We head back to the cemetery after breakfast the next morning, bringing along a notebook I've filled with everything I've learned so far about requesting an exhumation in the state of California.

The employee we find in the front office is familiar with the process; it's not uncommon for families to have their loved ones transferred from this cemetery to another once they save enough money for a plot closer to the rest of the family, she assures me. She says they'll need proof that Adam is the descendant of the person in the grave marked “Wolfe”, which we fortunately have thanks to the helpful social worker, and she walks us through the process of filling out an application through the state. I already knew most of what she told us from my own research into it, but she had a couple of helpful tips on how to make sure the process goes smoothly, and as quickly as possible without getting tied up in a bunch of bureaucratic red tape.

Then she lets us know that it can cost anywhere between $500 to $3000, and Adam almost has a heart attack.

I groan internally. I'd been making a point of avoiding mentioning the cost to him, because I knew he wouldn't take it well.

“It's fine,” I say hastily. “Money isn't an issue.”

“Felix, I don't have three thousand dollars! Five hundred, maybe, but—” Adam hisses to me, glancing ashamedly at the woman behind the counter, who has the good grace to pretend like she's not listening.

“I'll make sure it gets covered,” I reply in an undertone.

Adam blanches. “I can't ask you to do that. That's a lot of money. I can't keep making your parents—”

“Oh, hush your mother, Adam,” Eleanor scolds. “This your mother. This is about more than money. We'll all pitch in to bring her home if that's what it takes.”

The woman catches the expression on Adam's face, and she quickly adds, “Three thousand is more typical of a full casket exhumation and re-burial. My records here say that the Wolfe burial was a cremation, and that will cut costs quite a bit. And many people chose to keep the urns rather than re-bury them in a new plot; either to take them home, or to spread the ashes somewhere else, and that obviously removes the cost of re-burial.”

“See?” I assure him. “It'll be fine. No big deal.”

“I'll pay your parents back if they have to pitch in,” Adam swears. “And your parents too, El.”

Eleanor claps a hand over his mouth. “If you think our grown-ass, two-income household parents are going to make you pay them back for bringing your dead mother home, you're stupider than I thought.”

I give Adam a one-armed hug. “And the whole process will only take two or three months. You'll be able to bring her home by the end of summer.”

He rubs his face with his hands, fighting back the rising tide of emotions.

“I still can't believe we found her,” he says, his voice muffled by his palms.

I tighten my grip a little. We may have hit a dead end with figuring out her identity, but this was more than I'd expected we'd find. We may not have her real name, but we have her. And I hope—I really, really hope—that that gives Adam some peace at least.

We promised Ms. Cross we'd spend at least one more day down here to wait for another update on the Samuel situation, so we take advantage of the extra time we have and the better mood we're all in to go to the zoo. Adam has never actually been to a zoo before, and watching him lose his shit over seeing gorillas, giraffes, and elephants in person was more fun for me than watching the animals themselves. It's hot and crowded, but we get ice cream and enjoy ourselves until the zoo closes at five. After that we grab some dinner, and then head back to the motel. Eleanor comes in mine and Adam's room with us, and we push the two beds together to make one giant one. The three of us lay there watching movies, talking, and laughing until well past midnight, when first Adam, and then Eleanor finally falls asleep.

I'm tired too, but I don't want to sleep just yet. I keep searching through the pay-per-view movies, trying to find mindless that I can watch without really having to pay attention to.

I go through the entire list twice before I give up and toss the remote on the bedside table. I look over at Adam beside me, laying on his stomach with his face smushed into a pillow, his mouth slightly open. I just watch him for a few minutes, committing his face to memory—as if I don't already have every line and eyelash memorized. It's the first time in a long time I've seen his brow unwrinkled by a worried frown. There's a perpetual red spot on his bottom lip where's he's chewed it raw over and over again during the last couple months. If he was a nail biter, I'm sure they'd be gnawed down to the quick.

“He'll be okay,” comes Eleanor's sleepy voice, startling me out of my thoughts. I look over to see her peering at me blearily through half opened eyes, without bothering to lift her head from her pillow. “He's tougher than he looks, and he's been through worse.”

“I know,” I reply, looking back down at Adam. “I know. I'm just worried that maybe it's all finally catching up with him.”

“I think he just is having a hard time bringing the world of magic and the mundane world together now that we're out of school.”

I glance up at her, an eyebrow raised with sudden interest. “Really?”

“Mm-hm.” She yawns. “He's always lived firmly in one or the other, you know? But now he's got one foot in both, and he doesn't know how to make them function in tandem. Before St. Bosco's, he just thought he was a mundane. A freaky one, but he didn't know there even was any other reality than the mundane one. And then Ms. Cross brought him to school, and he was surrounded by magic all the time. He lived at St. Bosco's, for Circe's sake. He literally never left the magical world. All of his friends were magicians, all of his teachers, the government that was breathing down his neck... and now that we're graduated, he's back in the mundane world, after only having just gotten comfortable in the magical one. My dad's an accountant, you know? That's always blown Adam's mind. He didn't understand why a magician, why a person with real actual magic, would choose to be an accountant. Magic is still this crazy, fantastical thing to him, he doesn't think about it the way you and I do.”

“No, he doesn't,” I agree. “I think you're right. I think he views it as an either-or thing.” I reach out and brush a curl of dark hair out of his face. He was never really mundane; and then he was never really a magician like the rest of us. And now he has to be both, after never having been either. I don't know if that's something I can help him with. That might be a part of him that's forever out of my reach.