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more about you than you think I do.”
    “That’s kind of scary.”
    Julia grinned. “The show is ending soon.”
    “I know. But unfortunately I can’t go. It’s just that I’d much rather stay here and play Monopoly or stare blankly at the walls for hours on end.”
    “Nope. Think again. You’re going, and I’m coming with you. Tomorrow.”
    Crys snapped her head up and met her mom’s gaze. “I’m sorry, I must have you confused with someone else. I thought you were my overprotective mother who loves rules and would never risk my safety for something as silly as the chance to view the life-changing work of my one true career role model.”
    “I am your overprotective mother, and I’m taking you to this photography show.”
    Crys’s heart skipped a beat. For the first time in quite a while, a genuine, goofy grin broke out on her face. But it fell almost as quickly as it arrived. “What about Markus?” she said. “Aren’t you afraid he might find us?”
    Julia sighed. “I believe that Markus is able to find us whenever he likes, wherever we are.”
    That was a deeply unsettling thought. “Are you serious?”
    “Unfortunately, yes. Still, the security is better here than back at the shop—for now, anyway. But I swear to God, if he decides to show his ancient face and ruin something I damn well know you’ve been looking forward to, I will personally claw his eyes out.”
    Crys regarded her mother with nothing short of shock. “I think that’s the most badass thing you’ve ever said.”
    “From you, I’ll take that as the highest compliment. Our stay here is only temporary. It was never a safe haven, that’s not why we came here. We have the book, and Jackie is ready to destroy it if necessary. Markus knows that. He’s weak. Dying. He wouldn’t dare make a move against us unless he already had the book in his hands.”
    “You’re sure about that?”
    “Cautious now, are we?” Julia said, a smile reappearing on her face and her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Come on, let’s break out of this dump and go to the show tomorrow. What do you say?”
    Crys could barely believe this was really happening. “Um. I say
hell yes
!”
    “Jackie!” Dr. Vega shouted from the study. “Julia! Come here immediately. The book—THE BOOK!”
    Her excitement about the show disappearing all at once, Crys pulled Jackie off the balcony, and both of them rushed after Julia to the study.
    “What’s wrong?” Jackie demanded. “What happened?”
    Dr. Vega looked up at them, his wide eyes magnified behind his thick, round glasses. “The book is changing.”
    “What do you mean,
changing
?”
    “Right as I studied this page, the text . . . shifted. It
changed
. Right before my eyes!” He shuffled through a stack of photocopies, picking one and jabbing his finger at it. “Look! Here is a photocopy of this very page.”
    They drew closer. Crys looked from the photocopy to the leather-bound Codex, which lay open on the desk. At the center of both the photocopy and the original page was an illustration of a plant bearing purple flowers. But the text—both the format and the individual words—now varied wildly between the two, and atthe very top of the book page, where there was once nothing but black-and-white writing, was a new illustration of a sun.
    “Um. Is the sun . . . glowing?” Crys whispered as the black ink shifted to a golden shade, and light began to emanate from the parchment as if illuminated from within the fibers of the paper itself.
    “What’s going on?”
    Crys’s gaze shot to the doorway, where Becca now stood, still wrapped in her fuzzy blue bathrobe.
    Her eyes were full and glowing with the same golden light.



Chapter 3
    BECCA
    O ne of Angus’s many books was a dream encyclopedia. Becca leafed through it, hoping to find some answers about her recent nightmares. She’d wanted to dream about Maddox since she’d returned from Mytica, but the nightmare Crys had woken her from