“How long is it going to be like this?” my dad asked as I pushed back my chair and tossed my paper plate into the plastic trash bin. “How long are you going to be mad?”

“I’m not mad.” I trudged into the living room and shoved my trig and history books into my backpack, the corresponding homework assignments folded in half inside them. “I just…” …have things I can’t tell you. Things you could probably help me with. But you won’t. So talking does us no good. “I have stuff on my mind. It has nothing to do with you.”

I wanted to explain that things would get better. He would stop trying so hard—start realizing I was sixteen, not six—and eventually he’d understand that Nash was keeping me out of trouble, not getting me into it. When that happened, we could both relax. Maybe he could even tell me about my mother without tearing up and making some excuse to stop talking.

But not yet. None of that could happen while I was still helping Addy and Regan behind his back. Because he knew something was wrong, and he couldn’t move beyond that until it was resolved, and I couldn’t look him in the eye until I was done lying.

Soon, though. It would be soon.

My dad fell asleep in his recliner shortly after eleven, and he sat there snoring for several minutes before I thought to turn off the television. I could only stare at him from the couch, boiling with frustration.

He was supposed to fall asleep in his bed, not in the living room!

I could wake him up and tell him to go to bed. That would still leave more than half an hour for him to go back to sleep before I had to leave for Nash’s. But the last time I’d done that, he’d decided he wasn’t ready for bed yet, and he’d stayed up to watch some stupid action movie until after midnight.

I could leave him where he was and hope he didn’t check on me when he went to bed. But then I’d run the risk of waking him when I opened the front door. Because the window in my room was painted shut, and the screen on the back door squealed like a pissed-off harpy.

That only left my backup plan, which I’d really hoped to avoid.

My dad’s bedroom door stood open, and I saw my cell phone on his nightstand, all alone and sad-looking. He’d never know if I took it, and I’d have a safety net in case something went horribly wrong while I was out.

I took my phone—I was too big of a wimp to walk into something so dangerous without a safety net—then stared at myself in the mirror over my dresser, wondering if I had the courage to do what needed to be done. I tucked a strand of straight brown hair behind my ear and wondered if my irises were swirling. I couldn’t see them myself, but if Nash were there, would he see the shades of blue twisting with the fear that pulsed through my veins, leaving icicles in its wake, threatening to shatter with my next movement. Could I walk into the Netherworld like I belonged there? Could I demand anaudience with a hellion and offer him a trade?

Even if I could, would I survive such an audience? And if I did, what was I opening myself up to? It seemed like an extraordinarily bad idea to bring myself to a demon’s attention. Pretty much the opposite of my dad’s lay-low-to-survive philosophy.

At least I wouldn’t be alone. I’d have Nash and Tod. Assuming I survived sneaking out of my own house.

What should I take?

Something that would actually function in the Netherworld. Traveling light seemed wise, but did I really want to step into another reality carrying nothing but a useless phone and some pocket lint? I slid my pitifully incomplete key ring into my pocket. Cash would do me no good in the Netherworld—Nash said they spent other, unthinkable currency—but it might come in handy before we crossed over.

A small stone box on my dresser held everything of tangible value I owned: my mother’s engagement ring and the forty-eight dollars left over from my last paycheck. I stuffed the bills into my front pocket. Usually a small lump of cash felt reassuring; it represented emergency gas money, or bus fare home, should I need it. But this time I still felt woefully unprepared to face the world with so little going for me.

What I really needed was a weapon. Unfortunately, the most dangerous thing in the entire house was my dad’s butcher knife, and something told me that wouldn’t be much use against anything I ran into in the Netherworld.

I pulled my hair into a ponytail and shrugged into my jacket, then pronounced myself ready to go. At least, as ready as I was going to be.

My heart beat fiercely, and suddenly my throat felt too thick to breathe through. My father would wake up if I tried to unbolt and unchain the front door, but there was no telling what else I’d wake up if I crossed into the Netherworld. Harmony said there’d just be an empty field, but what if she was wrong? What if things had changed since she’d last crossed over?

I shook off fear, forcing my spine straight and my head up. The best way to enter the lion’s den is one step at a time.

With that, I dove into my remembrance of death. It was like tumbling headfirst into a pool of grief and horror, and at first, it seemed I would sink. I would drown in sorrow. Then I forced my heartache into focus, scrambling desperately for a handle on my own emotion. Sophie. Emma. And finally my mother—what little I could remember of her. The memories of their soul songs bubbled up inside me. Darkness enveloped me, and sound leaked from my throat.

I pressed my lips together to keep it from bursting forth in a silence-shattering wail of grief and misery. If my father heard me keening—or singing, from his perspective—it was all over. So I swallowed the sound, like Harmony had taught me. Forced it down and into my heart, where the echo resonated within me, hammering at my fragile self-control, clawing at my insides.