As Shelby and I left my yurt to see Jed in the farmhouse, we were mostly silent. I couldn’t get any words to come to my mouth as I thought about The Shadow that had almost consumed us and an entire town last summer. The thing fed on hopelessness, fear, and secrets.
We’d defeated it once, but it had taken more magic than we even knew we had. And even then, we had only been able to force it to retreat, not destroy it altogether. Now, not only had we made it possible for Poke and all of his human evilness to come to us, but The Shadow was also lurking. I kind of wanted to give up now, maybe go back to being imaginary. I just didn’t see how we could win.
“The question is, what does Poke want Charlie for?” Shelby said quietly as we reached the farmhouse porch. She turned to me. “Or I guess re
