Miss Peregrine went to join Miss Wren, who was still speaking quietly and urgently with LaMothe. After a bit more arguing between the two, it was Miss Peregrine’s turn to talk. I tried reading her lips with little success. But it looked like Miss P wasn’t finding much success, either. LaMothe was shaking his head angrily.

  Parkins, leader of the Californio clan, had clearly been watching this exchange when he slapped the arm of his wheelchair. He seemed furious.

  “Give it a goddamned chance, LaMothe,” he shouted.

  LaMothe spun around, his face turning red. “Give me back my goddamned earthworker!”

  “We didn’t take your goddamned earthworker!” Parkins exploded.

  Their bodyguards tensed, readying to draw weapons should they need to.

  “Sure you didn’t!” LaMothe again. “You’ve only been talking about how badly you want one for the last fifty years!”

  Parkins’s chair rolled forward a few feet of its own accord. “We didn’t take her, and that’s that! Now, listen here, you people had better bring Ellery back to our camp by sundown—or there’ll be hell to pay!”

  I assumed Ellery was the name of the prisoner—the one taken as revenge. I frowned. This felt like a lot to keep track of. My head was ping-ponging back and forth as the two clan leaders traded threats and insults.

  “Why wait until sundown?” LaMothe cried. “Come at us!” Two raccoons that had been hiding in the folds of LaMothe’s coat rose up and hissed in Parkins’s direction. They were attached to the lining of his coat by their tails.

  Miss Peregrine and Miss Wren were pleading with the men to calm down, while Miss Cuckoo slowly shuttled Enoch, Emma, and me toward the door.

  But we found it blocked from the other side by another of Leo’s men.

  Leo Burnham unleaned himself from the bar, stepped between LaMothe and Parkins, and bellowed, “SHUT UP, ALL OF YOU!”

  And, amazingly, they did.

  “Antoine, you really want to start a war with Parkins over something he maybe didn’t do?”

  “He did do it,” LaMothe growled, which nearly started another shouting match.

  “We let the birds drag us out to this hick loop so we could iron out our differences, no? So if they think Parkins didn’t do this thing, at least let ’em make their case.”

  “My thinkin’ exactly!” said Parkins.

  “Thank you, Leo,” Miss Wren said. “Well said.”

  “Fine,” said LaMothe, glaring at Miss Peregrine. “Say your piece.”

  Leo cocked his thumb at us. “These your hotshot crime-scene investigators, Peregrine? The ones hiding behind Frenchie’s skirt?”

  “Nobody’s hiding,” I said, and stepped forward.

  I saw Leo’s face change. He finally recognized me.

  “Wait a goddamn minute,” he said. “This kid?” He was shaking his head. Almost laughing. “You got a lotta nerve, Peregrine.”

  “You know him?” said LaMothe.

  “He’s a troublemaker. And his grandfather was a criminal.”

  My lip twitched. I wanted to slap him. Miss Peregrine put a hand on my back, as if to say I’ll handle this. “You’re mistaken on both points. I assure you, Jacob is one of our best and brightest, and the most accomplished tracker of hollowgast in the world.”

  “There’s more than one?” Leo said, narrowing his eyes at me.

  “I can see them, sense them from a quarter mile away,” I said.

  I was about to continue and talk about how I could control them, when Miss Peregrine squeezed my shoulder and cut me off.

  “His detection skills have saved our lives many times,” she said quickly.

  Leo seemed reluctant to accept this, but after a moment of internal struggle, he let it go. Miss Peregrine had clearly done a lot to earn his trust in the days since I’d last seen him, when he’d hardly been able to tolerate the sight of her.

  “What makes you think a hollowgast had anything to do with it?” Leo asked, still eyeballing me.

  “Experience and intuition,” said Miss Peregrine. “I can’t prove it—but I think Jacob can.” She turned to face Parkins and LaMothe. “And if he doesn’t find any compelling evidence, we won’t stand in your way; settle this however you must.”

  “But I warn you,” Miss Wren said, her face pallid and grave, “if you make war, the ymbrynes will not take sides, and the wider world’s loops will be shut to you forever.”

  Leo laughed. “The rest of the world can go to hell.”

  “Let them look if they like,” LaMothe said with disgust, his raccoons rising up to hiss venomously at Parkins. “I already know where the trail leads.”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Where the trail began was the Northern clan’s camp, a collection of large (and rather impressive) animal-skin tents outside of town. Some were elaborate, with doors and windows cut into them, and one was two stories tall—LaMothe’s, I assumed. One was even suspended in the trees, high above our heads.

  LaMothe showed us the tent from which the girl—Ellery was her name—had been taken. He showed us the backside of the tent, which faced empty woods, and where it had been ripped open. He showed us the bed where she’d been sleeping when she was taken.

  It had happened earlier in the day.

  There were clear signs that a struggle had occurred—a flipped cot, personal items strewn across the floor—but none of which I would consider the classic signs of a hollowgast attack. No python-shaped depressions in the grass from the whipping of tongues. No bite marks made with distinctively long razored teeth. And most disappointingly, no puddles of hollowgast residue—the stinking black goo that leaked incessantly from their eye sockets. But the clan leaders and ymbrynes were watching me search, and I knew there would be trouble if it looked like I was getting frustrated, so I pretended to examine Ellery’s pillow very closely and feigned interest in the texture of the long tear in the tent wall.

  Meanwhile, I could hear Emma outside the tent showing people the wights’ mugshots, in the hopes one of them had been seen, but she was coming up empty.

  I began to get worried. Worried about failing, and about how the hell we would get out of this loop if a war between two extremely well-armed peculiar clans broke out.

  LaMothe himself was getting frustrated. He sensed I wasn’t finding anything, and he called for one of his underlings to bring in the evidence they had collected.

  “We found this pitched into the trees.” He pulled a knife out of a bag and dangled it. “It’s the one that was used to cut open this tent—you can tell by the serrated edge—and it’s one of theirs.” He pointed out a symbol carved into the knife’s leather handle, which looked like a C inside a braided lariat.

  “It’s one of ours,” Parkins admitted, “but we don’t know how it got there.”

  “The hell you don’t!”

  “Could’ve been stolen from us!” Parkins said. “Planted by these wights!”

  LaMothe’s burly bodyguard stepped forward. “What about the drag marks?” he said. “They lead straight to your camp!”

  “Coulda been faked!” Parkins shouted. “Hell, maybe you faked it so you could justify coming for one of our people!”

  The emotional temperature was near boiling.

  “Now, now, gentlemen!” Miss Wren said, putting herself between the two angry men. “I’m sure Jacob is about to prove our case!”

  “Almost got something!” I lied, just trying to buy time. “Give me one more minute!”

  Miss Peregrine rushed over to me. “I hope you’re not kidding,” she whispered.

  I winced.

  Her face fell.

  For a moment she looked hopeless, then distracted by something, and a spark of what seemed like inspiration lit up her face.

  She turned to face the others. “Excuse me!” she said loudly. “Mr. Portman has had a breakthrough! Please follow us!”

  She marched out of the tent, crooking a finger at me to follow.

  “Just what I suspected!” she said, faking excitement. “A very clear trail of ocular residue!”

  “Of what?” LaMothe said.

  “Eye leakage. Every hollowgast weeps a constant stream of oily tears. Only Jacob can see it—and he has, and it leads this way!”

  “Jacob, that’s brilliant!” Emma said, color returning to her pale cheeks.

  Enoch punched me lightly in the shoulder. “Knew you were good for something.”

  I was baffled, of course. What was Miss Peregrine up to?

  “You’re finding drips along the tree line,” she hissed quickly in my ear.

  Having no other choice, I played along and pretended I was following a trail. We walked along the forest’s edge, Miss Peregrine at my side. When these pissed-off cowboys and mountain men inevitably realized I was making all this up, I was pretty sure one of them would shoot me. It wouldn’t be long; the troops were getting restless.

  LaMothe started grumbling.

  “What’s more likely?” he was saying. “That some invisible monster took my Ellery and set up Parkins and his people to look like they did it? Or that this Californio trash finally kidnapped her? Everyone knows how bad they need an earthworker; they’re piss-poor farmers and can’t get nothing to grow.”

  “Let me say something,” said Leo, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet for some time. “I didn’t want to say this, because it’s not something I’m proud of. But we had a wight attack just a few days ago. Busted into my HQ with a hollowgast and stole a very promising feral right out from under me. From my house.”

  “You saw it?” Parkins said, turning around in his chair, which was floating a few inches above the rough ground as his bodyguard pushed it.

  “No, John, the damned things are invisible. But I saw a man thrown across a room by it. And the stink is incredible . . .”

  Oh my God, I thought. Burnham had thought H was a wight. It made a certain sense. H was in command of that hollow, like a wight would’ve been, and when they found his body he’d had no eyes—hence no pupils—to prove otherwise.

  “It still doesn’t make a lick of sense,” LaMothe said. “Why take Ellery? There are easier peculiars to kidnap. Do the wights have crops to grow and fields to cultivate?”

  “To cause chaos,” Miss Wren said darkly. “When the rest of peculiardom is in chaos, they thrive. When we are distracted, they can get on with their real work.”

  “Which is . . . what?” asked LaMothe.

  Miss Wren sighed. “Would that we knew.”

  All this time I’d been pretending to find more drips of eye goo. Miss Peregrine was looking up at the trees half the time, and twice she saw something there that made her nudge me in a slightly different direction.

  Then I saw one. A real one. I almost couldn’t believe it—

  A footprint-sized patch of stamped grass, and in the center of it, a black stain. I stopped, suddenly, and bent down to examine it.

  “What is it, boy?” Parkins said.

  “Residue!” I replied, excited, before I could catch myself. “I mean, uh, an extra-big drip of it.”

  I pressed my finger into it. It squished a little, still wet, and the skin of my fingertip began to burn and throb.

  Damn. The stuff was acidic. Before wiping it off, I brought the finger to my nose and sniffed, and nearly gagged at the unmistakable rotten-meat scent.

  Definitely a hollowgast.

  And not just any hollowgast, but the one I’d sprung from the blood-sport ring. The one that, until recently, had been powering the Panloopticon.

  “I know this one,” I said. “I recognize his smell.”

  “Like a blessed bloodhound,” Leo marveled.

  I looked at Miss Peregrine, amazed. How did you know?

  She just smiled.

  I followed the trail—a real one now—very quickly. The black drops were closer together in places where the hollow had slowed, and farther apart when it had moved fast. I didn’t always have to see the spots with my eyes to know where they were; sometimes I could smell them. I found I could even smell them ten, fifteen feet away.

  The trail followed the trees to the mine. But it skirted the entrance and curved around the side, and that’s where I found a puddle of hollowgast slime nearly a foot in diameter. He’d been waiting here a long time.

  I was bending to get a closer look when I heard LaMothe call out to his man, and they crouched down, examining something on the ground. Then they stood up and LaMothe extended his hand to Miss Peregrine. There was something small and white wriggling in his palm.

  “What is that?” she said.

  “It’s one of Ellery’s worms,” LaMothe said. “They wriggle out through her eye patch sometimes, when she’s upset.”

  “Then we know she was here. And so was the hollowgast.”

  “Well, that proves it!” Parkins said. “It was them wights and their hollow. They took her out of the loop.”

  “But someone would’ve seen ’em leave,” said Leo. “We have guards posted.”

  “Not if they went out this way,” said LaMothe, and he walked over to a large boulder that stood against the side of the hill. “Somebody help me push.”

  It took seven of us, but we were able to roll the boulder a few feet to one side. Behind it was a tunnel that led away into the dark.

  “I’ll be damned,” Parkins said. “Is that a back way into the mine?”

  “And out of the loop,” said Leo.

  “A hollow wouldn’t have had any trouble moving that boulder,” I pointed out.

  “Well, I think that about clears things up, don’t you?” Parkins said testily. “Now, LaMothe. Your people better return my girl, and double quick.”

  LaMothe laughed. “Oh, this doesn’t end here. This ain’t over until we get Ellery.”

  Parkins was practically vibrating with frustration. “Now, listen here, LaMothe—you don’t see Burnham holding up the talks because the wights took a feral from him . . .”

  “This is different. This was an act of war perpetrated upon me while we was supposed to be talking peace.”

  “Mr. LaMothe, be reasonable,” Miss Wren pleaded.

  He rounded on her. “Okay, try this on. You say these were the same wights who broke out of your jail. So either you can’t keep your own house in order, or I’m left to assume you let ’em out on purpose.”

  “That’s absurd!” Miss Wren cried.

  “He makes a damn good point,” said Leo. “You birds were supposed to have put the kibosh on these wights and their monsters months ago. And now they’re out raising hell again? How can we trust anyone so incompetent?”

  LaMothe turned his hissing raccoons on me. “So you’re some famous hotshot tracker?” he said. “Well, you better be.”

  LaMothe stepped toward me and shoved a small card into my hands. It was a photograph of a girl wearing an eye patch and a giant black dress that swallowed her bottom half.

  “No.” Miss Peregrine snatched the photo away from me. “Jacob’s not involved in this.”

  “You’re the one dragged him into it,” LaMothe said, his eyes burning like coals. “Clean up your mess, Peregrine. Get my girl back. Or you can forget about any peace accord.”

  I’m so sorry, Jacob. I so regret putting you in this situation.”

  Miss Peregrine, Emma, and Enoch were following me through tunnels as I tracked the trail of hollowgast residue. It was easy enough to follow down here, but what about on the other side of the loop?

  “What if I can’t do it?” I said. “I’ve never tracked a hollow like this before. I’m not like Addison, who can smell peculiars from a long way off . . .”

  “What you can do is even better. You can sense them.”

  The trail led to the loop entrance the Americans used—yet another elevator—which led us up through a much gentler changeover and into the present. We walked out into a lobby full of tourists.

  “Hope you folks had a great time!” A grinning tour guide slapped a sticker on my shirt that read I saw the Olde Time Gold Mine and all I got was this lousy sticker!

  Soaked into the carpet by the exit, I saw a black spot. The hollow had come through this way, into the present.

  The trail of hollowgast residue continued outside, down the sidewalk, around a corner—and I found it easier and easier to follow, so that after a while I hardly even had to look for it—my nose, and more than that, a sensation in my gut, was telling me where to go. I felt like an old cartoon character following the wafting scent of a pie cooling in a window.

  We were passing through the crowded center of the downtown, and I worried that my companions’ old clothes might attract attention—until I looked more closely around me. There were people in Old West costumes, in full cowboy attire and dressed like old-timey madams, walking everywhere. A lot of the old buildings had been preserved. What had once been a lawless frontier town had become a kind of open-air Wild West theme park, and you could get your photo taken in Old West gear, buy chaps and ten gallon hats and replica buffalo bones at gift shops, and watch costumed reenactments of famous shootouts. One was happening in the town square right now, the duelists cheered on by a crowd of sunbaked tourists and their bratty, distracted kids. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the very real armed standoff that was still happening inside the loop—and I realized that this town was the perfect cover for a loop entrance. The comings and goings of strange people in strange costumes would arouse no special interest at all.

  “This is fun for normals?” Enoch said. “Watching people pretend to shoot one another?”

  “Keep your eyes sharp,” Emma hissed, scanning the faces of the crowd. “Murnau and the other wights could still be nearby. It would be best if we saw them before they saw us.”