Tunnel of Bones (City of Ghosts #2)(19)

“Found you,” I say, and the boy smiles at me, right before he moves. Not the way a boy should be able to move, one foot in front of the other. No. It’s like he’s not bound by the rules of this place, and in the time it takes me to blink, he skips forward. One second he’s standing on a crypt ten feet away. The next, he’s a foot away, perching on the gabled roof.

“Now!” urges Jacob, and my hand flies up, the mirror pendant right in front of the boy’s face.

His red eyes widen as he gazes into the glass, lost in his reflection.

“Watch and listen,” I recite. “See and know. This is what you are.”

I reach for the thread in his chest, but when my hand hits his shirt, it doesn’t go through. He’s still solid, or as close as a ghost can get. I clear my throat, my fingers tightening on the mirror as I start again.

“Watch and listen,” I say, trying to make my voice forceful. “See and—”

But the boy frowns, his red eyes flicking from the mirror up to my face, as if it has no hold on him.

That’s not possible, I think.

Right before he shoves me off the roof.





There’s this moment when you start to fall, when you think, Maybe everything will be okay.

Maybe I’ll catch my balance. Maybe a hand will steady me. Maybe something soft will break my fall.

In this case, it doesn’t.

I’m falling, and somewhere between the edge of the roof and the lawn below, I cross back through the Veil and land hard on the ground beside the crypt. The fall knocks all the air from my lungs and sends pain jolting up through my right arm, and for a second all I can do is blink away the stars and hope I didn’t break anything.

Jacob appears, looming over me, and he’s worried enough that the first words out of his mouth aren’t even “I told you so” but “Are you okay?”

I sit up, dazed, and grateful that my head missed the sharp corner of the nearest tombstone. My elbow zings and my fingers tingle, but as far as I can tell, I haven’t broken anything. Including my camera.

Small miracles.

I groan, wishing Jacob were solid enough to help me to my feet. Instead, I get up, rubbing my arm. “I’m okay.”

“Good,” says Jacob, glancing back toward the crypt. “What happened up there?”

I look up, and for a second I can still see the boy’s outline, a faint impression of the poltergeist scowling down at me from the roof. An afterimage, like a flash, against my eyes, but when I blink, it’s gone.

“The mirror didn’t work.”

“Why not?” presses Jacob. “Is it busted? Or fogged up or something?”

I check, but my reflection looks back, sharp and clear—and confused.

“What about the words?” asks Jacob. “Did you say them right?”

I did. I did everything right.

So why didn’t it work?

I loop the necklace over my head and tuck the pendant beneath my collar. And then I do the only thing I can think of.

I call Lara.



“Wait, wait, slow down,” she says.

Jacob and I have been talking over each other from the moment Lara picked up the phone. “What do you mean the mirror didn’t work?”

I walk faster, scouring the graveyard in case my parents are close by. “I mean, it didn’t work.”

Voices rise up somewhere to my right. Mom and Dad.

“Well, you must have done something wrong,” says Lara. I spot my parents down one of the branching paths, narrating in front of a tombstone while Anton and Annette film them.

“I did everything you taught me,” I snap. Pauline looks over her shoulder and holds a slim, manicured finger to her lips. “I cornered the poltergeist,” I say, lowering my voice. “I held up the mirror, I said the words, and then he just looked up. At my face.”

“And then he pushed her off a roof!” adds Jacob.

“What were you doing on a roof?” demands Lara.

“It doesn’t matter,” I hiss, rubbing my arm, which is still sore from the fall. “What matters is that this poltergeist is still out there, and he’s apparently immune to mirrors.”

Lara exhales, and I can practically hear her pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Okay, okay,” she says softly, obviously talking more to herself than to me. “I’ll go talk to Uncle Weathershire and call you back. In the meantime, just stay out of the Veil, and on your guard.”

As if on cue, the corner of a tombstone crumbles near the film crew. Anton jumps out of the way and nearly falls through the glass of an open crypt door.

Jacob and I exchange a look, and then turn toward the phone, and Lara.

“Hurry.”



“Come on, Lara,” I mutter, tapping the phone against my palm.

It’s been an hour, and she still hasn’t called back.

The crew finished filming at Père Lachaise, and we headed for the Metro. Now I hold my breath as we make our way down to the platform, waiting for something to go wrong, hoping it won’t. It’s stuffy on the train, but I lie to Mom, telling her I’m cold, and she lends me the extra sweater she always keeps in her bag. I wrap it around me, pulling it close even though I’m sweating under all the fabric.

“What exactly are you doing?” asks Jacob as my cheeks flush from the heat.