I shrugged with the shoulder not pressed into my mattress. “Nash is still mad. Sabine is still blunt. And I met Madeline’s necromancer. His name’s Luca.”

“A death detector?” Tod made a face. “That’s creepy.”

“Says the living dead boy.”

“I’m serious.”

I pretended to study his expression. “So that’s what that looks like… .”

“You know you can’t hide from him, right? He’ll see you, whether you’re corporeal or not, and he’ll hear you if he’s close enough. Tell me that’s not creepy.”

“It’s a little creepy, but he’s the one who found Thane this morning. I’m thinking a necromancer on our side is infinitely less creepy than one working for the bad guys.”

“I guess…”

“It gets weirder. He’s dating Sophie.”

“On purpose?” Tod looked horrified. It takes a lot to scare a reaper.

“Looks like it. She knows what he is and doesn’t seem to care. Oh, and we ate with Em’s new boyfriend, too.”

“These are the days of our lives…” Tod announced in a false baritone, and I smacked his shoulder. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s Em’s boyfriend like?”

“His name’s Jayson. He’s human. Normal and nice. He’s probably perfect for her.”

“But…?”

“But nothing.” I shrugged. “She’s safer with him than with any of us. She deserves a nice, normal relationship, but—”

“I knew there was a ‘but.’”

“—but I don’t know how to be around her when she’s with him. There’s too much I can’t say. Too much he doesn’t know.”

Tod ran his hand down my arm until he found my hand, and his fingers folded around mine. “Are we still talking about Jayson? ’Cause it kind of sounds like you’re talking about Emma now.”

I sighed. “Maybe.” Em knew a lot about my world—not to mention the Netherworld—but she was still in the dark about a lot of it, too. She didn’t know much about Thane, or that Avari was willing to kill her to get to me. She didn’t know that Mr. Beck—the incubus math teacher who’d murdered me—had planned to kill her, too, but not until after he’d fed from her. She didn’t know that her sister was pregnant with Beck’s incubus fetus, or that Harmony was busy collecting and combining a blend of Netherworld herbs that could end the brand-new pregnancy and save her sister’s life. Though I’d have to tell her most of that very soon, because I was not looking forward to explaining the truth to Traci, who could discover her own pregnancy any day.

But mostly, Emma didn’t know how hard it was for me to sit through class after class today, knowing that none of it mattered anymore. Iwasn’t going to grow up and go off to college with her. I wasn’t ever going to use the past-perfect conjugation of French verbs, and after finals, I’d probably never again be required to write out a mathematical proof.

The only things still certain in my future were the reclamation of stolen souls and Tod. That’s it. Those were the only things that mattered anymore, and the harder I clung to the plans that were important to the once-living Kaylee, the more I felt like a fraud walking around in her skin.

“I keep forgetting to be, Tod,” I whispered, my voice muted by the enormity of what I was admitting.

“Forgetting to be what?”

“To be. To be here. To exist. If I don’t concentrate, I slip right out of the physical plane, and I don’t even notice it until I realize people can’t see or hear me.” That had happened with my dad over and over since I’d died, and if it ever happened at school, I was screwed.

“That’s normal.”

“That’s not normal!” I insisted. “Forgetting to exist is textbook-weird!”

His hand tightened around mine, and his blue irises swirled in sympathy. “It takes a while to get into the routine of taking physical form. I didn’t make a habit of it until I met you.”

“It’s like I don’t exist anymore. Like I’m nowhere.” I rolled onto my back, and he leaned over me, staring down at me from inches away.

“You’re very much here, Kaylee. From my vantage point, you’re everywhere.” His eyes were all I could see, his irises swirling slowly, confirming everything he was saying and hinting at even more.

“This is the only time I feel real, Tod. Only when I’m touching you. I wish it could be like this forever.”

“It can be. It will be,” he said, and he sounded so sure of that that I could almost believe him.

“What if you get tired of me? Forever’s a long time.”

“I’m well aware.” Tod sat up and pulled me up with him until we faced each other on my bed. “Forever used to feel like a curse. Now it feels like a promise,” he said, and my chest ached, and I loved that feeling—that rare pain that came from feeling too much, so different from the emptiness I’d almost gotten used to. “All you have to do is stay here with me.”

“That, and eat breakfast for my dad. And reclaim souls for Madeline. And go to school and work to convince everyone that Nash is innocent.” I frowned as something ridiculous occurred to me. “In the movies and on TV, there are all these ancient vampires taking math and PE with a bunch of teenagers, and I always thought that was the stupidest thing. I mean, if you had eternity to spend however you want—and for the most part, we do—why the hell would you go back to high school? What on earth was I thinking?”