Isaac smoothed his coat. “Thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to dramatically walk through the same door three times, just because I can .”

Hetty adjusted her ghostly cameo brooch. “So someone explain why I feel thinner? Not that I’m complaining.”

The morning light sliced through Woodstone Mansion’s dusty curtains, but something was off. Not the usual off—like Hetty’s corset being two inches tighter or Thorfinn grumbling about cloud cover. This was digital .

“HEVC!” Jay said, as if that explained everything. “High-Efficiency Video Coding! It’s great for streaming, bad for paranormal residency. The algorithm’s been merging redundant frames—which means redundant ghosts .”

Isaac stormed in—or tried to. He appeared, vanished, reappeared in the driveway. “I WILL NOT BE RENDERED IN 8-BIT,” he boomed. “I AM A REVOLUTIONARY WAR GENERAL, NOT A MINECRAFT SKIN!”