Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children

them.

Then Bronwyn got up from the table and threw her arms around me. “Brother,” she said. “We’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” I said. “More than I can say.”

“But why?” said Olive, floating up to my eye level. “Was I too irritating?”

I put my hand on her head and pushed her back down to the floor. “No, no, it’s got nothing to do with you,” I said. “You were great, Olive.”

Emma stepped forward. “Jacob came here to help us,” she said. “But he has to go back to his old life, while it’s still there waiting for him.”

The children seemed to understand. There was no anger. Most of them seemed genuinely happy for me.

Miss Wren popped her head into the room to give us a quick update—everything was going marvelously, she said. Miss Peregrine was well on her way to recovery. She’d be ready by morning. And then Miss Wren was gone again.

“Thank the gods,” said Horace.

“Thank the birds,” said Hugh.

“Thank the gods and the birds,” said Bronwyn. “All the birds in all the trees in all the forests.”

“Thank Jacob, too,” said Millard. “We never would’ve made it this far without him.”

“We never even would’ve made it off the island,” said Bronwyn. “You’ve done so much for us, Jacob.”

They all came and hugged me, each of them, one by one. Then they drifted away and only Emma was left, and she hugged me last—a long, bittersweet embrace that felt too much like goodbye.

“Asking you to leave was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” she said. “I’m glad you came around. I don’t think I’d have had the strength to ask again.”

“I hate this,” I said. “I wish there were a world where we could be together in peace.”

“I know,” she said. “I know, I know.”

“I wish …,” I started to say.

“Stop,” she said.

I said it anyway. “I wish you could come home with me.”