Most of the time.

“I’m better.” After a lengthy pause, during which Emma tried to get rid of Sabine by offering her chocolate, Nash said, “Mom should be here any minute.”

“She’s on her way,” Tod confirmed, and I looked up to see him sitting in my dad’s favorite chair. Watching us.

“Shouldn’t you be delivering pizza?” Nash asked.

The reaper shrugged. “Like I’m gonna miss this.”

I frowned. “You’ve already seen it?”

“Um…yeah. And heard it, and smelled it, and…”

“What is it?” Nash asked, but his brother only grinned.

Harmony had been looking for a way to keep us from getting possessed ever since she found out what had happened to me a month ago, and we’d gotten a call that morning saying she’d finally come up with something. Which was the only reason Sabine and Emma had wound up in the same room so soon after Em’s first trip to the Netherworld.

“Where’s your dad?” Tod glanced down the hall, like my father might materialize any moment.

“Helping Alec get settled.” Alec and my father had struck up an odd sort of friendship, thanks to their mutual lack of humanity and abject hatred of the hellion who’d possessed them both multiple times. My dad had even cleaned out our meager savings to lend Alec his first month’s rent and security deposit.

“Knock, knock!” Harmony called from the front porch, then came in without waiting for me to open the door, carrying a large cardboard box. “Tod, give me a hand, please.”

The reaper stood reluctantly and took the box from his mother. As soon as he touched it, the box started to shake and erupted into a chorus of squeals and odd, high-pitched growls.

“What’s that?” I asked, standing as Tod set the box on my coffee table. Em and Sabine wandered in from the kitchen to stare suspiciously at the weird, yipping box.

“That…” Harmony began, “is part of what’s going to keep you from playing host to a hellion ever again. But first…” She stuck one hand into her coat pocket and pulled out a plastic sandwich bag filled with odd, blue, stiff-looking strands of…something. “Emma, give me your wrist.”

Em stuck her arm out hesitantly, while Harmony pulled out one of the cords, which turned out to be braided lengths of something fibrous.

“This is silk from a Netherworld plant called dissimulatus. It’s very rare, which is why it took me so long to find it, but it’s also very sturdy.” She tied braided silk into a loop around Emma’s wrist, then double and triple knotted it. The bracelet was too small to slip off, but too loose to cut off her circulation. “It won’t shrink, stain, or tear, so you can wear it all the time. Even in the shower.”

“Dissimulatus?” Em asked, twisting the loop around her wrist while Harmony dug in her bag for another one.

“It means ‘disguise.’ As long as you wear them, the silk will disguise your energy signature, both here and in the Netherworld.”

“What does that mean?” Emma asked. And if she hadn’t, I would have.

“Think of yourself as a cell phone,” Harmony began, tying the second bracelet on Sabine’s left wrist. “Constantly broadcasting a signal—your energy signature. That signal identifies you as a human female, about sixteen years old. Specifically, it identifies you as Emma Dawn Marshall. This bracelet—” she held up another one and waved me forward, as Sabine frowned at her new accessory “—is like a jammer. It’s going to jam your signal. And for the rest of you—” Harmony glanced at me, Nash, and Sabine in turn as she wrapped the stiff length of cord around my arm “—it will disguise your species, as well.”

“So…no one will know I’m a bean sidhe?” I asked, as she tied the first knot.

“Not just from tasting your energy signature.”

“And that’ll keep Avari from possessing us?” Nash said, holding his arm out for his bracelet.

“It’ll keep him from identifying you. And if he can’t find you, he can’t possess you. Right?”

“But he knows where we live,” Sabine pointed out, frowning skeptically. “It’s not gonna be hard to find us, if he’s looking in the right place.”

Harmony nodded solemnly. “And that’s where these come in.” Without further explanation, she opened the box on the coffee table, reached inside, and pulled out a small, quaking ball of fur.

I frowned at the creature, and at the faint gamey smell emanating from it. And when Harmony shoved it toward me, I took a step back.

“He won’t hurt you,” she insisted, and pushed it toward me again. This time I held out both hands, and she deposited the furball in them. “This is your new best friend.” She brushed blond curls back from her face, then reached into the box again and pulled out another ball of fur, and handed this one to Nash. “They don’t have a name that I can actually pronounce, so you may as well just think of them as puppies. Very special puppies.”

“They’re dogs?” Emma asked, and Harmony smiled.

“Not fully. They’re a mix of a Pomeranian and a small Netherworld critter. They’re very expensive and difficult to breed. So don’t take this responsibility lightly.”

“Responsibility?” Sabine said, holding her “dog” at arm’s length.

“Yes. It’s very important that you bond with them over the next couple of weeks.”