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Memphis wiggled his fingers. They itched and prickled with something new. He touched his right hand to one of the dead trees, concentrating very hard. Two tiny green shoots poked out from the end of the branch.
“It’s coming back!” Theta said excitedly.
“Why is it doing that?” Ling asked.
“I don’t know,” Memphis said, staring at his hand, which felt strange but not unwelcome. Something was happening to him. Something he could not explain. But then, as fast as they’d sprouted, the new green vines shriveled in on themselves and turned the same gray as everything else.
“Not enough,” Ling said. “We need all his strength.”
“But that’s a good sign, isn’t it?” Evie asked.
“Probably another one of the King of Crows’s little tricks,” Sam said.
“We don’t know that. We don’t know anything about this world or how it works,” Jericho said.
“There’s a memory to everything. You just have to listen.” Evie put her hand to the cracked ground, but its story was as barren as the trees, just the slightest residue of history being sucked up and devoured by the King of Crows. But something did catch. She could read small bits of a life still beating here, and it belonged to Adelaide Proctor.
“Theta, Miss Addie is here.”
“Where? Can you find her?”
“You know who’s great at finding people?” Henry jerked his thumb at Ling.
“If I have an object of theirs,” Ling said in apology.
“What about the memory of an object?” Evie asked.
“As a good man once said, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio—’”
An irritated Ling interrupted Jericho. “Who is Horatio? Why are we talking about Horatio? We’re trying to solve a problem here.” Ling turned to Evie. “All right. Let’s try.”
Evie stooped and put a hand to the ground. Ling went to touch Evie.
“I don’t think you’ll have to,” Evie said. “We’re all connected. Remember?”
Ling nodded. She shut her eyes, concentrating. Evie felt Ling’s power joining to hers as well as Theta’s loving attachment to Miss Addie, and in a few seconds Evie saw a white clapboard church nestled deep in the dark wood. Miss Addie was inside that church, she knew.
“Somewhere over there,” Ling said, opening her eyes. She pointed to a gnarled forest under a yellow moon.
“Yes,” Evie and Theta both said.
“We don’t have much time,” Sam reminded them.
Memphis sagged against Jericho, who held him up. It was clear that Memphis was still deeply unwell. The show with the vines had been promising, but it might mean nothing.
“I want to take him down,” Memphis said and coughed.
“Marlowe?” Jericho asked.
“The King of Crows. For all he’s done.”
“I understand, Memphis,” Jericho said. “But we can’t do everything. We need your strength. We have to heal the rift.”
“And destroy the Eye,” Evie said. “I won’t have my brother trapped for eternity.”
“Baby Vamp—” Sam started. Evie cut him off.
“I won’t!”
