A light dusting of cold dew blankets the landscape, dampening my hair as I walk the last few steps up to Kent’s house. Early, peach-colored sunlight spreads along the horizon, seeping slowly into the part of the sky still dark with night, spangled with stars. My breath is puffing on the frigid air. At least the drizzling rain has slowed down, if not cleared up.

Kent’s front door is bound to be locked, so I go around to the backyard and hop the fence. The frozen wood creaks beneath my palms, and I wince, but no movement comes from Kent’s house.

I land lightly in the backyard, then make for the stairs that lead up to my Heliomancer’s attic apartment.

The lights are all off. The sliding glass door is closed, and so is the curtain behind it. I can’t see inside.

I stop for a moment, unsure of what to do. I could call Aiden and ask him to let me in, but he hasn’t been answering his phone. I could also knock, but I would have to be loud enough for Aiden to hear it over the noise he’s been battling. I don't want to wake up Kent and Ellen.

I put a hand on the door and give it an experimental push. It clicks softly, then slides aside.

An icy chill rolls down my spine. I can’t tell if it’s because I’ve found the door unlocked, or because no wave of toasty warmth came from Aiden’s apartment. No warmth at all, actually.

I step inside, close the sliding glass door behind me, and feel around until I find the light switch. The kitchen and living room light up brightly. Aiden’s bag is on the couch, his work shoes by the door.

“Aiden?” I call out softly, when I step into his bedroom.

The light spilling in from the living room casts only enough of a glow to illuminate the floor and the legs of Aiden’s bed. I don’t want to wake him up if he’s finally getting some sleep, but I need to see that he’s okay. I find the switch and flip on the lights.

His bed is empty.

For a long moment, I stand there in frozen silence, staring at it.

The small panic within me is growing, expanding by leaps and bounds. At this point, I’m just trying to stay ahead of it.

I go to Aiden’s bed and feel around to make sure he’s not just buried beneath the blankets. My hands come up empty. The sheets are cold.

The bathroom door is open. A quick glance shows me that no one is in there. I double back to search the kitchen and living room, but turn up nothing.

I retrieve the spare key to Kent’s house from its hiding place in the garage. I let myself inside and rush from room to room, checking each one. I find them all empty, dark, silent. When I've searched everywhere besides Kent and Ellen's bedrooms, I lock myself out again, then scramble back up the stairs to Aiden’s apartment.

I rush back into his bedroom, check everywhere all over again, then start checking stupid places that I know I shouldn’t even bother with. The closet, the shower, beneath the bed. I’m starting to get frantic.

I freeze to the spot when I find Aiden's running shoes in the closet. I was hoping that maybe he just decided to go for an early-morning jog.

I stare at his sneakers for a long time, then press my fingers to my mouth.

No, no no, I tell myself desperately. Don’t panic yet, just - just slow down.

I go back to Aiden’s bed and sit down on the edge of it, willing myself to take a deep breath. My gaze roams anxiously all over Aiden’s room, until my eyes land on his night table.

My heart stops as I realize that Aiden’s watch, phone, wallet, and water bottle are all sitting there.

I reach out with trembling hands and pick up his phone. I normally wouldn’t go snooping through it, but there are times for exceptions.

The phone lights up, and I see that all of the texts I sent Aiden are listed as new notifications on the lock screen. He didn’t open any of them.

I punch in the passcode, and find Aiden’s phone open to his messages with me.

He had started typing a text, but he didn’t send it. It’s still right there, left as a draft, the cursor blinking at the end.

hey i’m feeling really weird and spaced out. too tired. I think I’m gonna go hsome frm workk a little early need ssome sleep. call you later keane, love y

I stare down at Aiden’s phone, my heart pounding in my ears. He must have typed this out when he was still at City Hall. Did he not realize that he never finished it, never sent it? Was he that out of it?

I drag my finger down on the screen to see his notifications. There’s an email from Melanie about exhibition stuff. A text from Ripley saying he heard from Gabby that Aiden wasn’t feeling well, that he hopes he gets better soon. A text from Noah with a cute picture of Nik. Seven unread texts and two missed calls from me. And a text from Kent, also unopened.

Hey, Aiden - I just came up to check on you but you were asleep. Didn’t want to bother you, so just let me know if you want me to bring you up some food or anything. I’ll check on you again in the morning.

The text came in at 8:43 PM, so that must be the last time that Kent saw Aiden in his bed. I glance down at Aiden’s watch, which is ticking softly away on his night table. It’s 5:08 AM.

Which means… no one knows where Aiden has been for over eight hours.

I get silently to my feet, feeling strangely numb. It’s as if my brain knows that full-on panic is about to break over my head, and it’s just pushing it back, keeping it a few feet away from me. But I know that it’s coming, just as soon as this information really hits me. I’m already starting to feel like the floor is moving beneath my feet.

I open my mouth, and have to roughly clear my throat before I can speak.

“Kasey? Will?” I take a staggering breath. “I really need you guys, like - right now.”

Something in my voice must make it clear that the request is serious and urgent, because the ghosts appear before I even finish summoning them.

“Jamie?” Kasey’s dark eyes are already wide with alarm. “What’s the matter, why do you sound like that?”

I try to take another breath, but I can’t do it. My words come out all thin and shaky, and my voice breaks halfway through my sentence.

“I - I think that Aiden is missing.”

~~~~

Thank god for Kasey. In only a few minutes, she’s got a plan.

“I’ve spent more time at City Hall than Will, and I know my way around,” she’s saying. “So I’ll take that one. I’ll check the exhibition space, too. Will, do you want to take the Ghost Office, or should I?”

“I’ll do it,” I cut in. “I’ve got the Ghost Office.”

It’s the first thing I’ve said since I finished explaining the situation. Kasey’s eyes dart to me, and she nods slowly.

“Okay, then - Will, can you do the neighborhood around this area, and maybe check up and down the riverside? Aiden took his boots and his jacket, so it’s possible that he just went for a walk.”

“Of course,” Will says immediately. “Whatever I can do.”

“Good. Oh, you know what?” Kasey taps a finger to her temple, like she’s just thought of something. “Check the flower shop, Will. Do that first. Less ground to cover.”

I blink and look up at Kasey, confused. “The shop? Why?”

“Because-” She hesitates, biting her lip. “If Aiden was really confused and out of it, he might have automatically gone there looking for you.”

The thought twists a knife in my heart, but my entire body feels numb, so all I do is hang my head.

I can sense the ghosts having a silent conversation with their eyes. Then a calloused, translucent hand gives my shoulder a ghost’s closest approximation of a squeeze, and Will disappears.

Kasey drops to sit down next to me on Aiden’s bed, tucking her hands between her knees. Watching me, waiting for me to say something.

“What - what happened to him?” I stammer, hating how lost and broken my voice sounds right now. “Why would he just take off without his phone or any of his stuff, what could have...?”

I finally look up at Kasey. Her eyes widen when she sees my expression.

"Oh, my god," she says, and I quickly drop my head again.

Kasey moves to kneel in front of me, bends forward to look up into my face.

“Jamie, it’s killing me to see you like this, and I’m already dead - please, just - just don’t fall apart, okay? We’ll find Aiden, and we’ll figure out what’s wrong with him. I promise you that.”

I don’t answer, and eventually Kasey stands up, plants a kiss on the top of my head.

“I’ll start with City Hall,” she says, and vanishes.

I sit there for a moment in blank silence. Then I surge to my feet and snatch my keys up off the night table. Like the ghosts, I have places where I need to go looking for Aiden. The Ghost Office feels like a good place to start.

I stop in the doorway and turn to look back at Aiden’s cold, empty bed before I go.

~~~~

My head is spinning on the drive over to the Ghost Office. I’m going back through everything that Aiden said to me before he left for work yesterday morning. Retracing what happened, step by step.

Aiden said that he felt like he wasn’t charging back up, but I didn’t think he was speaking in a literal sense. I thought he was just trapped in a frustrating cycle. Too tired to keep down the noise, which then got too loud for him to get enough rest, which made it even harder to keep the volume down. I thought that I could break him out of the cycle if I could help him get a night of solid sleep.

But why didn’t Aiden feel like he had recharged at all? I know that he got a little bit of sleep. Not enough, but some. I know that, because I kept him in his dreams by keeping the connection open.

Possibilities and explanations rise in my mind, sending repeated shocks of cold fear through me. I don’t let myself think about any of them long enough to process them properly. Guessing won’t help Aiden. Looking for him will.

Parents keep odd hours, so Raj is the first one to text me back. I swerve over to the side of the road to read what he said.

Aiden isn’t at the house. Raj hasn’t seen or heard from him, and neither has Noah or Mel.

Kent is the next one to answer my texts, only a few minutes after Raj. No, he didn’t check on Aiden again after 8:45. Yeah, that was the last time he saw Aiden, who was definitely still in bed at that point. Why, what happened?

I don’t respond to Kent’s text, because I’ve just pulled up to the Ghost Office, my tires crunching on the icy gravel.

I jam the key into the lock and slide up the rolltop door. Early morning sunlight spills into the Ghost Office, falls in shafts from its rafters. I lap the entire place twice, but we’ve never kept a lot of furniture, and it’s easy to see that Aiden isn’t here.

I pause in the loft, my eyes lingering on the mattress. I find myself lost in my memories, nights I spent here with Aiden. I can almost see him cuddled up in the blankets, looking up at me with a sexy little smile. His chestnut hair all tousled, sunlight on his bronze skin. But I blink, and no one is there.

The panic nearly catches up with me. I run down the loft stairs like I’m being chased.

I circle the exterior of the Ghost Office, weaving between the bigleaf maples. I go down to the pebbled beach and look out at the water. I look for prints in the snow. But there’s no sign that Aiden was here.

I get back in the car to find Kasey waiting for me in the passenger’s seat.

“He’s not at City Hall or the exhibition space,” she says softly. “Not at Ms. Callahan's house, either.”

I grip the steering wheel so hard that the upholstery makes a faint crackling sound beneath my fingers. “Okay.”

Kasey puts a gentle, transparent hand on my back. “Will is still looking, though.”

I turn and stare out through the rain-spotted windshield.

“Where should I check next?” Kasey asks, after a moment.

I answer without thinking. “Mugshot.”

Kasey nods, but she hesitates before she goes.

“We’ll find him, Jamie,” she murmurs.

“Of course we will,” I hear myself answer. “We have to find him. He’s my Companion Plant.”

~~~~

One by one, answers trickle in. People respond to my texts and calls. Will and Kasey find me with updates from their searches.

No one knows where Aiden is.

I check to make sure that he didn’t come back to his apartment. Then I check mine again. I drive slowly along routes that I know Aiden likes to jog. I call the hospital and confirm that he isn’t there. I even send Will to Ralph’s house. He reports back that Ralph was there - reading the book I gave him, shockingly - but he was alone. No Aiden.

I don’t know what to do, so I go back to Aiden’s place.

Kasey wants to stay with me, to try and make me feel better. I’m distantly aware of insisting that she stay out there looking for Aiden. Check everywhere, anywhere, anyplace that he might be.

After she disappears from my car, I go up the stairs and let myself back into Aiden’s apartment. I walk in silence over to his bed. I sit down in the middle of it and wrap my arms around my knees, staring blankly at the window he left open.

Aiden hasn’t been gone for that long, and I know that there are a lot of perfectly reasonable explanations as to why we can’t find him. But I no longer have any concerns that I’m freaking out about nothing.

I’ve finally figured out why I can’t shake this terrible, icy feeling in my heart. It’s because Aiden can hear me.

He told me himself: range doesn’t matter. No matter where he is, he can hear my note. He can even hear the emotions in it.

Right now, my note must sound like a cry of fear and distress. He can hear that, and still, he hasn’t come back to me.

I know how much Aiden loves me. No matter the circumstances, if he heard me like this - and he was capable of coming back to me - he would. So... for some reason, he can’t. And it must be a reason beyond his control, or he’d be bursting through the door to sweep me up into his arms by now.

Which means... my Companion Plant is in serious trouble.

Aiden warned me about loving a Guardian. The unique complications that he comes with, all the risks that I’ve accepted. But I’ve always had Aiden there to help me handle them. This is my first time dealing with it alone. Without his help.

My first true test.

I can’t break down, can’t collapse in on myself. Even if that’s all I feel capable of doing. I have to hold it together, so I can rescue Aiden.

I get back to my feet and stride across Aiden’s empty apartment. I go through Kent’s house without stopping, hit the unlock button on my keys as I go down the path. I get into the driver’s seat and turn the car on, then close my eyes.

I think of my Sugar Maple.

Resolve spreads through my chest. I feel reinforced by it, feel my determination outdistancing the fear that had nearly pulled me under.

Aiden always brings out the strength in me.

I swipe my sleeve over my eyes and under my nose. I take what feels like my first deep breath in the last twenty-four hours. Oxygen floods into my body, clearing my clouded vision, anchoring me back within myself.

I open my eyes, then pull away from the curb without wasting one more minute. Something tells me that this is a time-sensitive situation, and every second counts. 

Aiden is the Guardian, but now he’s the one in need of help, protection, shelter. I will find him, and I will be that for him.

Whatever it takes, I'll find him.