Aunt Nicki slid to the next photo.

Another shake.

Next photo.

No.

Next.

No.

Next.

No.

Another. And another. And another.

“Yes.” Eve studied the boy with the embroidered gold shirt. “Yes, this is the one I saw.”

Aunt Nicki was silent for a moment.

Eve turned her head to look at her. Her face looked raw, pain clear on her features. She then switched off the tablet and stowed it in her bag. She didn’t meet Eve’s eyes.

“I knew him,” Aunt Nicki said quietly. “He was one of the best.” She stood and put her bag over her shoulder. “You should sleep now.”

Eve thought of the smoke and the box. “I don’t think I can.”

Aunt Nicki smiled, but it was a cold smile. She twisted a dial on the IV. “You will.” She left the room. The door closed behind her.

Eve watched the monitor as her heart rate slowed, and she faded into dreamless darkness.

As Malcolm talked to the nurses outside her room, Eve shed her blue hospital gown and dressed in ordinary clothes. She raked a brush through her hair and thought of the boy in the golden shirt. He’d admired the acrobats: three men with red-and-orange feathers that had either sprouted from their skin or been sewn into it. They’d been practicing a routine where they’d tossed one another into the air and rode the wind high above the carnival tent, spinning and swirling before plummeting in a dive that ended in a tumble. All three had been more graceful than birds, silent in their aerial dance. One had unfurled a ribbon from his wrist. Another had caught it and swung, and then they’d painted the sky with silks of ruby, emerald, and gold. Flipping over one another, they’d woven the ribbons into a circle that they then let flutter to the ground. Hands outstretched, the boy in gold had caught the circle of ribbons. He’d then flown into the sky with it—without hidden wires, a trapeze, or ribbons to lift him—and met the acrobats in the air.

In that world, the carnival had been beneath a city in the trees. Above them, vast structures had been woven into the branches, and the homes had been like enclosed nests. As the acrobats flew overhead, the Storyteller had nestled in the roots of one of the trees. She had told tales about birds who guarded treasure while silver-clad monkeys stole everlasting fruit. While listening to her, Eve had watched the golden boy.

Bits of memory or bits of imagination?

Eve didn’t know, and she couldn’t summon the energy to care. She felt drained, as if someone had siphoned every drop of blood and moisture out of her body and left her a husk.

Leaving the hospital room, Eve joined Malcolm at the nurses’ station. He glanced at her and then handed the paperwork to an expressionless nurse with slicked-back hair. The nurse filed the papers and then turned to Eve. “Wrist,” the nurse commanded.

Eve glanced at Malcolm to interpret this cryptic statement, and he tapped his left wrist. She wore an ID bracelet. She hadn’t noticed it. As she lifted her arm up, she read the bracelet: PATIENT 001. She wondered if that meant she was their only patient or their first. She didn’t ask. The nurse snipped the plastic band off and dropped it in the trash.

“Keep her hydrated,” the nurse said to Malcolm, as if Eve weren’t capable of listening to and following instructions. Maybe I’m not, Eve thought. She wondered how many instructions she’d heard and forgotten over the weeks, months, or however long she’d been with WitSec. “Lots of rest. You keep pushing her like this, and I won’t be held responsible.”

“It’s not my call, not anymore,” Malcolm said. “The situation changed.” Eve looked sharply at him. “But I will do what I can. Her well-being is always my priority.” Hand on her shoulder, Malcolm guided Eve away from the nurses’ station. She wondered what had changed and if it would do any good to ask. Swiping his ID card, Malcolm unlocked a door and led her through a white hall to an elevator. He pushed the down button. The doors slid open—

She knew this elevator: the brown-walled interior and the worn carpet, the tinny music that drifted out the open door.

This isn’t a hospital, she realized.

She’d never left the agency.

Eve followed Malcolm into the elevator. He punched the button for the garage, and the doors slid closed. The elevator lurched down. She’d been on level four. The offices were three. Level five had the room with the silver walls.

“How many times?” Eve asked dully.

Malcolm raised his eyebrows.

“I was at the pizza place with Aidan, Topher, and Victoria. You brought me here. How long have I been here?”

“Seven,” Malcolm said.

“Days or visions?”

“Days,” he said as the elevator opened. “I don’t know how many visions.”

Seven lost days, she thought. Numbly, she followed him out of the elevator and through the garage to yet another black car. She climbed into the passenger seat, snapped on her seat belt, and rested her head against the window as Malcolm drove out of the garage.

“You need rest,” Malcolm said. “I told Lou this was too intense. You need the memories to return more naturally—through association or memory prompts, not self-inflicted comas. But Lou’s under pressure with the latest incidents—” He cut himself off.

“Tell me more of your memories,” Eve said. “You told me about your mother singing. Tell me about your father. Nice memories. I only want nice memories.” Nice memories to scrub away the smoke and blood inside her.

He drove out of the parking garage. “My memories?” He sounded relieved, as if he’d expected other questions, but Eve couldn’t bring herself to ask the real questions or hear about “incidents,” not when she felt as if she’d been scraped raw inside. “Okay … um, let me think … My dad and I used to play basketball. When I was a kid, he’d lift me halfway up to the basket. I’d dunk it in, and he’d cheer and shake me in the air like I was a trophy.” Taking one hand off the steering wheel, he demonstrated the shaking. “But I’d never made a basket on my own until one summer, when my father was away for two weeks. Every day of those two weeks, I practiced for hours. And the next Saturday, when Dad asked me to shoot hoops with him, I shot the basket from the ground by myself. My dad lifted me up and shook me like a trophy.”

Eve closed her eyes. “Tell me more.”

“My father was a cop, and he hoped I’d follow in his footsteps. Have a son on the force, you know? On the day I told him I was a US marshal … I swear he wanted to lift me in the air and shake me like a trophy. Only reason he didn’t was that I outweighed him by then. Also because my mom cried.”

Eve opened her eyes. The sky was cloudless blue. The trees were heavy with dark-green leaves, motionless in the still air. She watched the telephone poles pass. “Why did she cry?”

“She didn’t want me to be in any kind of law enforcement. She wanted me to be something safe like a veterinarian, even though I’m not good with animals. Hate cats. Okay with dogs. Don’t see the point of goldfish.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged. “Five years in, I was recruited for WitSec. Two years after that, a routine case proved to be anything but routine, and I came to the attention of the paranormal division. Para-WitSec is always looking for new agents. Since this is the only known nonmagical world, we are in high demand as a safe haven for witnesses of magical crimes. I was immediately assigned to multiple cases. All of it was classified, but I always wished I could have told her. As it was … she didn’t understand that my job is to keep other people safe. I’m doing what she—what both of them—taught me, what feels right and natural.”

Malcolm parked the car in front of the drab yellow house. She watched him get out, check the area, and then open her door. She stepped onto the sidewalk next to him.