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“All right.” Jodi turned away from the bed. “What do you need?”

“Just a bit of space.”

The room had a small couch beneath the window. He stretched out upon it. Crossing his left leg behind his right, he held his hands to his side like he grasped a pair of batons.

He waited for Jodi to make a crack, but it never came.

If the World reversed was the destination, then that is what he would invoke. He imagined an oval around himself, picturing Emily’s cord. In Jesse’s card the figure was a gorgeous, naked woman. Adam would have to be clothed for this.

Picturing the card, he sank into himself.

He’d tried to sound confident when he’d suggested a spirit walk, but in truth, he’d never attempted one like this.

Sue had warned him about traveling beyond the spirit realm and getting lost in the planes. He’d gone beyond and made it back, but never by his own hand or by his own power.

Part of him wanted to know if he could, and part of him trembled at what might lie in the void or the shifting sea of hells and realms he could not perceive.

The version of Ian who’d grown up to become the Red Wolf had spirit walked to the mortal plane from where he’d been physically trapped in the Between. It should work in reverse, but Ian had also spirit walked through time, something Adam couldn’t do.

His power wheeled around him, clockwise, then widdershins, back and forth, night to day, dark to light.

Sue had once told him that magic got harder the more you did it, the more you practiced. He thought that maybe he was beginning to understand her meaning. He knew more. He could do more.

His power hadn’t grown, but it was like a road, a circling path he walked, over and over. Each time he did, he wore the path down a little further, carving a little more depth into his winding way.

Maybe harder wasn’t the right word, maybe it was slower—because he was more mindful, more aware of his limits and the possibilities. He’d certainly been made aware of the danger. Maybe, now, he simply had more to lose.

Light, dark. Dark, light. The circling continued. The power ringed around him until it locked into place like a chime, a single note of music, not unlike the sealing of Emily’s circle.

Part of him couldn’t believe he’d managed it. Adam had used many an invocation in his spirit walks but he’d never tried this one, the World reversed.

Holding it in his mind, he fed it the two parts of himself, or at least all the parts of himself that were two things: warlock and witch, hero and killer. Dark, light. Light, dark.

He’d recently watched a video about a woman who’d swam out into a reservoir to get a closer look at a spillway. It was a sight, like a giant drain, with water endlessly pouring down its circumference.

The link he had with the Between was like that, and like her, he’d misjudged its strength. She’d swam too far, past all the safety warnings and buoys. The hole had pulled her in. She’d managed to grip the edge for twenty minutes, which hadn’t been long enough for help to arrive.

Instinct flashed like warning lights, telling him to turn back, but he did not fight the pull. He let himself be drawn down. He let go and he tumbled, spiraling as he fell.

He knew by instinct that he could not have done this if he had not been there before, if he had not already walked the road. He was vaguely aware of the sword and there was hope in that. They were linked. It could be used as an anchor, perhaps, if their time apart had not been too great.

It occurred to him that perhaps he could try for the other planes he’d been to: Alfheimr, Death herself, or the horrible nothing that existed outside reality. He might not return from any of them. He might not return from this. Like Ian, he could become trapped, locked in the almost-void with its barren landscape and wandering horrors.

He felt the hard earth beneath his feet and opened his eyes.

His body was nearly transparent when he looked.

Here, his substance was thin, diaphanous and faint. That was how the boggins appeared when they came through the cracks. Spirits without bodies, they made forms for themselves out of whatever matter they found, like hermit crabs using trash to make their shells.

Why hadn’t the banshee done that? Why had it chosen violence instead?

Adam drifted, his feet sinking into the ground. He could already feel himself fading, feel his body calling him back.

In the distance, the boggins swam, floating through the air like it was water. Some of them were massive, larger than whales, but he did not see Cole. He did not see anyone.

It might not be a matter of where but when. He might be in the same time and place as Ian—or some version of him—or they might be centuries apart.

There was an idea. If he could find Ian when he’d just arrived, before he became a Lost One, Adam might be able to bring him home, to stop him from becoming the Wolf.