“That is exactly what Queen Skya fears most,” she said. “This pretender king is a dangerous foe. He defeated you before, and she won’t let you risk your life again. You know the queen,” she said to Jeremy. “There’s no arguing with her when she’s made up her mind. Though I fear—”

“What?” Jeremy said.

“I fear she won’t be able to defeat him alone.”

“The Valkyries can’t help her?” Rafe asked.

“We can’t pass into that place,” she said. “We’re made of light and the darkness there is poison to our kind. We’re like fish drowning in air. We would go if we could. But now you’ve heard her orders, and there’s no more I know to tell you.” She met Rafe’s eyes. “I am sorry, Highness. During the summer you were among us, we would all ride the countryside and make camp under the stars. By the fire, we would all take turns telling stories. I liked the stories you two told the best, the one about the handsome spy and the man who was also a bat and would fight crime? They are dear memories to me. And we spoke of them often during those long years without you both.”

She looked at Jeremy. “You remember where your rooms are, don’t you? Nothing has changed. The queen has kept them for you as they were.”

Winter bowed her head and walked out of the library.

Rafe stood very still and quiet while Jeremy dragged his hands through his hair and made an angry circuit of the room.

“We told them James Bond and Batman stories,” Rafe said.

“Yeah, well, we didn’t have the plot of King Lear memorized yet, and you can’t do much better than Batman Begins for a campfire story.”

“It doesn’t make sense. Why would someone steal my memories?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know…” Jeremy said. “And I don’t know who the king is. Never heard of him, but I want to eat his dinner, his daughter, and then burn his mother’s house down while he watches.”

“She said he’s an old enemy of mine? Maybe someone I fought without you—”

“No.” Jeremy shook his head. “We were always together. Always. You never fought any king or any pretender king or anyone who defeated you.” He exhaled. “Maybe one of the Bright Boys got ambitious?”

Jeremy sat down in the deep sill of a large arched window that overlooked a courtyard. Rafe went over to him. The moon was full and white and bright. Too full, too bright. It looked too close and smooth, untouched by a billion years of meteor strikes. A different moon than theirs. A younger, more innocent moon.

“What is the Ghost Town?”

“The Ghost Town? Lost souls roam there, people who get stuck and can’t move on. Worse than the damned, Skya said. The damned are resigned to their fates. The ones in the Ghost Town want to claw their way out, and they’ll claw anything. That’s why the Bright Boys live there. It’s a feast of fear for them.” He glanced out the window, though there was little to see. “Skya must have hidden Emilie somewhere safe. Otherwise I could find her.”

He rubbed his forehead, and Rafe wanted to comfort him but didn’t know how.

“Why was it so hard to find her all those years? You could find everyone else.”

Jeremy raised his face. “The gift only let me find the lost. Lost people. Lost things. Even bodies because the families wanted them back. But there was a catch, or maybe you could call it a failsafe to keep me from abusing the power—if something or someone didn’t want to be found, I couldn’t find them. Emilie didn’t want to be found.”

“If you can’t find her now, maybe she’s where she wants to be.”

“God, I hope so.”

Jeremy stared up at the strange moon. He looked young again in that light, like the boy Rafe used to know.

“What’s wrong?” Rafe asked him.

“I didn’t want your homecoming to be like this. There was so much I wanted you to remember.”

“Then tell me.”

A slight smile played across his lips. Jeremy stood up.

“Better. I’ll show you.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Jeremy and Rafe walked through the torch-lit palace corridors.

They took a different route this time—wider hallways, fewer rooms. Instead of tapestries on the walls, someone had painted murals.

Jeremy stopped and raised his candle to illuminate one particular section of the wall. “Look familiar?” he asked.

Rafe squinted. A silver-and-purple dragon fled across an arched bridge, pursued by a small black rabbit. It looked more than familiar. It was like seeing his own face in a mirror.

“Mine?” he asked.

Jeremy waved his hand to indicate the entire wall of the corridor, at least ten yards long and completely covered in wild paintings of this strange kingdom.

“All of them are yours,” he said. “You painted this entire hallway for Skya.”

“Why?”

“She loved your work. Your first royal commission. Not bad for fifteen, right? Come on. This way.”

Jeremy jogged as if he couldn’t wait to show him whatever lay ahead. Rafe ran after him, but as they reached the arched doorways, Jeremy suddenly stopped.

“Wait, let me show you something first,” he said. “Stay here and watch.”

Rafe waited behind the threshold, watching, curious, as Jeremy walked into the throne room. He stopped a few yards in and turned to face him.

“Okay, now come in,” Jeremy said.

Confused but willing, Rafe started forward. As soon as he stepped across the threshold, the torches on the walls flickered to life, and the grand room was suffused with warm and flickering light.

“The throne room torches only light up when the royals enter,” Jeremy said. “Elitists.”

“This is unbelievable,” Rafe said as he turned a slow circle, trying to take it all in…the mosaic tile floor that depicted a scene of a dragon ship on a turquoise sea, the lancet windows in the high walls, the ceiling like a medieval cathedral…

Rafe imagined the room flooded with sunlight. It must have been dazzling.

How did we ever leave? he wondered again. He knew why, to find Emilie, but how…and then he remembered how he was able to leave. He’d wished his memory of this place away. But what about Jeremy?

“How did you leave this place?” Rafe asked.

“How or why?”

“Both.”