It’s already grown dim inside the Ghost Office, but the open door lets the day’s last sunlight spill inside. It lights up Kasey and Will, who are standing near the workbenches.

Or - Will is standing by the workbenches, anyways. Kasey is standing on top of one, kicking her transparent feet through everything scattered on the surface.

“I totally get why cats do this, now,” she’s telling Will. “It’s so satisfying to just kick at things. And I don’t even have to worry about breaking stuff, since I can’t actually knock anything over.”

Will has both burly arms outstretched towards her, his hands following her movements. Like he’s completely forgotten that Kasey can’t get hurt, and he’s all ready to catch her.

“Kasey,” he begins, but she keeps right on kicking.

“Kinda wish I could actually impact with the stuff, though. It’s less satisfying when nothing actually falls over or goes flying. That’s half the fun, don’t you th-?”

She kicks out too hard at the nearest glass bottle on the workbench, throwing her balance. She tips backwards, tumbling into the air.

Will’s reaching arms lock around her before she can hit the ground. Kasey crashes against him at full speed, forcing a sharp, surprised breath from his mouth. They both nearly go falling onto the floor. Will staggers, but regains his balance, keeping Kasey on her feet, too.

“Oh, Jesus,” she gasps, clinging to Will’s shirt for support. “You okay?”

Will releases her, his green eyes bright and devious.

“My turn,” he says, and leaps gracefully up onto the workbench.

It’s a hell of a jump - pretty impressive, actually. The workbenches are built kind of tall, but Will doesn’t even use his hands. He backs up, takes a running start, springs into the air. He catches the edge of the workbench with his boot and uses the toehold to bring himself the rest of the way up. It all happens in one fluid movement, like he’s gliding on unseen wings. And he lands just as easily, tossing his blonde hair out of his eyes as he straightens up.

I don’t know why I’m surprised, honestly. Will is a beat crew man, after all. I guess that some instincts don’t really die, even after two hundred or so years.

“Wow, okay,” Kasey laughs, watching him. "Style points."

Will arches an eyebrow. “Style points?”

“Yeah, you know. Points for style.”

“What can such points be exchanged for?”

“Hm, I don’t know.” Kasey thinks it over, tapping a finger on her lip. “Sex?”

Will blinks and draws back, his cheeks suddenly burning crimson. “Miss Lavoe!”

“Kick hard, trust me,” Kasey says, pointing to the row of empty glass bottles. “It’s way better when you just really go for it, like you’re gonna punt that shit right through the ceiling. Do it big.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Will curls his fingers beneath his chin, looking thoughtfully at the bottles. “First, though, I must think of a stylish way to do so.”

Kasey stares up at him in wide-eyed surprise, then dissolves into laughter, pressing her hands over her mouth.

Will’s half-grin rises on his face, and he laughs with her.

They're both ghosts, and this is the Ghost Office, but - there’s no sense of death in here. It all feels like life, only in different forms.

“Um,” Aiden says, biting back a smile, “Hello?”

Kasey and Will both startle, whipping around to look at us. I don’t know how they failed to notice us opening the door, but - my guess is that they were simply too wrapped up in each other.

“Jamie, Aiden!” Kasey yells, at a volume that makes everyone jump. She rushes over, her face bright with excitement, and does her best to fling her arms around us. “I fucking missed you two idiots!”

“We missed you, too,” I answer, and god, do I mean it. The only thing that feels as good as seeing her so happy with Will is just - seeing her at all.

I give her the closest approximation of a hug that I can, and Aiden joins in from the other side.

Will jumps down from the workbench with that easy grace he has. He takes a step closer to us, but then stops, rubbing his arm, an uncertain look on his face.

“Hey, Will!” I call, waving at him. “Good to see you, dude!”

Aiden lets go of Kasey and fixes Will with a friendly smile.

“Yeah, bro, your first Team Ghost Office meeting!” he says. “We’re all stoked that you can contribute without the ouija board, now. Jamie in particular.”

“I’m not even gonna bother denying that,” I mutter.

Will breaks into a hesitant, shy smile. “I’m rather - ah, stoked, myself.”

Kasey steps back, beaming. “We have so much to tell you!”

I'm just as excited as she is, and I start bouncing on my toes. “We have so much to tell you!"

Kasey flaps her hands at me. “Spill, babe!”

“Okay, so! While you were gone, Raj, Mel, and Noah-”

“Ghost Office business first,” Aiden interrupts firmly. “Or we’ll be here all night.”

“So?” Kasey asks impatiently.

“So, you ghosts can reappear wherever you want to hang out, but Jamie and I should probably try to avoid getting caught in that.”

Aiden nods his head at the open Ghost Office door. Outside, night is falling fast, but the storm clouds in the distance are still visible. Getting thicker and darker by the moment.

“Oh, yep,” Kasey says, seeing the problem immediately. “Ghost Office business first.”

Behind Kasey, Will’s small burst of confidence has quickly eroded. His shoulders are tensing up, as is his jaw, and he’s avoiding looking at us. His gaze drops to the ground, then drifts over to the workbenches.

His eyes settle on his pocket watch, and he freezes.

I suspect that he and Kasey couldn’t see it in the dark, but now that Aiden let some light in, the watch has picked up a golden glimmer.

Will stares at it in silence. Kasey sees me watching him, and turns to look.

Her expression softens, and she moves back over to him. Aiden and I follow her, lagging a little behind. We’re both wary of overwhelming Will, and we don’t want to scare him off, make him miss the first Ghost Office meeting he’s really gotten to be part of.

He’s still looking at the watch, his expression complicated.

“This is mine,” he says softly, his calloused fingers hovering over its surface. “My timepiece.”

“Aiden and Jamie pulled it out of the river,” Kasey answers. “But you knew that, didn’t you? You moved it, that one time in the archives.”

Will’s gaze travels over the golden surface, and he nods slowly.

I open it up so he can see the elaborate design inside, the hand-painted moon and sun. Careful not to accidentally put my arm through him, which would probably be jarring for both of us.

Will glances up at me, but his eyes go right back to the watch. He looks at it for a long moment, his thoughts indecipherable. Kasey nibbles her lip, then says:

“Will… I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but - the watch has to be destroyed. It’s a long story, but Aiden and Jamie already destroyed it-”

“Sorry about that,” Aiden says, cringing.

“-and they have to give it back to themselves to destroy again,” Kasey finishes. “It’s, um. Hard to explain. Time travel thing.”

“Time travel!” Will lets out a dazed laugh. “You sound like Ariana. She had these - these small pieces of wood, and she would sit in her garden window after I died, carving them. She spoke of time like it was something that could be pressed into the grain, carved in by her hands.”

I had been leaning over the watch, but now my head snaps upright. Kasey, Aiden, and I look sharply at each other.

“Ariana made the fucking conduits, too?” I whisper.

Aiden stares at me blankly, stunned by this news.

“The what?” Will asks, looking at me over his shoulder.

I’m about to answer, but I hold my words in check. I don’t know how much Kasey has told Will yet. He must know about the Guardian Tree - Kasey would have had to explain it to him, in order for their mission to make sense - but I have no idea if they’ve talked about Ariana yet.

“Ah - we’ll come back to that,” Kasey says hastily. “Like I said, Will, we’ve got a lot to fill you in on. The point is - the watch is going to be destroyed. We have to do it, to summon you. To give you your form.” She gently sets a hand on his arm, gives him a squeeze. “I’m sorry. I know that there’s not much left from your life, already.”

Will doesn’t answer for a moment.

“My pocket watch,” he says quietly, half to himself. “The last piece of my father’s legacy that I had.”

There’s a silence. It's painfully obvious that no one knows what to do. Aiden looks beyond guilt-ridden, his blue eyes anxious and pained, one hand pressed over his mouth. I feel fucking terrible, too - I’m at least half responsible for the destruction of this thing. Poor Aiden, this isn’t even really his fault, he was only doing his best - and poor Will, oh my god. What can I even say?

Will finally looks up, and all three of us blink in surprise at the grin on his face.

“How fitting that it must be destroyed,” he says, “In order for me to be created.”

Kasey breaks into a matching smile.

“Oh my god, I should have known,” she laughs, slapping Will’s arm.

“This,” he tells her, pointing at the watch. “This is what I should like to - what did you say? Punt through the ceiling?”

I have no idea why Will would react this way, but Kasey’s laughter tells me that we’re alright. And Will seems genuinely delighted at the idea that we’re going to destroy his watch - that we already did, in a way.

“You said it will be obliterated?” he asks Aiden.

Aiden swallows, then nods. “Annihilated, bro.”

“Into a literal pile of gold dust,” I add. “It straight-up exploded.”

Will grins widely. “Beautiful.”

I have a hand on Aiden’s back, and beneath my palm, I sense some tension release from his body. He lets out a relieved laugh, and I join in, pressing a hand over my chest.

“Not a big fan of your dad, Will?” Aiden asks.

“The man was a rancorous fuckster,” Will grumbles, then slaps a hand over his mouth, looking at Kasey with wide eyes. “Oh, Kasey - I did not mean to - in front of a lady-”

“I don’t give a fuck, dude,” she giggles. “Pull all the Victorian-era curses you want out of retirement. That sounds like some fun, honestly.”

I’m trying not to laugh, but losing the battle. Aiden is biting back his laughter, too, but he manages to hold it together better than I do.

“You two have a mission report for us?” he asks, and Kasey nods, smiling brightly.

“Yes, we do. Let the second hunt commence!”

~~~~

We sit in a circle on the Ghost Office floor. After the firefighters told us that no furniture means an easier time containing a fire, we decided to keep the Ghost Office mostly furniture free. Things tend to explode around here. Will's watch is evidence enough of that.

The door is wide open. We should be freezing, but the Heliomancer keeps us wrapped in cozy warmth. It feels amazing, and I inch a little closer to him.

The last of the sunlight outside has dwindled away. But the overhead lights are working, thanks to Noah, so Aiden doesn’t have to make any fireflies.

We can get right down to business, and we do.

“The boundary,” Kasey begins, “Isn’t what we were picturing.”

Aiden and I exchange a puzzled glance.

“Elaborate, please.”

I had directed this towards Kasey, but Will sits up more, braces himself, and answers me.

“The boundary does not follow the town lines of modern Ketterbridge,” he explains.

“Which makes sense, actually,” Kasey continues. “The ruined church was all the way out in the middle of the forest, which means that the location of the town has shifted slightly over the last two hundred years. Some areas have been abandoned, reclaimed by the forest, and new areas have been built up. I was able to come with you guys to the church, which is way outside of the modern-day city limits, and Will says that he used to haunt the old cemetery, so-”

“I told you that fucking cemetery was haunted!” I interrupt, smacking Aiden’s shoulder. “You guys wanted to camp there! I told you, Aiden, didn’t I say-?”

“Dude, are you kidding me? Your apartment is literally the most haunted place in Ketterbridge! Kasey lives there! Or - not lives there, but-”

“Okay, okay,” Kasey cuts in, snapping her fingers at us. “Stay focused. What we’re saying is, the Tree has a certain radius of power, but that radius has nothing to do with the human-defined borders of the town. There’s no obvious shape to it. It fluctuates, like - pretty much everywhere. There were some places where Will and I were able to get way far away from town, and other places where we couldn’t.”

“Well, that makes sense,” I say slowly, thinking it over. “The Tree is organic, so its reach would be organic, too, right? Humans like to have things in straight lines, perfect circles, but - nature doesn’t care about that.”

“Right,” Will agrees. “But what we cannot determine is whether there exists any rhyme or reason to the shape.”

He holds out his hand, palm up. Aiden and I both lean forward, expecting him to show us something, but his fingers are empty.

Kasey scooches closer to him and places the tip of her index finger on his palm.

“We can’t write anything down,” she explains, “So this is the system we worked out to remember the boundaries.”

Aiden and I watch as Kasey traces her fingertip along Will’s palm, outlining the shape. Using his joints, the lines on his palm, and the tips of his fingers as memory markers.

But it’s hard for me to envision, so I get up, go to the workbenches, find a pen and a pad of paper. Kasey demonstrates again, and I use the pen to follow, mimic her movements on the page.

We all look down at the finished product.

One, unbroken line. It’s roughly in the shape of a circle, but there are long parts that extend outward in fluid shapes from the circle’s radius. Like the curling legs of an octopus, almost, but of all different lengths and widths.

I feel like this shape does correspond to something, but I can’t quite put my finger on what.

“The branches?” Aiden suggests. “Of the Guardian Tree?”

There’s a brief silence as we all consider this possibility. Everyone’s gaze moves back to the drawing, except for mine. I close my eyes, thinking back.

I remember stretching out on my back beneath the canopy of the Guardian Tree, staring up at the branches. Leaves in every shade of green, clustered closely together. The wide bole, its strange, silvery bark. The way that Aiden shivered when I touched my hands to it.

“Not the branches," I say, opening my eyes. “The shape is wrong.”

“What?” Kasey quirks an eyebrow, staring at me. “How the hell do you know that? Haven’t you only seen the Tree once?”

“Yes, but-" My eyes dart to Aiden. "I remember that night very clearly.”

A smile spreads slowly across Aiden’s face, glitters in his blue eyes. He clears his throat, glancing away, and I turn back to Kasey.

“Trust me, Kase-face, this shape doesn’t look like those branches.”

“Okay, well, that sucks,” Kasey sighs. “Good thought anyways, Aiden. I thought that could be it.”

“Does that mean the shape is random?” Will asks. “It truly corresponds to nothing?”

Another silence, and then it dawns on me.

“Not the branches,” I realize out loud, speaking beneath my breath.

“What was that, Jamie?”

“Not the branches,” I repeat, looking up at Kasey. “The roots.”