Sent

The second book in The Missing series picks up where the first book ended. Thirteen-year-old Jonah Skidmore and his younger sister Katherine grab the arms of their friend Chip Winston just as JB, a time agent from the future, sends Chip back to the fifteenth century. Jonah holds a Taser and the Elucidator, a futuristic communication device, both seized during a confrontation in a cave. Jonah and Chip are among 36 children stolen from history by time smugglers named Gary and Hodge; JB wants to return each child to their original era. JB protests that Jonah and Katherine could damage the timeline. Jonah threatens to cause further harm if JB does not let them save Chip and Alex Polchak, another kidnapped child sent back moments earlier. JB reluctantly agrees.

They land in a dark, foul-smelling room. Jonah and Katherine are disoriented, but Chip feels energized because, as JB explains, he belongs in this time period. JB reveals Chip's true identity: Edward V, King of England. Alex, already present, is Chip's younger brother, Prince Richard, Duke of York.

In the adjacent room, Katherine discovers two glowing, translucent boys on a bed. JB calls them tracers: ghostly projections of what would have happened if no one had interfered with history. Each boy can merge with his own tracer, inhabiting the same space and thinking the tracer's thoughts. Through merging, they learn that the young king believes his uncle Gloucester plans to kill him, while Prince Richard trusts their mother, Queen Elizabeth Woodville, has a rescue plan. Chip recounts that after Edward IV died, Gloucester arrested the queen's allies and imprisoned the young king in the Tower of London.

That night, two men enter claiming the queen sent them to rescue the princes. Katherine blows out the candle so the men cannot see her and Jonah. The men seize the boys and hurl them toward the window, but Jonah pulls Chip free and Katherine saves Alex at the last moment. Only the tracers plummet to the ground. Jonah believes they have saved the boys, but voices below cry out asking where the bodies are. In the original timeline, bodies would have been found; their absence has already altered events.

Jonah contacts JB, who insists the situation is unresolved. Chip, believing JB wanted the boys to die, furiously mutes the Elucidator. When armed men storm the room searching for the princes, Alex discovers an invisibility function on the device and renders all four children invisible. Katherine's hair catches fire from a guard's torch, and Jonah smothers the flames, creating a flare that convinces the guards the room is haunted.

The next morning the children are nearly transparent, visible to each other but unseen by everyone else. Katherine proposes faking the princes' deaths, but first they need information. They venture out and discover that Gloucester has seized the crown and is being crowned King Richard III that day. Chip races to a barge heading to Westminster Abbey. At the coronation, he screams accusations at Richard. Jonah tackles him and proposes they instead haunt Richard by whispering accusations in his ear. Inside the abbey's shrine, Chip crouches beside Richard and demands he renounce the throne. But the Elucidator's restoration completes, ending the children's invisibility. Richard sees four strangely dressed children. Katherine tells Richard they are the princes' spirits from heaven, and the children flee when he calls for help.

In the hallways, a monk explains that a preacher declared Edward IV was informally engaged to another woman before marrying Elizabeth Woodville, making Edward V illegitimate. Chip is devastated. The children hide until dark, reactivate invisibility, and travel to the sanctuary where the queen has taken refuge. Inside, the queen and her daughters weep, believing the princes dead. But Jonah and Katherine are stunned to see the tracers sitting happily with the family: The princes survived in the original history. Chip and Alex merge with their tracers and reveal themselves to their overjoyed mother, who shares the news that Richard has had her allies executed. Jonah and Katherine realize JB never wanted the boys dead; they lost his guidance over a misunderstanding.

JB pulls Jonah and Katherine into a futuristic space after they violate a time law by trying to separate Chip from his tracer in front of the royal family. He explains that one of the two men at the Tower truly intended murder, but the other was secretly working for the queen, who also had people on the ground to catch the boys. In the original history, both princes escaped and reached their mother, which is what has now happened through different means. JB reveals that Chip and Alex must remain in the fifteenth century for two years, until 1485, for history to unfold properly.

JB fast-forwards through those years: The queen sends the boys into hiding, Richard's allies betray him or die, and the king is left isolated. Jonah and Katherine must return to 1485 to pull Chip and Alex from their tracers during the Battle of Bosworth Field, a decisive clash between Richard III and Henry Tudor. They must act after Richard sees the princes but before the boys are killed. JB outfits them in medieval armor and sends them back without the Elucidator, giving them translation shots to understand Middle English.

They land unseen on the eve of battle inside Richard's tent. Richard senses their presence and believes they are the angels from Westminster, begging for forgiveness. Katherine tells him forgiveness is possible if he is sincere. At dawn, they find Chip and Alex among troops on the sidelines, deeply merged with their tracers. Katherine whispers a personal confession to Chip and kisses his cheek, causing him to briefly separate from his tracer. King Richard rides up, kneels before Chip, and offers to return the crown after the battle. He then rides back into the fighting, charges Henry Tudor's lines, and is killed.

Chip screams that the crown is his and charges onto the battlefield. Jonah pleads with him to leave, telling him Katherine will mourn him for centuries if he dies. Katherine says she would rather save his life than mourn him. Chip agrees to leave and pulls Alex from his tracer. As a soldier bears down on them, Hadley Correo, a time agent working with JB, produces a hidden Elucidator and activates the extraction. The last thing Jonah sees is the tracer battle-ax striking the tracer princes, confirming they would have died at Bosworth without the rescue.

The group lands in the cave in the twenty-first century. Both boys return to their thirteen-year-old bodies. JB confirms that the time ripple, the disturbance caused by the boys' removal from history, has been released and the timeline is intact. Richard needed to be remembered as a villain because the horror over the princes' supposed murder became a turning point in how society viewed the killing of children. Jonah insists that JB give all the missing children time to go home, eat their favorite foods, and adjust before anyone else is sent back. Jonah's first request to his parents is for pizza.

One week later, Chip and Alex struggle to stop blending their medieval and modern identities. JB arrives with a sheepdog named Dare and reveals that the next child to be returned to history is Andrea Crowell. Projections show the mission will fail unless Jonah, Katherine, and the dog accompany her. JB assures Chip and Alex they belong in the twenty-first century, noting that the time crash—the chaotic event that sent thirty-six children stolen from history crashing into the modern era—itself appears to have been meant to happen. Despite their fear, Jonah and Katherine agree to the new mission.