A stabbing pain rips through my bad shoulder, and I wince. "Speaking of burning… you gonna help me pop my shoulder back in, Wist?"

"That's positively revolting," she says, but makes her way over to me anyway. "You need to learn a spell for that, Brother. You wizard types are supposed to be good at that kind of stuff, right?"

"It's worth a shot, I guess. Just give me a hand with my journal, okay?" Dad gave me this blank book before we were taken away that awful night so many months ago, and I carry it with me everywhere. (Wisty carts around an old drumstick/wand that Mom gave her.) Most of the time my book's blank and I use it to write in-usually sad love poems for Celia. But sometimes it fills with magazines, maps, whole works of literature… or, if we're lucky, spells. I think wizards are supposed to be able to control what comes when, but so far it's basically a crapshoot.

Wisty takes it out of my pack and helps me flip through the pages for any sort of injury-healing spell, and we finally come up with this mouthful: Voron klaktu scapulati.

"Sounds like devilspeak to me!" Wisty quips, impersonating a crotchety old lady talking about rock music. But the most amazing warmth spreads through my shoulder when I say it, and suddenly-just like that-it's back in its socket. I raise my arm without a twinge of pain.

"Guess we've sold our souls," I say. "Now let's figure out where the heck we are and how to get back to Freeland."

As we make our way to the rear of the cramped space, we figure out we're inside a shipping container. I grab a few books for the kids back at Resistance headquarters-The Blueprints of Bruno Genet and The Thirst Tournament, among others.

"You ready to face what's out there?" I ask as we reach the door.

"Or who's out there," Wisty echoes warily. "Lemme get focused, in case I have to light up or something."