“And to bean sidhes,” Nash clarified, in case I didn’t get it.

“Yeah, thanks. And the plant life isn’t exactly amber waves of grain.”

Tod grinned, and I knew that he, at least, had forgiven me. “It won’t be like that closer to the city. The Netherworld is like a reflection of our world, anchored at certain, highly populated spots. Like public buildings. But the farther you go from those meccas, the less the Netherworld resembles our own. Including plant and animal life. And space and time.”

So I really had gone farther in the Netherworld than I had on the human plane.

“Space and time?” I took the next corner too fast, distracted by the new information.

“Yeah.” Tod shifted onto the center of the back bench seat so I could see him better in the mirror. “The human world is the constant, and time in the Netherworld will never go faster than it does here. And you’ll never move farther here than you would have there. But time will move slower in the parts of the Netherworld that are least firmly anchored to the human plane, and it’s very easy to think you’ve traveled far enough, yet when you cross back over, you haven’t gone as far here as you thought you had.”

Which was exactly what had happened to me.

“So, how are we supposed to get around in the Netherworld, if we never know where or when we’ll be when we cross back over?” I shot a worried glance at Nash.

“Very carefully,” he said, his voice grim and dark again. But this time he let a thread of calm snake through it to wrap around me, and I settled into that calm, inhaling it just for the taste of Nash. “Because most mistakes made in the Netherworld can’t be fixed.”

16

WE TOOK I-30 to Highway 12, in Irving, where the Dallas Cowboys were finishing their last season in the old stadium. I drove and Nash navigated. Fortunately, he’d been to Texas Stadium a bunch of times, and except for one missed exit—I hate it when highway signs aren’t marked well in advance—we had no problems getting there. Though, I was a little creeped out by the late-night, nearly deserted feel of the area.

We parked in a lot south of the stadium, and the sound of my car door closing echoed across the expanse of bare concrete. The air outside was warmer and more humid than in the car, but goose bumps popped up all over my arms, as if my skin knew better than my head that I ought to be afraid.

The dark chill of anticipation could probably be attributed to my imagination. Or to the fear that I would cross over from the human plane into another field of glass spears, or something even worse.

“You ready?” Tod asked from the other side of Emma’s car, one hand on the roof between us. Nash stood next to him, watching me carefully, as if I might melt into a puddle of fear and raw nerves any minute. Or maybe burstinto tears.

Did he really think I was that fragile?

No, I was not ready. But neither was I going to delay our mission. Addy’s time was running out.

“This is a public place with a very large concentration of human life force most of the time, so this section of the Netherworld should be pretty well anchored to ours,” Tod began, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets. “Which means that, for the most part, you can trust that time and space are running along pretty normal lines.”

“But there hasn’t been a game here in a couple of weeks, right?” I glanced from one brother to the other. “Shouldn’t that lack of human activity cause the anchor to slip a little?”

Nash rounded the hood of the car to take my hand, and his brother shrugged. “It might slip a bit during the off-season, but there’s been so much human energy built up here over the years that two weeks isn’t enough to make much of a difference.” The reaper ran one hand through his blond curls and joined us at the front of the car. “There might be a slight time and space discrepancy because it’s the middle of the night and no one’s around right now, but it’ll be very small. Definitely much less than what you felt at home.”

“What about the grass? Are we going to be shredded by vegetation when we cross over?”

Nash rubbed my upper arms through my jacket as I shivered. “I doubt it. There’s too much activity here for razor wheat to get a foothold on the land. It takes a while for that shit to establish strong roots, which it can’t do with Netherworlders stomping through it all the time. Right?” He glanced at Tod for confirmation, and the reaper nodded. Then Nash lifted my chin until my gaze met his. “And by the way, if you ever have to do that again—which I would not recommend—wear waders. Waist high, at least. Mom says that’s the only way to get out of razor wheat without getting sliced to bits.”

I nodded and bit my lip to keep from telling him about the whole sideways-step procedure, because that would make it sound like I’d mastered the razor wheat and intended to maintain my skill. Which I did not.

Unless I had to.

Still, waders sounded like a good idea….

“So, if the Netherworld parallel to my house is a field of razor wheat, that means no one’s been there in a while, right?”

“It means there hasn’t been enough activity there to keep it from growing or to stomp it down,” Nash said as Tod headed across the lot toward the stadium, with us trailing him. “That’s probably why your dad picked that section of the neighborhood.”

His guess felt right. I could easily see my father trying to protect me by isolating us from centers of Netherworld activity.