There were just people. Good people, like her and Maria. Assholes, like the truck driver who’d slammed into the minivan and screwed up Lily’s legs. And random people, like the other kids at Acheron, who she guessed were somewhere in between.

The random people didn’t matter much to Lily. Not as long as the good people got rewarded and the assholes got what they deserved.

It was mostly her left leg that did the aching now. The right one still had issues, and bending it hurt like hell, but her left didn’t need to wait for a reason to throb.

Lily had lived with the same pain for so long it felt like a part of her. The worst days, though, were when the pain was different. When it came faster, or harsher, or fiercer than she was used to. When it prickled instead of throbbed. When it attacked her right ankle instead of her left knee. When it woke her up at night instead of aching dully first thing in the morning. On those days, her standard-issue pain was replaced by something different and frightening, something that took over her body and left her without the slightest clue of when, or even if, it would release her.

Those times, her pain wasn’t a part of her anymore. Those times, she was a part of it.

Lily’s pain reminded her of what she’d lost. That she couldn’t take anything for granted. That she had to work to make things right.

The quickest way to the staff kitchen was through the old dining hall next door. Lily hadn’t been in the room since the night of the séance. When she pushed the heavy wooden door open, something brushed against her leg, making her jump, before she realized it was just one of the cats. Lily shook off her nerves and glanced around the room, holding up the candles.

The dining hall had been partially cleaned up since that night. The shards of glass had been swept away, but hastily—Lily could see fragments gleaming in the candlelight in the dark corner by the door. The table was still there, but the rickety rocking chair that had always inhabited the far corner of the room was gone. There was a jagged rip in the ceiling where the chandelier had hung. The chairs were still scattered around the edges of the room where they’d been moved for the cleaning. Maybe now they’d finally convert the room into something useful. Everyone always said they’d been afraid to renovate it because the chandelier was too valuable and fragile to move.