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K ACI AND I SAT ACROSS from each other on the front steps of the school, right under the “No Everything” signs. We were both cross-legged, my denim-covered knees brushing her bare ones, the concrete unforgiving beneath my tailbone. She had her reddish-blond hair styled in long pigtails today, and she wore a cute blouse and a pair of shorts. School had not started yet, but the day had dawned hot. I was glad for the continuing warm weather despite the calendar showing that the first day of autumn was within the next two weeks. It meant that we still had time to save Juana, if we could.

Kaci had her palms up on her knees, and she allowed her head to drop backward, tilting her face to the sun. Her apple cheeks were pink, and her freckles were bright. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Okay. I’m ready.” She opened her eyes and squared her shoulders.

I wasn’t, but this was what I had to do. “Great. Ask away.” It was still only a theory that having the person ask a question about what they wanted to see would help me focus, but it had worked with Reese.

“Cam,” Kaci said, staring into my eyes, “what will happen at school today?”

I inhaled. I reached out and lightly touched Kaci’s slim fingers.

I blinked, and the discomfort of the steps and the warmth of the day melted away, my senses overwhelmed by a bright, blinding light. Then I squinted, and the world flickered into blankness, a moment of existing in a complete void: no sound, no feeling, no sight, save for an all-encompassing white.

I blinked again, and the universe crashed in, an earsplitting cacophony, followed by pressure on all sides like I was being squeezed. Then a pop .

I was in the school theater. Instead of the concrete beneath me, it was the plush seats of the front row as I stared up at the stage. The area was dark, save for the stage lights and the large glowing exit sign above the emergency door, which led out of the school. I tossed a pigtail over my shoulder as I patiently waited for the argument onstage to end, so class could begin.

A water sprite—a girl named Faye—and her friend, who was a green sprite, argued with the drama teacher, Ms. Adams, over the use of sprite magic in their monologues for the next assignment.

“The answer is, not unless it is approved by the administration and the school board,” Ms. Adams said as she tapped her pen in agitation on the clipboard in her hand. “I’d love to say yes, but my hands are tied, thanks to the new rules.”

“But a rain cloud would make so much sense for my character, who is standing in the rain ,” Faye said, stamping her foot. “We were allowed to do it last year.”

“And look, I can make vines wind into an arch for the scene that takes place in a garden.”

Ms. Adams gave them a sympathetic smile. “Like I said, you have to take the request to the admin and the board.”

“But it’s not fair!” Faye said, throwing up her arms. Droplets of water spritzed the stage.

Ms. Adams sighed heavily. “And who is going to clean up the rain, Faye? And the leaves, Gayle? I wouldn’t be able to award extra points, anyway. It’s not fair to the kids who don’t have sprite magic.”

“Ugh,” Faye said. “Just let me show you! It’s basic sprite magic. It’s not even difficult.” Faye made a complicated motion with her hands, and a small globe of water formed in front of her.

“No, me first!” Gayle yelled, thrusting her hand toward the exit door, brow furrowed as if willing the plants outside to respond to her.

“Gayle, stop!” Faye said, shouldering her out of the way. Her ball of water rippled with the impact. “This was my idea first. You’re copying me.”

“ You stop!” Gayle elbowed her back. “I have every right to try it too!”

The demonstration devolved into a shouting match, while Ms. Adams tried to calm them both. Uninterested in the argument, my gaze drifted away to the side of the room where Dennis sat in a darkened corner at the end of a row. He wasn’t paying attention to the stage at all; instead his head was bowed as he scribbled in a notebook.

Hovering over his shoulder was a young woman. A young woman I didn’t recognize at all, in a sweater and jeans, her brown hair hanging in her face. She touched Dennis’s arm, but her hand didn’t make contact. It… disappeared into him?

What? That couldn’t happen unless…

And that’s when I realized I was seeing a festive poster about homecoming through her torso. The edges of her body blurred into the background. The colors of her clothes were muted, the yellow of her shirt grayed out, the blue of her jeans faded. She placed her hands on her hips, tossed her hair, and opened her mouth in a soundless scream. She balled her fists and stamped her feet and shouted again and again, right into Dennis’s ear, but he couldn’t hear her. No one could. Not even me.

I made a distressed noise in my throat.

She paused, then whipped around toward me. And that’s when I saw the head wound—how her hair on one side was matted with blood. Deep, bloody slashes crisscrossed her torso and ran over her cheeks, her neck, her clavicle. She stared at me with wide, unblinking eyes, a knowing gaze that pierced into the heart of me. She knew I could see her. And she dared me to look, to catalog the wounds: the awkward twist of one leg, the blood that stained her clothes and her skin.

My heart lodged in my throat when her angry stare met mine.

She narrowed her eyes. Then she rushed toward me, speeding through the air, her hair whipping back, her mouth open in a terrifying silent scream.

Before she reached me, a yell yanked my attention back to the stage. Faye had tripped over a small vine that had slithered through the crack in the door. She wheeled her arms as she attempted to stay upright, but her wavering sphere of water suddenly became a projectile. It flew and smacked me right in the face, the cold liquid soaking my hair and blouse.

I jolted out of the glimpse.

My chest heaved from where I was sprawled on the concrete. I ripped my hand out of Kaci’s and hastily shoved on my glove, blinking away the sight of the ghost. I stared into the bright blue of the morning sky.

“Cam?”

My body jerked in fear. I pushed to a sitting position and stared at Kaci.

Her lips turned down. “You saw a ghost, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I breathed.

“Which one?” she asked, resting her chin on her fist.

I rubbed my chest. My heart beat a mile a minute under my palm. My hands were clammy. How did Kaci survive seeing ghosts every day? Especially if they all looked like that one? Oh my gods, I had seen a ghost . A person’s spirit. The remnants of a soul. I shivered. New nightmare unlocked for sure.

“The one that follows Dennis,” I finally said. I wrapped my arms around my body and squeezed, like I was giving myself a hug. Or like I was holding myself together and trying to find comfort in the corporeal.

Kaci frowned. “Oh, she’s angry. All the time.” She tugged on her braid and added in a softer voice, “She scares me.”

“Does she always yell at him?”

Kaci nodded.

“Well, she’s terrifying.” I rubbed my arms, chilled despite the heat. “I’m sorry you have to see her.”

Kaci shrugged. “It’s not all the time. She’s not always there. It’s fine.” She smiled. “So I see her in drama class. I will try to use my psychic blocks. What else happens? Anything interesting?”

Oh. Right. Step one on the project checklist. “Um… yes? The front row where you sit becomes a splash zone.”

Kaci made a face. “A splash zone?”

“Water sprite magic. An argument onstage ends in you being soaked.”

She nodded and gave me a bright grin. “Okay. Then I won’t sit there.”

I offered a wan smile in return, because I hoped beyond hope that being assaulted by sprite magic was not in her future. Because surely now that Kaci knew what third block would entail, she could change what I saw. Because she had to be able to. She had to.

And as we gathered our things to go inside, Kaci chatted away about math class. I didn’t respond. I didn’t want to upset her, but I couldn’t help but note how the ghost I’d seen through her eyes had been covered in slashes, just like my vision of Juana.

“I tried,” Kaci said as she sat down at the lunch table, her hair damp, her upper body encased in a large hoodie. She nonchalantly set her tray down while all the breath left my body in one panicked whoosh.

Mateo’s concerned gaze darted between us. “What happened?” he asked.

Kaci frowned and shook her head. “The blocks didn’t work. I saw her.”

“Saw who?” Mateo asked again. “What is going on? Why are you wet?”

I couldn’t answer Mateo around the lump lodged in my throat. Kaci couldn’t prevent herself from seeing the ghost. And the evidence that my glimpses weren’t only real , but set in proverbial stone, was the wet ends of Kaci’s braids.

Gemma plopped down beside me in a flurry of papers and rainbows, her shoulder knocking into my stunned frame, and slapped a paperback onto the table. My flatware rattled with the force of it. “What’s up, partner and friends?”

Reese joined less than a minute later. And then, surprising us all, Al sat down as well. I looked over Gemma’s head and met Al’s gaze. “Is this okay?” they asked.

“Yeah,” I said immediately, my voice choked. “It’s great.”

They raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t sound great.”

“No,” I said with a creak. “It is.”

They glanced over their shoulder, where Lex conversed with a handful of other witches at a table a few rows down, then leaned in close to our group. “I told them we have an assignment to work on together.” They smirked. “Which we kind of do.”

Yes. We did. The literal worst group project ever.

Kaci cleared her throat. “Cam saw me in theater class in his glimpse this morning. I sat in the front row, and I got splashed because of an argument between a water sprite and the drama teacher.”

I gulped. “And?”

“I moved to the other side of the theater, three rows back.” She pulled at the fabric of the hoodie. “Still experienced a spring shower. I had to get this from the lost and found to cover my ruined blouse.”

Any hope I’d had that Kaci had gotten wet a different way was dashed. “Oh.”

Gemma’s mouth opened in a perfect O . Reese grimaced.

Because there you had it. Try as she might, Kaci hadn’t been able to avoid what I’d seen in the glimpse.

Mateo’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Kaci said evenly. “Cam said I would get wet and see a ghost—”

“You always see ghosts,” Gemma said, but her voice was low and awed.

“I tried to use my psychic blocks to not see the ghost, but they didn’t work. And I tried not to get wet.”

“Okay. Well, that was just one attempt at subverting a glimpse,” I said, trying to inject some kind of hope into the situation. I couldn’t bear the expression on Mateo’s face as the realization dawned on him. “And we know that Kaci’s not the greatest with her psychic ability—no offense.”

“None taken.”

“And I don’t know how powerful Faye is. Maybe the whole theater got wet, and there was no way to avoid it.”

Gemma huffed in disbelief. Reese quickly shook his head.

Kaci reached over the table and took my gloved hand in her manicured ones. “My attempts to subvert the glimpse didn’t work, Cam. It’s okay.”

Mateo frowned. “Does that mean—”

“We can try again,” I hastily offered, cutting him off. “Shouldn’t we have a larger dataset?”

“Sure,” Gemma said, though skepticism dripped from her voice. “Anyway. Does anyone else have something to share with the class?”

Reese dug around in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a piece of wadded paper. He opened it and spread it on the table between us, smoothing out the creases. “A list of all the people in the hallway during the fight.”

It wasn’t a small list. In fact, it was two columns that took up an entire page. “There’s more on the back,” Reese supplied helpfully.

At the top, in Reese’s succinct print, were the names “Danny,” “Javi,” and “Mateo,” along with his own.

Mateo raised an eyebrow. “You don’t honestly think that Danny, Javi, or I would want to hurt our cousin.”

The corner of Reese’s mouth ticked up. “We said everyone in the hall. And you were there, and so were your brothers.”

“How do you know this is everyone?” Gemma asked.

“I have ways, just like you.”

Her nose scrunched as her skepticism elevated.

Reese sighed. “I asked around, okay? I’m an upperclassman. I know a lot of people. Besides, it’s the best any of us are going to do, unless we can get video.” He tapped his fingers along the table. “You can trust me.”

He wasn’t wrong. And despite the history between Mateo’s family and Reese’s, I felt like I could trust him. He had stepped in with Dennis, and he had offered to be the subject for the third glimpse. And he didn’t have to, but he had joined the whatever-we-called-this-group to help. I refused to reference our group with a cartoon starring a dog, even if only in my head.

Gemma acquiesced with a nod. “Okay. Yes. Great.”

“Thanks, Reese,” I said. “This is really useful.”

I scanned the list on the front, then flipped the paper over. And there on the back was the name I’d been looking for. Kaci stiffened and dropped a chip on her tray, and I knew she’d noticed it too.

“Well, I have news.” Gemma pushed the paperback she’d been carrying to the center of the table. She flipped it open. “This is the Psychic Guild’s weather almanac for this year. Using the clues that Cam gave us about the conditions that night, I’ve been able to pinpoint a range of dates for the attack.” Mateo made a low noise that almost sounded like a growl. Gemma paused, closed her eyes, and shook her head. “Sorry. A range of dates for the glimpse.” She pointed to the page. “Cam said that it was bright out, despite it being at night and taking place in some kind of meadow where there would be no artificial light, so that means that it has to be close to a full moon. And it had rained and was cool but not cold. According to this, not only is the harvest moon the brightest moon, but also the weather the week around that moon will be damp.”

I sucked in a breath. “When is the harvest moon?”

“In ten days.”

Mateo shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. Werewolves gain strength leading up to the full moon and are strongest the night of. No one familiar with the paranormal would make a mistake to… assault”—he stumbled over the word—“Juana when she’d be at her physical peak.”

“I took that into account too,” Gemma said, pointing at the page. “The knife must have been silver.” Gemma pointed to the clue of the gleaming blade. “It would have to be, for it to do enough damage to significantly hurt her.”

Based on Mateo’s deepening frown, Gemma’s logic was sound.

“So I bet they know about the moon cycles too,” she continued. “Which means the attack will happen after the harvest moon, when the moon is waning and when a werewolf’s strength would be decreasing. And for two to three nights after the moon, we’ll have cloudy and damp weather.”

I couldn’t help but be impressed.

Al took the book from Gemma’s hand and peered at the page. “Is this thing even accurate?”

“Well, not as accurate as Cam, but the publisher boasts an eighty-seven-percent accuracy rate on their website.” Gemma took it back and flipped it open. “The Psychic Guild stamp is right there.” She pointed at Kaci. “What do you think?”

Kaci delicately took a bite of her sandwich and chewed. After she swallowed, she rested her hands in her lap. “I think,” she began in her quiet, airy voice, “that Dennis is our top suspect.”

Gemma dropped the book. “What?”

“Yeah, what?” Reese asked.

Al raised their hand. “Thirding the what .”

“Cam saw the ghost.”

Everyone except Kaci turned toward me. I shrank in my seat and flicked a kernel of cafeteria corn across my tray. “In my glimpses, I see what the person sees. I saw the ghost that follows Dennis.”

Al’s jaw dropped. “You saw a ghost.”

I nodded. “Yeah. And it was disturbing . Like one of those jump-scare horror movies in real time.”

“Wow, that’s so cool .” Gemma pulled out a notebook and started scribbling across the page. “Tell me everything.”

“Like how you think it’s Dennis, for starters,” Reese said. “Does he even know Juana?”

Reese’s gaze darted to Mateo.

Mateo, who had remained mostly stoic, merely shrugged. “I don’t know.” He hadn’t even touched his food. And by the clench of his jaw and the way he was gripping the edge of the table, this whole conversation was upsetting him. His hair had grown shaggier just in the time we’d talked, and he had tucked his probably clawed fingers into the sleeves of his shirt. Maybe he shouldn’t be part of the cartoon-reference gang if the information was going to cause him this much turmoil.

“Mateo, if this is too much—” I began.

“I want to know,” he said, his teeth gritted, and oh, his canines had definitely lengthened too. “I need to know.”

“Okay.” I took a breath. “We know he was in the hallway, according to Reese’s list. He assaulted me and Gemma outside the school the day of the third glimpse, so we know he can be aggressive. And he mentioned using silver against my werewolf bodyguard, so he knows how to hurt a werewolf. Furthermore, the ghost…”

“She’s angry,” Kaci said. “At him. She yells at him all the time.”

“And she has slashes all over her.” I hunched further. “Like Juana did.”

Our entire table except Kaci turned to stare at Dennis where he sat at his usual lunch table. He scrolled on his phone as he ate alone, like he always did.

He must’ve felt our energy, because he looked up at us and glared.

I whipped back around and took a long gulp of my soda.

Gemma ducked her head and immediately scribbled down information.

“Okay,” Al said, drawing out the vowel. “Do we have any other leads? We shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket, especially if there is no connection between Dennis and Juana. There is no motive.”

“Other than to get to Cam,” Mateo said.

My whole body went taut. “What?”

“He’s tried to use you for your power three times now and was only successful once. Maybe he tries again, and Juana gets in the way.”

“Why would Juana get in the way?” I asked. “She barely knows me.”

The tips of Mateo’s ears turned red and then began to lengthen. Mateo scrambled for his beanie, yanking it out of his jacket pocket, but he fumbled with it due to his claws.

Kaci smiled. “Because Mateo likes you.”

Oh. Well. My cheeks heated so quickly, I knew they were bright pink. I probably matched Gemma’s hair.

“Anyway, I do have another lead,” Gemma said. “Remember the girls who destroyed my locker?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well, they received in-school suspension for a few days. And since then they’ve been leaving not-so-nice comments on my videos.”

“Um…” I scratched the back of my head. “That’s not really a reason to suspect—”

Gemma held up her phone. The ClickClack app was open to her page.

You’ll get yours.

Well, that wasn’t too bad.

So will Cam and Al.

Okay.

And all your new friends.

And this was slowly getting worse.

Herbicide for your sprite. Silver for your werewolf. Fire for your witch.

I gulped. “I guess we shouldn’t rule them out.”

Reese picked up the paper. “Were they in the hallway?”

Gemma pursed her lips and then sighed. “It doesn’t look like it.”

“We’ll still keep an eye on them,” Mateo said. “They shouldn’t be harassing you or making threats.”

Gemma straightened immediately, a smile stretching across her face. If she were an anime character, she’d have heart eyes. “Thank you.”

“Okay,” I said, rubbing my hands along my thighs. Ten days. We had ten days to get our shit in order. “We have the potential when and a possible who; now we just need a where.”

“Maybe it’s in these other clues,” Gemma said, opening the picture of my sketch she had taken on her phone. “A meadow that smells like metal and sulfur? Where would that be?”

“Near a factory?” Al guessed. “Or the landfill?”

Reese abruptly stood. “I just remembered—I need to meet with a teacher. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He grabbed the trash from his lunch, tossed an awkward wave over his shoulder, and then he was gone.

Weird.

A notification went off on Gemma’s phone. She grabbed it and let out a squeak.

“Cam,” she squealed. She grabbed my sleeve, her small fingers wrapped around my covered forearm in a death grip. Her expression almost manic.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“The Coalition of Faeries wants to meet with you.”

“The what of what?”

“The Coalition?” Al asked, dropping a chicken nugget. “The faeries want to meet with Cam?”

Gemma vibrated in her seat. “Yes,” she said. “This is my chance for a paranormal bingo!”

“I thought faeries didn’t take interest in the drama of the other factions?” I asked, looking between Mateo’s deep frown and Al’s wide eyes.

“They do now. This is amazing. I have to do research!” She gathered her things and darted out of her seat, ribbons flying behind her. “I’ll send you study materials!” she yelled as she disappeared out the door.

I rubbed my hand over my face, hoping the entirety of the cafeteria would chalk up the theatrics to Gemma being Gemma. I’d already seen a ghost that day, and I couldn’t wrap my mind around faeries at the moment; from the expressions on my friends’ faces, I didn’t think I wanted to yet, so having an awkward social encounter was not high on my list. I sighed, took a bite of my chicken sandwich, and hoped I could make it through the rest of the day without another mishap.