What kind of girl brings you home because you’re cursed? I mean, that’s something I would do, but I’m pretty foolish about these things—which is how I got cursed in the first place.

She faked my passport. She faked my plane tickets. She and Baz will both cast spells in front of me now like it’s nothing. I never thought I’d be this in with a group of magicians. Nobody gets in with magicians!

I mean, I think my heart will burst if I betray them … Literally. There was a magical handshake, and I crossed my heart and hoped to die. But I was glad to do it. I’m seeing things no Talker ever gets to see—no “Normal,” that’s what the magicians call us here. That’s what Penelope calls me half the time. “The Normal.” Like she’s only ever met one.

“Well,” she says now, letting me into her apartment. “Here we are.”

It’s just the two of us. We all got out of San Diego in a hurry. I guess Baz’s aunt has been arrested or something? Something about their old school. He took off as soon as we landed at Heathrow. And Simon and Agatha went straight to Agatha’s house; she was pretty shook up.

We’re all pretty shook up. I get the feeling that last week was intense, even by magician and vampire and dragon-boy standards. “I could sleep for a month,” I say, sitting on Penelope’s couch.

“You can sleep tomorrow,” she says. “We’re going to see my parents as soon as I’ve had a shower.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Yes. Shepard. You’ve lost your soul to a demon.”

I shrug. “Right. But that’s not … urgent.”

“How is your spending eternity in demonic service not urgent?”

“It’s eternity,” I say. “Not tomorrow.”

“Unless you get hit by a bus tomorrow.”

“Are you going to throw me in front of a bus?”

“No, but on that note: Remember to look right when you cross the street. Americans are always walking into traffic…”

“Penelope. I’ve already been living like this for two years.”

“Which is why we’re going directly to my parents’ house. Then you’ll have your soul back, and you can die whenever you want.”

“Your parents are going to unbind me from a demon over dinner?”

“Well”—she’s looking through a stack of mail, twirling the end of her long, brown ponytail in her fingers—“there probably won’t be dinner unless we bring it. No one in my house likes to cook. But otherwise, yes. My mother is the smartest and possibly the most powerful mage in all the World of Mages.”

“Is she some sort of queen?”

“What? No.” Penelope looks up at me, disgusted. “Mages don’t have queens.”

“Oh, right, pardon me for making that assumption in a country that actually has a monarchy.”