I make it one step, two, and then I hear the screech of tires, the wail of a horn.

I look up too late. See the car too late. Jacob is twisting toward me, but it’s Dad who grabs my shoulder and wrenches me back out of the street. An instant later, the car plows by, blaring its horn, and I’m left gasping and shaking on the curb.

“Cassidy!” snaps Dad. “What were you thinking?”

“But the light—” I start, looking up toward the crosswalk light. Sure enough, it’s green. But so is every stoplight. Horns blast and cars screech to a stop, the intersection losing all composure.

“It must be a glitch,” says Mom, pulling me close.

“Yeah,” I say, teeth chattering with cold. “Must be.”

Jacob’s right about one thing.

Thomas isn’t my problem anymore.

He’s everyone’s.

Ten minutes later, we’re climbing one of Notre-Dame’s towers.

The cathedral has given us a thirty-minute window to film, clearing the tourists ahead and delaying the ones behind, so we’re alone on the tight spiral stairs. Just the crew, Mom and Dad, Pauline, me, and Jacob—and Adele, practically skipping up the steps. I pull my sweater tight. It might just be the drafty stone staircase, but I can’t seem to shake the chill.

“Thousands flock to Notre-Dame to see its sculpted doorways and stained glass,” Dad narrates to the camera.

“But this medieval cathedral,” Mom steps in, “is home to as many ghost stories as gargoyles.”

“But why are there so many stairs?” asks Jacob as we climb.

Says the one who doesn’t have to take them.

Jacob looks at me for a second, eyes wide. “Oh yeah,” he says, scratching his head. “I forgot.”

I roll my eyes, and he salutes.

“See you corporeal kids at the top,” he says, vanishing upward through the ceiling.

Adele plucks the white stick from her mouth, the lollipop gone, and pockets the bare stem. She produces two more lollipops from her bag and hands one to me. I take it, even though my stomach is in knots.

“How do you know,” she asks, “if a place is haunted?”

“I can feel it,” I say softly. “The world gets … heavier, and when a ghost is nearby, it feels like this.” I reach out and rap my finger on her shoulder. Tap-tap-tap.

Back home, where things were decidedly less haunted, the tapping would usually come out of nowhere, hitting me like a clap of thunder. But it’s been a steady beat since we started our trip. Sometimes the tapping is faint and sometimes it is strong, but these cities are so haunted, I’m more likely to notice when there isn’t a spectral presence.

Adele smiles. “Cool.” And then, “Can you teach me how to know?”

I shake my head. “No, sorry. It’s not something you can really learn.”

She frowns, confused, and I explain, “It only works if you’ve almost died.”

Her eyes widen, and I can tell she’s about to ask a million more questions, but we reach the first landing and I cut her off. “We have to be quiet while they’re filming.”

We step out onto a stone balcony dotted with stone monsters. A metal cage arches over our heads, a barrier between us and the ledge. I hang back, but Adele reaches through the grate to brush her fingers over a gargoyle’s foot.

Mom runs her hand along the metal mesh. “These barricades,” she says, “are not for show. Some have fallen. Others have jumped. A few might even have been pushed. Take a young woman, for example, known only as M. J. She wished to climb up here but needed a chaperone, and so she befriended an old woman, and together, the two ascended the tower.” Mom’s expression darkens. “No one knows what happened next. The young woman’s body was found on the stones below. The old lady was never seen again.”

I shudder a little, feeling that tap-tap-tap. But Adele’s eyes have gone bright with delight at Mom’s words. As if these are all just stories, held back from reality, the way we are held back from the balcony’s edge.

Jacob’s standing at the corner, peering out at the city, a dark expression on his face. I cross to him and follow his gaze, my breath catching in my chest at the sight of Paris below.

It’s not just the view.

It’s the sound of sirens, high as a whistle.

The red-and-blue lights winking across the skyline.

The tendril of smoke rising from a building in the distance.

The chill that’s hanging in the air, as if it’s fall instead of the middle of the summer.

Thomas Alain Laurent has officially made his way to mayhem.

Mom and Dad and the crew move along, vanishing into the bell tower at the other end of the balcony. Adele follows them, but I hang back, looking through the protective mesh. We’re a long way up. Which means it’s a long way down.

An idea forms in the back of my mind.

A look of horror sweeps across Jacob’s face.

“Cassidy, wait—”

But I’m already cutting through the Veil.

That short, sharp drop, through black water and into gray, and then I’m back on the cathedral balcony, bells tolling, the two towers rising into fog overhead.

There is really only one difference: Here in the Veil, there’s no protective cage, just the railing, and the open air, and the promise of a very long fall.

It worked before, I think, forcing myself toward the rail. Fear claws across my skin—fear of heights, fear of falling, fear that this will work, fear that it won’t—but maybe fear is important. Fear goes with danger, with risk, the kind that draws poltergeists like moths to a flame.

I take a deep breath and get one foot up on the rail before Jacob grabs my arm and hauls me back to the ground, pale with fury. “What are you doing, Cass? Climbing onto a crypt is one thing. This is something else entirely. You’re going to get yourself killed!”

“I’m not,” I say, twisting free. “I just have to create the potential.”

“I worked hard to save your life, and I’m not going to let you throw it away.”

“I’m not throwing anything away, Jacob. I’m paying my debt. Doing my job.”

“Why is this your job? Because Lara said so? She doesn’t know everything. Even if she acts like she does. And I am not letting you get up on that rail.”

“Fine,” I snap. “I’ll think of something else.” I start pacing. “I just have to draw him out. There has to be a way to trap him, even just long enough for me to—”

“Enough!” shouts Jacob, all the humor gone from his voice. “Enough. Just admit why this is really so important to you.”

I blink, confused. “What?”

“The second rule of friendship is no lies, Cass. Besides, it’s literally all you’ve been thinking about since we got to Paris. So admit it. It’s not just Thomas Laurent you’re so worried about. It’s me.”

The words hit me like a punch.

“What? No, I’m—”

But then I hesitate.

I don’t think I realized it.

But he’s right.

It’s not the only reason, but it’s definitely one of them.

The truth is, I’m scared. Scared of Jacob’s growing power, scared of what it means. Scared Lara was right. Scared of not being able to save my best friend.