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"No," Evelyn says. "You wouldn't."

"Last night someone opened a locked door in Maren's house, moved one box to the middle of the floor, took nothing, and left." I turn around. "And this morning there are pages cut out of the back of her mother's book and the tears are white."

"What did she leave in?"

"The part about the mirror. The part about the candles. Everything up to the word."

Evelyn closes her eyes.

"She's not hunting her," I say.

"No."

"She's been trying to get to her since day one, and everyone who's supposed to be helping, including me, has spent days reading her as the thing in the dark."

"She has had generations of practice at not being believed." Evelyn opens her eyes. "That’s what happens on the wrong side of glass. You get one gesture and no voice, and everyone who sees you assumes the worst possible thing, because that’s the easiest thing to act on."

"What's her name?"

"I'm not going to say her name in this house."

"Why?"

"Because I would have to mean it." She stands up. "And because you'll tell Maren, and Maren will go looking, and she’s three days from the only night in four generations when that woman can be reached. Let her get there on her own two feet."

I take the photograph back. Careful with it now, which is stupid, but I do it anyway.

At the door she says my name, and it stops me, because she’s never done that.

"How much of her own magic has she got this week?"

"None." It comes out flatter than I want. "Two days. She can't even light a candle. She's stopped telling me when she tries."

"Is anything of hers still running?"

"What?"

"Anything she started and hasn't finished. Anything she did?"

Understanding hits me suddenly.

"There's a creature in my kitchen," I say. "She stopped it in the air Saturday night. It's still there. It hasn't moved in two days."

Evelyn Sorrell looks at me for about a second and a half.

"Then she isn't empty," she says. "She's been holding a door shut with her magic since Saturday. Everything she has is in that room, all of it, every minute. That’s what the issue is."

"What happens when it stops?"

"That depends on which of them stops first."

I take the county road because it's faster and I don't take it fast enough. My wolf is up the whole way, ears forward, no words in him at all. He only does that when he's already decided something and is waiting for me to catch up.

Ours.

"I know."

Cass calls at the four mile marker. She's outside. I can hear the wind on the phone and I can hear the six of them not talking.