The effect was instantaneous. He could hear leaves moving and shifting in a wind he didn’t feel, and only now did he realize how many trees hadn’t been speaking before. Muttering and whispering and hissing in three different languages, they all agreed: They would help him.

This was a language of trees. He read, “T’implora?”

In his hands, suddenly, was the puzzle box. It didn’t feel like a dream. It felt weighty and cool and real. He flipped the dials and wheels until it read please on the English side. He turned it to the side with the mysterious language on it. This, he knew now, was not a language of men.

“Being the Magician isn’t about being powerful when you have things and useless when you don’t,” Persephone said. “The Magician sees what is out there and finds connections. The Magician can make anything magical.”

In the way of a dream, knowledge flooded through him. How many could make their dreams real, but how few could speak to the dream. How he was meant to be Cabeswater’s right hand. Didn’t he know? asked Cabeswater — but not with words. Hadn’t he known it all along?

“I’m not!” Adam replied immediately. There was nothing inside him. The line was dead, and so was everything other inside him. “Cabeswater makes me that way.” Persephone’s eyes mirrored the motionless water beside them. “Your power, Adam, isn’t about other people. It isn’t about other things.” Adam had never been powerful in his life.

He threw a hand toward the cards. “You’re psychic! Can’t you look at the cards? They don’t mean anything to me without the ley line!”

And here it was. Ronan needed the ley line. He needed it now. There was no more time. But the ley line was dead and Cabeswater had no voice inside Adam. All he had was this flat black mirror of a lake and a car full of stones and a bag of cards that no longer said anything to him.

As it descended, it opened its maw wide and screamed at Ronan. It wasn’t the sound Ronan had heard before. It was the roaring hiss of a fire dampened with water. Sparks rained onto Ronan’s shoulders. He could feel how it hated him. How it hated Kavinsky, too. How it hated the world. It was so hungry.