I'm not sure how much time passes as I sit there in the living room, unmoving. Though my body's still, my mind is spinning, trying to make sense of everything that just happened, replaying the moment Jamie's face flickered towards disbelief, towards shock, towards pain.

    The worst part is I can't blame him. I saw the fault line a long time ago, even bore it further into the earth. Now the rift has finally cracked open, swallowing all of our shaky progress within its gaping mouth. As bad I want to, it's not something I can just fix overnight.

    Slowly, painfully, I come around, my consciousness returning to the here and now as if I'm rousing from a dream. The living room is dark save for a floor lamp shedding a circle of gold light. Voices trail in from the kitchen, Kazue's and Nat's. Lucci isn't here, either; I must not have noticed him get up.

    A door squeals open, and Nat pokes her head in from the kitchen, meeting my eyes. A wave of warm sympathy passes her face, her eyebrows lifting. She steps into the room, sliding the door shut behind her and rummaging around in the corner for something.

    A moment later, she kneels, dropping a wool blanket around my shoulders. Her voice is the softest I've ever heard it as she asks, "How are you doing?"

    I hug the blanket close around my shoulders. I'm cold, but something about it is comforting anyway, its weight on my back almost like an embrace. "Not good," I whisper. My voice is gone, like I haven't drank water in days. "I want to go talk to him, Nat. But I just don't think he'd listen to what I have to say."

    "Right now?" Nat says, settling on the floor across from me. "No, he almost certainly wouldn't."

    I wince. I don't know why I expected her to sugarcoat it.

    "You have to think about this from Jamie's point of view," Nat tells me, holding out her palm. It takes me a second to realize what she's asking for, but I place my hand in hers. "You've broken his trust, Violet, whether you meant well or not. He's hurt. He probably feels taken advantage of, even. He needs some space and some time to work all of that out."

    My face is hot with shame, but Nat's so unusually calm, her fingers stroking the lines of my palm, that I feel the burning start to cool off, if only a little.

    "Nat."

    "Hm?"

    Tears sting behind my eyes, but I blink them away. "Do you think he'll ever forgive me?"

    At that, Nat flicks my palm sharply with her thumb and index finger. It hurts more than I would have expected. "Idiot," Nat grumbles. "You're his sister, the only one he's got. That always counts for something, doesn't it?"

    The kitchen door opens again, and Kazue appears, a gentle grin on her face that puffs her already round cheeks. "You'll be alright, Violet," she says, leaning back against the wall. "Both of you. Just give it time."

    Time. The problem is, I'm not sure how much of that we have left.

    "Thank you," I tell them both, hugging the blanket even tighter. "Not just for...saying that, but for letting us stay here, for healing us, for everything. Thank you guys."

    "Please," Kazue says with a roll of her eyes. "It's been a pleasure having you here."

    Nat adds, "For the most part."

    "Nat."

    "Did you guys see where Lucci ran off to, by any chance?" I interrupt, before Kazue can set to scolding her wife. Though the inky darkness beyond the window suggests the night is far from young, I can't bear to sit still any longer. My nerves are waking up one by one, ordering me to move, to shake off the shock and do something about it. "I need to talk to him."

    Nat shrugs. "He left maybe twenty minutes ago? Said he was going to the convenience store, or something."

    "'Emotional drama makes him hungry,' or so he said," Kazue says, a note of obvious amusement in her voice.

    I have to roll my eyes at that. "Sounds like Lucci," I say, getting to my feet. "I'm gonna go find him. Do you guys mind keeping an eye on Jamie?"

    "Of course not," Kazue says, and Nat nods along with her. "Be safe, okay?"

The nearest convenience store is about two blocks down from the house, marked by a neon sign that glows like an apparition above the silhouetted tree-tops. The street is vacant; I duck my head and count the white dashes in the road as I walk, the night quiet save for the trilling of crickets and the buzz and tink of moths striking the street lamps.

    Atlanta was never quiet like this. I still remember the night Grey took me out on the loft's back porch, where we could see everything: squares of light dotting the sky-high buildings like mosaics, cars slithering along through the streets, and massive, colorful signs begging us to buy a soda or eat at the Varsity.

    It feels like forever ago, almost like an obscure childhood memory. I can remember it well enough, but I know I can't go back to it now.

    Does anything go back to the way it was after this?

    My nose twitches; footsteps sound ahead. I look up into Lucci's face then, a ball cap pressed over his dreadlocks, oversized windbreaker rustling in the breeze. In one hand he holds a plastic bag marked over and over again with a red Thank You.

    "Violet?" he says, stopping in place, sneakers scuffing against the asphalt. "What are you doing out here? Do you know how late it is?"

    "Looking for you," I answer. "And once again, Lucci, you should know by now that I can defend myself just fine."

    His lips press into a faint pout. "You should know by now that it doesn't matter to me, Vy. I worry about you anyway."

    I bite down on my lip, hard, just in case I'm dreaming. When I find myself still standing there in the middle of the street, I cough and point to the bag in his hand. "What'd you buy?"

    "Junk. Also tea," Lucci says. A smile crosses his face then, sudden and genuine, teeth a clean line of white. He holds the bag up, shaking it gently. "Don't worry; I was planning to share. Walk with me?"

    I fall into step beside him as we head back towards the house. At the top of the hill, however, Lucci tugs on my sleeve. When I look up, I see he's pointing at a children's playground on the side of the road, cast in a lonely, blue-black shadow at this time of night. I raise an eyebrow, but he's still smiling at me, and dammit if I can say no to him when he's looking at me like that.

    We settle side by side on the swing set, lines carved in the wood chips beneath us where likely hundreds of little feet have dug in before ours. Lucci wasn't lying when he said he bought a bunch of junk. Among the stash are oddly-flavored sandwich cookies; a collection of Kit-Kats, also in flavors I've never seen before; chocolate-covered snack sticks; and of course at least five different bags of chips.

    As he sifts through them all, a frown comes to his face, a tiny wrinkle of skin forming between his brow. "Okay," he murmurs. "Maybe I overdid it a little."

    "A little?" I say, and though a laugh forms on my breath, it's gone as soon as it's there.

    "Here," Lucci says, tilting the bag in my direction. "Close your eyes and pick something. That way it's fair."

    "What—this is a game now?"

    "Yes. Don't look at me like that; it'll be fun. Close your eyes already."

    I give him a wary. look, not sure it's the time for shenanigans, but let my eyes flutter closed anyway as I rummage through the stash. My fingers close around something small and plastic-wrapped, the bag rustling as I pull my arm back again.

    "Green tea Kit-Kat?" Lucci says, in reference to the small chocolate bar between my fingers. "Nice. My turn."

    He closes his eyes; I hold the bag open for him. He retrieves a vividly yellow bag of potato chips and examines it. "'Honey Butter,'" he reads, clearly perplexed. "I'm not sure why you would put that in a potato chip."

    "You're the one who bought it," I remind him. "Don't be mean."

    A few moments pass in which we don't speak. I sway myself gently on my swing, guiding my movement with the tip of my toe, peeling the bright wrapper from my chocolate bar meticulously, as if it'll soon jump out of my hands. I glance at Lucci, who's regarding his chips with the same caution.

    We each take a bite. Chew a little. Pause.

    After a while, Lucci exhales into the silence, a small, tired little breath that says: We've pretended long enough, I think. "Why were you looking for me?"

    I wait a minute until the odd, artificial matcha flavor has for the most part melted from my tongue. I offer the rest of it to Lucci, who nods his thanks and breaks off a piece. "Alonso's going to approach me soon. I haven't given him any indication that we've gotten anywhere lately, so I know he's getting suspicious. I need you to help me figure out what to do."

    A pause. "I thought you said you had a plan."

    "Yeah, well, as we all know, I am a liar."

    "Violet—"

    "Please, Lucci," I say, looking at him, my grip on the swing's handles white-knuckled. He stares back at me, his black eyes almost a mirror image of the sky above our heads. "You're so much smarter than me. And I know if I had listened to you in the first place then we probably wouldn't be here, and Jamie wouldn't be pissed at me. But I'm...I'm asking for your help right now because I just don't know how to do this by myself."

    He blinks at me, the surprise on his face obvious for a moment before his mouth settles into its usual, subtle smirk. He holds his bag of chips out towards me.

    I shake my head. "I don't want any."

    "Take one."

    "I said I don't want any—"

    "Honey. Butter."

    I take a chip. It's got the right amount of crunchiness, and the taste isn't as disjointed as I was expecting it to be. It's not bad. The thought crosses my mind that Jamie would like it, followed immediately after by a sharp pang of guilt.

    "See?" Lucci says. "I know how to pick a chip, don't I?"

    I take another one, tossing it into my mouth. "Whatever."

    "Eat as many as you want," he says, a grin on his face, though it's transient. His face grim, he points to the necklace around my throat, then closes his hand into a fist.

    I nod, grasping the necklace so tight that my nails press into the tough skin of my palm.

    "The first thing I would do is find a way to disable that thing," Lucci suggests, his voice barely a decibel over a whisper. "I'm the last person that would know the extent of what a witch can do, but if Kazue and Nat can make a video call out of a bunch of fancy candles, then I figure they should be able to do something about that recording device."

    He's right. Asking Kazue or Nat to do something about the necklace had never even occurred to me. "Okay. And then what?"

    "You said Jamie's senses are crazy good, right?"

    "The best. It's an alpha thing."

    Lucci's face wrinkles with confusion. "I don't know what that means, but sure, yeah. So he should be able to pick up when we're being followed, provided he's tuned in."

    "That way we'll know if Alonso's team is following us," I say, nodding along. "From there we can delude them. I'll go a different way; you and Jamie can head towards Mom. And when I get them alone I can—well, you know, I can—"

    Lucci sighs, his eyes shimmering with understanding. "Incapacitating them is fine."

    An uneasy silence stretches between us, until I get up from my swing, my shoes kicking a flurry of wood chips into the air. "I don't blame Jamie," I say, letting my hand unfurl from around the necklace, because this I want everyone to hear. "I don't blame him for what he did in the rings, not at all. How could I? He had to survive."

    "I know you don't, Vy, but that's not the point. The point is Jamie doesn't know that."

    I have to fight the urge to tear my hair from my scalp. Instead, I groan, throwing my hands up in the air. "God, Lucci. I know I have to talk to him, but first of all I have no idea what to say. And besides, why would he even listen to anything I tell him anymore?"

    "He'll listen."

    He says it with such authority, such certainty, that I glance at him over my shoulder in surprise. "How do you know?"

    Lucci shrugs. A slice of moonlight illuminates part of his face, lending him an eerie, almost inhuman glow, like he's more deity than man. "I just do."

    The words send a shudder down my spine. I can do nothing but stare at him for a while, until I say abruptly, "You're crazy."

    That makes him laugh, genuinely laugh, the sound bubbling from his chest and his eyes squinting half-closed. To my utter terror, my heart skips in my chest like a happy child.

    He hops from his swing, taking the bag of junk food with him. "Well," he says, reaching out to ruffle my hair, "I did follow you halfway across the world. So I guess you might be right about that one."
    
   "Lucci..."

    He shakes his head, placing a hand between my shoulder blades and gently pushing me forward. "You need to go talk to him," he says. "You know that."

    I sigh. Because I do know that, I don't argue with him any further.

Less than half an hour later, I'm standing in front of the bedroom door Jamie slammed shut earlier, the upstairs hallway shadowy and empty. Kazue and Nat were long asleep when we got home, and I left Lucci in the living room, where he put the TV on low volume and said he'd be waiting for me.

    Though a distant part of me wishes he'd help me do this, I know that fixing this massive mess I've created falls into no one's hands but my own. Still, those same hands are trembling as I swallow my pride and slide the door open.

    "Jamie?" I start, fighting to keep my voice steady. "It's me. I know you don't want to talk to me, but—Jamie?"

    I blink, and blink again, but the room's empty, the very air seeming to hum with...wrongness. I step inside, my mouth hanging open. The covers are tossed back haphazardly from his futon. My eyes trail to the window; it's broken, an ominous semicircle of shattered glass decorating the floor, glinting in the moonlight like delicate snowflakes.

    "Oh no. No no no," I mutter, running to the window, my fingers curling around the sill. I peer out into the night, but there's no sign of him anywhere. I close my eyes, lift my nose in the air, but I can't catch his scent, either.

    "Jamie!" I call. The panic's already there, swelling inside of me, squeezing the air out of my lungs. "Jamie!"

    Footsteps thunder up the stairs. Lucci throws open the door, his eyes bright with alarm. He asks me, "What's wrong? What's going on?"

    I sink down to my knees, glass crunching beneath me.

    "He's gone," I say, and watch as terror slowly floods Lucci's face. "I don't know where Jamie is. He's gone."