Page 114

“You can come out now,” Cassie said to the wind. “We’re alone.”

Nothing happened for a moment, and Cassie began to wonder if she was wrong. But then Drummond Fox materialized off to her side, as if stepping out of a pocket of darkness. He looked the same, the same clothes, slightly disheveled, but he seemed thinner to Cassie, his eyes darker.

He walked over to her, hands in his pockets, kicking sand before him, and dropped down next to her.

“Hi,” he said, meeting her eyes.

She smiled at him.

“Good to see you again,” he said. He smiled back at her and then looked off toward the dark ocean. “How long has it been this time?”

“This time it felt quick for me,” she said. “Were you listening to the conversation?”

Drummond nodded. “You went somewhere you can’t explain.”

“I can explain more than I said to Izzy,” Cassie admitted. “It was where the magic comes from.” Drummond looked at her, interest sparking in his eyes like a match in a dark room.

“Really?” he asked.

She nodded. “I am sure of it. Iknowit. I shouldn’t have been able to survive, but the Book of Safety protected me. It was somewhere else,somewhere outside of this reality. But there were colors there sometimes, like when the books are doing their thing.”

Drummond digested that, biting his lower lip absently. “I’d like to hear all about it. Everything you remember.”

She nodded. “I’d like to tell you. All about the place... and... other things.” She wanted to tell him about the books, about the fact that she had made them all, but it felt too big, too much to deal with right then. “There are other things I can tell you, in time.”

He watched her for a moment, hands clasped around his knees, perhaps trying to work out what she was getting at. “Okay,” he said. “I’d like to hear. Anytime.”

She nodded and it felt like a promise.

“Have you been following them around all this time?”

Drummond nodded. “They are not very good at hiding,” he reflected.

“To be fair, he’s about ten feet tall,” Cassie said.

“And Izzy is not the quietest person I have ever met,” Drummond said, a playful smile tugging at his cheeks. “I know she’s your friend. But she’s noisy.”

“She is,” Cassie agreed happily.

“But I like her,” Drummond said, looking at Cassie seriously. “Izzy is smart and she’s kind and she’s been loyal to you this whole time. I like her a lot, Cassie.”

Cassie felt her core warming at Drummond’s words, and she wanted to hug him.

“Lund is harder to read,” Drummond continued, oblivious to the effect his words were having on her. “But he seems devoted to Izzy. Together they make quite a pair.”

“I’m glad she had someone,” Cassie said, looking over her shoulder as if she could still see Izzy and Lund in the distance. “I’m glad she wasn’t alone.”

“Yes,” Drummond agreed.

“How have you survived?” Cassie wondered. “You’ve been alone this whole time.”

“It’s not so hard. I’ve been alone for ten years. When you use the Book of Shadows you become... insubstantial. So I can go places. I canride in cars or at the back of buses and nobody knows I’m there. And when they stop, I just find an empty room nearby and sleep there.”

“Why?”

He looked at her.

“Why did you follow them?” she clarified.