“Have any of your clients died?” Ford asked. “Someone you were trying to help?”

“Brett,” Jenks said.

“Peter?” I blurted out.

But the amulet went a negative gray.

“Nick,” Jenks said nastily, and the color on the metal disk became a violent shade of purple.

Ford blinked, trying to divorce himself from the hate. “I’d say no,” he whispered.

This was really weird. Whoever it was knew my old boyfriends. My eyes closed in a wash of guilt. I had known a lot of people who were now dead. I was a freaking albatross.

“Rachel.”

It was gentle and caring, and I opened my eyes to find Ford looking at me with compassion. “You are worthy of accepting love,” he said, and I flushed.

“Stop eavesdropping on me,” I mumbled, and Jenks’s wings hummed an agitated whisper.

“The ghost thinks so, too,” Ford added.

I swallowed a lump. “Are you sure it isn’t my dad?”

Ford’s smile turned benevolent. “It’s not your dad, but he does want to protect you. He’s frustrated, watching you these past…months? And being unable to help.”

I let out my breath in a huff. Jenks’s wings hit a higher pitch, and he took to the air. Great. I really needed another white knight. Not. “Who is it?” Jenks said, almost angry. Then, in a burst of sparkles that rivaled the lights, he shouted, “Rache, where’s your Ouija board?”

I stared at the wildly darting pixy, then, understanding what he wanted to do, I shuffled through Ivy’s papers for the back of one she wouldn’t miss. “I don’t have one,” I said, turning over a hand-drawn map of the conservatory and writing out the alphabet in big, bold letters. “They give me the creeps.”

Feeling light-headed, I pushed the hand-drawn alphabet in front of Ford and backed up. Ford gave me a wondering look, and I said, “Run your finger under the letters. When you feel a positive emotion, that’s the first letter of his name.” I looked at the empty-seeming kitchen. “Okay?”

The amulet went gold in affirmation, and I sat down to hide my shaking knees. This was really, really weird.

“I’d say he’s okay with that.” But Ford looked uneasy for the first time. With a single finger, he began at A, running over them with a deliberate slowness. I watched as he paused at one, then backed up. “P,” Ford said.

My thoughts flashed to Peter, then Piscary. One dead, the other really dead. Both impossible. But what if it was Peter? He was living as an undead, but if his soul was in purgatory, and I could get it into his body, would he be whole? Was this Ivy’s answer?

I licked my lips and watched Ford reach the end of the alphabet and start over. “I,” he said, then hesitated. “Yes, I.”

My exhale was long. Not Peter, then. But Piscary? Ford had said the ghost was benevolent, and the vampire hadn’t been. Unless it was a trick. Or Piscary had been a good man before he’d become a vampire. Did their souls renew themselves at death, not disintegrate? Revert to a state before everything went wrong?

Ford reached the end and started again. “E,” he said, looking as if he was more relaxed. Not Piscary, then, and I felt better.

“Pie,” Jenks said snidely. “Did you kill a baker we don’t know about, Rachel?”

I leaned forward, breathless. “Shut up, Jenks.”

Ford’s finger stopped again, almost immediately. “R,” he said, and I felt myself go cold, then hot. No freaking way…

“Oh my God!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. Jenks hit the ceiling at my outburst, and Ford covered his ears, eyes closed in pain. “I know who it is!” I exclaimed, eyes wide and my heart pounding. I could not believe it. I could not freaking believe it. But it had to be him!

“Rachel!” Jenks was in my face, shedding gold sparkles. “Stop! You’re killing Ford! Knock it off!”

His hand to his head, Ford smiled. “It’s okay,” he said, grinning. “This is good stuff. From both of you.”

Wonder filled me, and I shook my head as I looked around my kitchen. “Unbelievable,” I whispered, then more loudly said, “Where are you? I thought you were at peace.” I stopped, hands falling to my side, disappointed somehow. “Wasn’t saving Sarah enough?”

Ford was leaning back in his chair, grinning as if he was witnessing a family reunion, but Jenks was pissed. “Who the hell are you talking to, Rache? Tell me or I’m going to pix you, so help me Tink.”

Hand gesturing at nothing, I stood in the middle of my kitchen, still not believing it. “Pierce,” I said, and Ford’s amulet glowed. “It’s Pierce.”

The dusty box my mom had brought over last fall was pretty much empty. There was a scarily small T-shirt from Disneyland. Some bric-a-brac. My old diary, which I had started some time after my dad died and I realized pain could be remade once you gave it the permanence of words. The books that had once filled the box were now in the kitchen, but the eight-hundred-level ley line arcane textbook Robbie had given me for the winter solstice hadn’t been among them. I hadn’t thought it was here, but I had wanted to check before I went over to my mom’s and got her stirred up by looking for it in her attic. It had to be somewhere.

But it wasn’t in my closet, and sitting back on my heels, I pushed a long curl out of my eyes and exhaled, gazing at the single-paned, night-darkened stained-glass window my bedroom had. Without the book, I had no hope of re-creating the spell I’d done eight years ago to give a spirit in purgatory a temporary body. I was missing a few hard-to-find ley line tools as well. Not to mention that the charm needed a whopping big boost of communal energy.

Being at the closing of the circle at Fountain Square on the solstice would do it. I knew that from experience, but the solstice was come and gone. I was banned from the Howlers’ arena, so that was out, even if they did have a game in the snow. New Year’s was my next best bet. They didn’t close the circle, but there would be a party, and when people started singing “Auld Lang Syne,” the energy flowed. I had three days to find everything. It didn’t look good.

“Well, Tink loves a duck,” I said, and Jenks, resting on my dresser among my perfumes, buzzed his wings. The pixy hadn’t left my side since finding out we had a ghost. I thought it was funny. Pierce had been here almost a year. Why it bothered Jenks now I had no idea.

Though our hour had come and gone, Ford was still in the kitchen, slowly talking to Pierce one letter at a time as I listened in while whipping up a batch of earth-magic locator amulets. The demon curse would have been easier, but I wasn’t going to twist demon magic in front of Ford. I had a bad feeling I’d done the complex charm wrong since nothing happened when I invoked the first potion with a drop of my blood and spilled it on the amulet. Mia was probably outside the quarter-mile radius within which it worked, but I should’ve smelled something.

“You think the book is still at your mom’s?” Jenks asked, his wings a blur though his butt was still settled on my dresser. The sound of his kids playing with Rex was loud, and I wondered how long the cat would last before she hid from them.

“I’ll find out tonight,” I said firmly as I refolded the box and shoved it into a pile of boots. “I must have left it at Mom’s when I moved out,” I said around a stretch to get the kinks out of my back. “It’s probably in the attic along with the stuff to do it.” I hope.

I stood, glancing at my alarm clock. I was meeting Marshal at his apartment in less than an hour, and from there we were driving to my mom’s so it would look more like a “date.” Finding an excuse to get up into the attic might be hard, but Marshal could help. I didn’t want to ask my mom about the book. The first time I’d used it, I’d gotten in major trouble with the I.S.

Hands on my hips, I gazed at the unusual sight of the back of my closet. Shoes and boots were everywhere, and the thought of Newt possessing me, clearing out my closet in the search for her memory, rose up. Suddenly nervous, I shoved the box away and began carefully putting my boots back.