We were standing on the street in present-day Marrowbone, just outside the mining museum loop entrance, when a tourist paused to snap a picture of us. LaMothe barked at him to keep moving, and the tourist scurried off.

  Miss Peregrine smiled tightly. “We’ll be gone from the conference a few days, at least,” she said. “We’ve got a more pressing matter at hand.”

  LaMothe nodded. “I hope you find your girl,” he said, and he actually reached out and shook Miss Peregrine’s hand.

  “Thank you,” Miss Peregrine said. “We’ll do all we can for Ellery, once she’s well enough to travel. We have a wonderful healer in Devil’s Acre, if you’d entrust her to us for a little while.”

  He nodded appreciatively, then turned and spoke directly to me for the first time. “I’m sorry I doubted you, boy. You’ve got a rare talent.” And he slapped me on the back so hard I nearly fell over.

  He started to go, but Miss Wren caught him by the raccoon tail. “If you could try not to start a war while we’re gone,” she said.

  “If one breaks out, it won’t be us who fired the first shot.” He tipped his top hat and went.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  A few minutes later we were reentering Bentham’s attic via the Panloopticon, and the elevator door opened to a strange sound: applause.

  The attic was filled with people—ymbrynes, friends, ministry workers, random peculiars I knew only in passing—and they were all clapping, their faces bright and smiling. For me.

  I felt a friendly nudge from behind as Miss Peregrine pushed me out of the elevator.

  “They know what you did,” she whispered. “And they’re all very proud of you.”

  There was Horace, beaming and shouting. Brownyn, carrying both Olive and Claire on her shoulders so they could see over the crowd, all of them cheering. Miss Blackbird and Miss Babax were congratulating me; even Sharon was there to give me a pat on the back. It was strange, what it did to me to see them all gathered like that, their smiling faces pointed in my direction. It stunned me. It filled me with joy. I felt buoyant, flooded with dopamine. I was reminded of my purpose, of all that we’d been fighting for. Here it was:

  My truest friends, my truest home.

  I loved my peculiar family, and I knew then that I would fight with them—and for them—for the rest of my life.

  I felt Miss Peregrine’s hand on my shoulder. I turned and caught her in a rare moment of tenderness, her eyes shining with emotion.

  “You did fine work, Mr. Portman,” she said softly. “Fine work.”

  I stood there, grinning like an idiot, trying to figure out how to hug each one of my friends individually, when suddenly the crowd seemed to hush; the moment I caught sight of her, all else faded. The whispers, the questions, the curious eyes—none of it mattered. My mind felt paralyzed. Because there—right there—pushing through a knot of Sharon’s broad-shouldered cousins—there she was. Out of breath and rushing forward as fast as she could, her face at once desperate and beaming with happiness.

  Noor.

  “Jacob,” she said, gasping a little as she pushed through a wall of bodies, somehow oblivious to the spotlight pointed in her direction. “You’re back . . . I only just heard . . . I was in the library with Millard . . . I was so worried . . .”

  I formed a wedge with my hands and parted the crowd, closing the gap between us. I didn’t even say hi—I just kissed her, right there in front of everybody. Her surprise melted, changed as her body sank against mine. The rest of the world fell silent as a shower of sparks erupted in my chest, my head.

  We broke apart, finally, though only because we’d both become aware of how much the room had quieted—and how many people were staring at us.

  I also realized I needed to breathe.

  “Hi,” I said, grinning stupidly, my face hot and probably beet red.

  “Hi,” she said, grinning, too.

  And then we laughed. Laughed as relief and joy and nervousness flooded our bodies. We both seemed to have realized that we’d crossed a line of no return, rushing headlong into new territory. Past friendship. Straight into—

  I wasn’t sure what.

  But I felt breathless at the thought of it, of what we might be. And then I felt surprised. Surprised by my ability to feel so much—joy, terror, fear, grief—all at the same time. My smile faded and the real world returned in a rush, the room coming back into focus with an abrupt, sobering shudder. Still, the harsh edges of reality seemed softer now. A strange miracle.

  Nearby, I could hear Miss Peregrine talking to someone in a somber tone about Fiona. Sharon seemed to be heading in our direction. Noor and I still stood near each other, no longer touching, not even looking at each other, but something had changed in the air between us. Then someone started tapping me on the shoulder, and I turned, already frowning, ready to tell Sharon to back off, that I didn’t want to talk about loop freedom right now.

  But it was Horace.

  “Jacob,” he said anxiously, “I know you’ve only just arrived, but we have a lot to discuss. Noor and Millard and I made some startling discoveries during your absence.”

  I looked to Noor. She bit her lip. “Yeah, I didn’t have a chance to mention that part,” she said sheepishly. “But Horace is right. We have a lot to talk about. It’s been crazy here.”

  “You’ve had a breakthrough?” I asked, that familiar hope building in my chest.

  “Actually, we did,” she said, and laughed. “That sign I remembered seeing across the street from our house? Turns out it was an ad for a store that only had branches in Ohio and Pennsylvania. So we’ve narrowed it down to just two states!”

  “That’s amazing!” I said. “You’re so close!”

  “Not that close—Millard says finding a secret loop in a territory that big could still take weeks. And it’s been going slow today because Millard’s been working on something else.”

  “Something else?” I frowned. “What could be more important than this?”

  Noor shrugged.

  I looked to Horace.

  Horace shrugged, too, and then toyed absently with his cravat. “Who knows? It’s hard to pin him down long enough to ask,” he said. “Especially when he insists on wandering around naked, like an uncivilized animal.”

  “Some animals wear clothes,” I pointed out, thinking of Addison.

  “I said uncivilized animals.”

  I was about to refocus the conversation when Enoch pinballed through the crowd and grabbed Horace by the shoulder. “Did you hear about Fiona?” he cried. “She’s still out there, mate! She bloody well survived!”

  Horace jumped like he’d touched a live wire. “What!”

  Clearly, he hadn’t heard. None of them had.

  “Who said what about Fiona?” Bronwyn shouted, shoving Ulysses Critchely out of the way to reach us. “She’s alive?”

  “Oh my goodness!” Olive cried, so excited she floated off Bronwyn’s shoulder and got lodged in the rafters.

  “That’s—that’s—” Claire stammered, and then she passed out and tumbled off Bronwyn’s shoulder into her waiting arms. “Astounding,” she moaned.

  “Well. Where is she?” Bronwyn said, head pivoting. “This calls for a celebration!”

  “She’s a prisoner of the wights,” Emma said, and tossed a rope up to Olive. She glanced, very briefly, at Noor and me, then quickly looked away.

  “Oh,” said Horace, looking stricken. “Hell.”

  “We’ll go and get her!” Bronwyn said, her mood ever unsinkable. “We’ll put together a rescue team today—this minute! Where have they got her?”

  “We don’t know,” I said. “That’s the problem.”

  “Hell,” Bronwyn said, her shoulders sagging.

  I turned around to look for Hugh. He was still by the elevators, in serious conversation with Miss Blackbird and Miss Peregrine.

  “I don’t understand why Miss Peregrine insisted he come with us,” Enoch said, “when she knew that if we did find Fiona she could be in dire shape. Mind controlled at the very least. Maybe even—” He stopped himself before saying it. Dead. “That would’ve crushed him flat.”

  “My goodness, Enoch,” said Horace, “have you grown a heart?”

  Enoch glowered at him. “Seems a bit cruel, that’s all.”

  “No,” Emma said firmly. “Leaving him out of it wouldn’t have been doing Hugh any favors. If we’d found Fiona without him, and he ever found out Miss Peregrine knew we were on her trail, that would have crushed him,” said Emma. “He deserved to be there, no matter what.”

  “How’s he holding up?” Noor asked.

  “As well as can be expected,” said Emma. “He’s a strong kid. But he’s angry, and he’s worried.”

  “We all are,” I said. I turned back to Noor and Horace. “So. You have news.”

  “It isn’t for public consumption,” Horace said. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk that’s a few decibels quieter. And rather more private.”

  “So long as there’s food,” said Enoch. “I’m starving.”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  It was still early, hours before curfew and the sun still middling in the Acre’s putrid sky, and the Shrunken Head wasn’t crowded yet.

  “I don’t generally approve of public houses,” Miss Peregrine said, dubiously regarding the tanned and wrinkled head that hung above its door, “but as our cupboards are currently bare, and you’ve all had a trying few days, I’ll make an exception.”

  “Go to Hades, you pompous old crone!” the head croaked in reply—and either Miss Peregrine didn’t hear, or she didn’t want to give it the satisfaction of reacting.

  We scored two tables in a nook near the back of the place and shoved them together to make a passable private area for ourselves. All my friends were there but Millard, who had welcomed us when we’d returned to the Panloopticon, but then quickly raced off again to attend to whatever it was he was up to without saying goodbye.

  I took the chair beside Noor. Horace was on my other side. Miss Peregrine, Enoch, and Emma were directly across the splintered wooden table, which had initials and epithets of every variety carved into it, and Bronwyn sat at the end with Olive and Claire.

  I was dying to hear the others’ news, especially after Horace had teased us, but he and Noor made us tell them all about what we’d seen and done first. Emma, Enoch, and I took turns telling it while Hugh brooded at the end of the table, nursing a pint of cloudy ale. The camp, the accident, Ellery and her torn-out worm, Brother Ted and his stolen sparkstone. When we’d finished, it struck me how many odd things coalesced around a single question: What did the wights want?

  “As it happens,” Horace said, scooting his chair closer to mine, “we have an idea about that.”

  Which was right when our food arrived. Of course.

  Bowls of potato-and-fish soup were distributed. We didn’t have the courage to ask what kind of fish it was and the barman who brought it didn’t bother to specify.

  “Miss Avocet and her team have been digging more deeply into the Apocryphon,” Horace said. “While Francesca has been working overtime translating a new section of the prophecy that we hadn’t understood before.”

  We all leaned in.

  “And?” Emma said.

  “There’s more to the prophecy than we realized.”

  Miss Peregrine slapped down her soup spoon with a loud clack. “You should’ve told me the moment we got back,” she said angrily. “Now—what is it?”

  “In a footnote we only just discovered,” Horace said, “before the part about the coming time of darkness, et cetera, the prophecy talks about the rise of a group it calls ‘the betrayers’—who it describes as ‘pitiless men who tried to pervert the soul of nature, and who were cursed in return.’”

  “Sounds a lot like the wights,” Emma said, and Bronwyn and Olive nodded grimly.

  “That’s what Miss Avocet thought, too,” Horace said. “But the next bit gets stranger. And worse. It appears to mention Caul himself—and the Library of Souls.”

  I felt my throat tighten.

  “I’ve never seen a prophecy reference another prophecy before, but this appears to be a quote from the Book of Revelation in the Bible: ‘And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name is Abadon.’ It goes on to say the betrayers will resurrect him from said pit.”

  Enoch nearly choked on his soup. “Resurrect him?”

  “And when he returns, he’ll be imbued with terrible power.”

  “What power?” Bronwyn said, rigid in her chair.

  My vision had gone black at the edges, and my whole body was cold. The corpse under the sheet. Caul’s voice quoting the prophecy back to me.

  “The power from the pit of ancient spirits,” I said, the empty sound of my own voice surprising me. “Which has to be the Library of Souls.”

  Noor was watching me with concern, but I couldn’t meet her eyes. I didn’t want to betray my fear, not yet, so I did what I often do when I’m afraid: I looked to Miss Peregrine. But our ymbryne’s expression was stone; she was clearly still processing. Everyone looked panicked, and Horace was taking sip after sip of water, as if unburdening himself of these horrors had turned his mouth dry.

  Only Enoch seemed unfazed.

  “What a bunch of tossers,” he said, and took a loud slurp of his soup.

  “It isn’t funny, Enoch,” Emma said with a withering glare.

  “Sure it is. It all makes sense now—why they wanted Fiona. And that American girl’s Maderwurm.” He shook his head and laughed quietly.

  “What are you talking about?” I said, anger starting to rise in place of horror.

  “It’s plain as day,” he said. “The wights are following a recipe.” He dinged his spoon against the bowl. “Making resurrection soup, like a coven of witches. Double, double, toil and trouble!”

  Like she was speaking to a child, Bronwyn said, “That’s awful, Enoch.”

  He sighed. Put down his spoon. “Am I the only one who listens to Miss Peregrine anymore? Caul’s trapped in a collapsed loop. Forever. There’s no coming back from forever.”

  “Unless there is,” Olive said.

  “Millard said he was trapped, too,” Claire chimed in.

  Enoch was shaking his head. “The wights are clearly desperate. Grasping at straws. They had no better options other than to slink permanently into the shadows and accept defeat with something like grace, which wouldn’t exactly be in character for them. So they’re trying something mad because it’s the only thing they could think of. But it’s impossible.” He pointed his dripping soup spoon at Miss Peregrine. “You said so yourself!”

  The longer he went on, the more desperate he sounded for confirmation.

  Now we turned to Miss Peregrine, our hopes hanging on her next words. She looked pensive. “I suppose I did say that, didn’t I.”

  Something in Miss Peregrine’s voice made Enoch stop eating. His spoon was frozen halfway to his mouth. “You suppose?”

  “It’s possible they’re just desperate, as Enoch says, and would try anything. But it wouldn’t be like them to spend so much effort on a fool’s errand—especially not Murnau. I suspect he may be getting direct orders from Caul himself, perhaps via dreams.” She glanced meaningfully at me. “Mr. Portman’s had a few. So have I.”

  Horace let out a little whimper. “Uh-oh.”

  I snapped my head to look at him.

  “What’s uh-oh?” said Enoch.

  “Something wrong with the soup?” the barman said over my shoulder. “Needs more eel powder?”

  “NOT NOW!” Enoch shouted at him, and after the man had slunk away, Enoch turned to Horace again. “What’s. Uh-oh.”

  “I’ve had dreams about him, too,” said Horace, staring into his now-empty glass.

  “You have?” I said.

  “Remember those wake-up-screaming nightmares I was experiencing when Jacob first came to us? With boiling seas of blood and fire raining from the sky? Yes?” He waited for looks of comprehension from the group, then nodded. Swallowed. “Well, last night I had another one. Only Caul was there.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” Bronwyn said, hurt. “You always come to me when you have nightmares.”

  “I dismissed it as a manifestation of my own fears rather than a prophetic dream,” Horace said uneasily. “But if Caul’s been visiting Jacob and Miss Peregrine in their dreams, too . . .” He dragged a shaky hand down his face, steadied himself, and said, “I’ve never seen Caul in a dream before, prophetic or otherwise. But I saw him very clearly, floating in the sky, directing the apocalypse like an orchestra conductor.” He looked up at me. “I think it’s him, and his resurrection, that ushers in this epoch of darkness and strife.”

  “Which I’m supposed to help end, somehow,” Noor said heavily. “‘Emancipate’ us from. With six others.”

  “Wait a second,” I said, “we’re getting way ahead of ourselves. First things first. Why do the wights think they can resurrect him? Because they read the prophecy, too? Did they assume it was about them, and about Caul, like we did?”

  “It is about them and Caul,” Horace said.

  Miss Peregrine held up her hands, a plea for calm and reason. “For the sake of argument, let’s say Horace is correct, that it is about them. How are they doing it? If they’re following a recipe for ‘resurrection soup,’ as you say, whose recipe is it? What does it contain? And where did they get it? I think—”

  “From your brother, miss. From Myron Bentham.”

  It was Millard. He was out of breath, having just skidded up beside Miss Peregrine at the head of the table. The headmistress, who wasn’t in the habit of asking questions she didn’t already know the answer to, was dumbstruck.