This moment stretched backward seventeen years, to Harlow Tower gleaming under an inky sky. Maybe further. Maybe all the way back to the moment the Old Race had first crossed over from the Beneath and locked it away behind the Circles, leaving it in bottomless darkness. They’d taken the light with them, Gram had said. The very last pinprick of light. And they had taught Harrowers hate when they did.

That was all it was. Push and pull. Reaction and reaction. Another circle we were caught within. Gideon’s eyes flashed before me. Frightened. Accusing.

He wanted to be Kin, I thought.

“It was always messed up,” I whispered. “We just didn’t know it.”

Tink sighed again. “Well, if we’re going to be miserable, we should at least be miserable together.”

“I take it that means you’re sleeping over?”

“Yep.”

I supposed that was preferable to another night spent staring at my phone. I rose to my feet, stretching my arms upward above my head. Tink paused to brush the dirt from her dress, and then we made our way inside. I saw the shine of tears on her face, but she wiped them away quickly. We stepped into the house, heading for the kitchen, and then paused in the hallway when we heard Mom and Mr. Alvarez arguing.

“Ryan, this isn’t like you,” Mom was saying.

“I told her she was safe. I told her I would protect her.” There was a long pause. His voice sounded strange. Thick. “And I delivered her to them.”

He must have asked Esther about Brooke, I realized.

“I know,” Mom said gently. “And you can’t undo it. But the Guardians need you. You can’t just fall apart.”

His words came out in a snarl. “They don’t need me. We’ll be all right as long as we’ve got Morning Star to save us. You just need to know where, right? You solve it. You fix it. I’m done.”

Tink and I looked at each other. Her eyes went wide as Mr. Alvarez came stalking out of the room past us, hardly sparing us a glance.

His face was haggard, his eyes red-rimmed. He was still wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing two days ago—dark gray jeans and a faded T-shirt. I wonder if he’d slept in them, or if he just hadn’t slept. Dark stubble covered his jaw.

Tink turned to follow him when he opened the front door. “You’re quitting? You can’t quit!”

He swung toward her. “You know what, Brewster? I was wrong. This whole time, I’ve been wrong. You don’t want to be a Guardian? Then don’t. Make your own goddamn choice.”

He disappeared as the door hit the frame with a resounding slam.

“Um, holy shit,” Tink said.

I nodded, feeling a bit stunned.

Mom stepped out from the living room. “You all right, girls?”

“Did that just happen?” I asked, jerking my head toward the door.

“He’ll cool down,” Mom said.

“I don’t know. He seemed pretty pissed.”

Not that I blamed him. He’d been the one who brought Brooke to the elders. He had been the only one she’d trusted to help her. He’d told her the elders would protect her, and they’d murdered her instead.

“That was not pissed,” Tink said. “I have seen that guy pissed, and that was not it. That was nuclear meltdown.”

“Who’s going to lead the Guardians?” I asked.

“Ryan will come to his senses,” Mom insisted.

The look on Tink’s face said she was less convinced. I had to agree with her. Mr. Alvarez did not do things by half. Susannah had nearly killed him, and he’d still not only figured out her plan, he’d run off from the hospital to help coordinate a counterattack. If he said he was quitting, he meant it.

But I still found it difficult to fathom. I remembered the first time I’d seen him, that sleepy, almost-forgotten moment when I’d seen him drive up the long road to our old house and step out onto the driveway, his black hair catching the sun. The day he’d told Mom that the Kin needed her, and asked her to come home. He hadn’t just led the Guardians—he’d stitched them back together.

We didn’t have time to dwell on it further. Mom’s phone rang, and when she quickly disappeared into the kitchen, I could tell the news wasn’t good. Tink and I waited on the staircase, and as soon as Mom hung up, we hurried to the kitchen.

The call had been from Mickey, she said.

Although the Kin had cleaned up—or covered up—the scene at Sonja’s house before any suspicion of foul play had occurred, they hadn’t been as lucky with the other two elders. The police had found the homes of Deirdre and Julia bloodstained and wrecked, and had been quick to link the two.

Tonight, Mickey told her, they’d found a third home in the same condition.

Tink had followed me into the kitchen. She stood clutching her elbows, trembling. “That means…”

“We have another member of the Kin missing,” Mom said. “Kira Wilbanks.”

Between her words, I heard what she really meant.

We had another Kin death.

Late that night, in the darkness of my room, staring up at the shadows that crossed my ceiling, Tink and I played remember when.

“Remember when Gideon got his tongue stuck to the ladder of the monkey bars?” she asked, her voice just above a whisper.

That had been the winter of fourth grade, during recess. We’d been old enough to know better, but that hadn’t been much of a hindrance. “Because you dared him,” I said. I could picture it: Gideon in his blue winter coat, snow melting in his hair. Tink with her cheeks wind-reddened. Then, instead of waiting for one of the teachers to come and help thaw him, Gideon had ripped himself free. Tink, of course, had shrieked and fled.

“Oh my God,” she said now, with a gasp of laughter. “It was disgusting. He bled everywhere.”

“It ruined his coat. And his favorite shirt.”

“That was the ugliest shirt I had ever seen. Still is.”

For a second, I smiled up into the darkness. But when Tink began recalling the time she’d tripped and spilled all of her Halloween candy into the street and Gideon had offered her his, I made her stop.

“He’s not dead,” I told her. “We need to stop talking like he is.”

“What we need to do is come up with a plan.”

“We will,” I said.

In the morning, I drove Tink back to her apartment. She lingered near my car, holding the door open, chewing her lip.

“You’ll let me know the instant you hear anything, right?”

I nodded. “If you do.”

She nodded back, then turned and jogged up the steps.

Instead of going home, I drove to Leon’s lake.

It wasn’t planned, but once I hit the highway, I sped past my exit and kept going, finding my way by memory. Leon and I had taken his motorcycle there last autumn, and stood near the park, in the dry and dying grass. I didn’t know the route well, but I mapped it in my mind—the bridge across the river, the old back roads thick with gravel.

Part of me hoped I would find him there. I had it all planned out in my head: I’d park in the shade of the evergreens, walk slowly into the grass—green now, bright and growing—and cross the park to the red picnic tables. They would be empty except for a lone figure sitting on one, his back turned. I’d call his name. He’d walk to meet me.

But the other part of me said he hadn’t forgiven me yet. He wouldn’t forgive me. If I found him by the lake, he’d simply leave instead.

He wasn’t there at all, of course. There were a few groups of swimmers down on the beach, but most of the area was deserted. The clouds were dark and low, swirling through the sky and giving it a sickly yellow glow. I made my way to the shore, and then waded out into the water, up to my thighs, not caring when the current lapped at my shorts. I stared down into the little ripples that cut across the surface, the flash of minnows darting underneath.

Leon’s parents had come here, I knew. I tried to picture them, though I had no image in my mind to draw from. They were mere silhouettes I tried to stage in the scene around me. There they reclined in the sand, waiting for the sun to seep through the clouds. There they guided a toddler along the shore, pausing to pick up shells. But the details eluded me. They were mere shadows, faceless specters who had died at Verrick’s hands.