’ll take this to the van and call the police on my way back.”

“What about the rest of us?” Priya said.

Omar’s grin was like another flashlight in the dark. “I arranged for faster transportation for all of you.”

“What do you mean?” said Imogen.

“Look up, my friends,” Omar said.

Above their heads, quietly hovering, was a dirigible the same color as the night sky. A ladder unfurled from the cab and dropped to the ground.