"The hell is a Ghost doing here?!" Cash asked. Everyone had risen, hissing painfully, to their feet. They looked around as they brushed themselves off and checked for injuries.

"Wait," Melii said. Glint floated closer to them, and the Eliksni's eyes widened. "That's not just any Ghost, egghead! That's the Hunter Vanguard's Ghost!"

"Glint?" Nirysk asked. Melii nodded. Beside them, the flickering candlelight danced on Rhea's pale violet arms as she folded them protectively over the book.

"That doesn't answer the question," she said defensively.

"I could ask you the same," Glint said. He looked at each of them in turn, but found his gaze drawn invariably back to the book. Even from a distance it didn't look special. "What in the world were you trying to do, exactly? Summon a Headless One?"

"What? No! That'd be ridiculous," Rhea said. "Everyone knows there's no way to do that."

"Yeah, exactly," Cash said. "We were trying to speak to the dead."

Glint blinked.