“Doors can open anywhere if the worlds are close enough together, can’t they? Rini”—she gestured toward the sniffling girl with the candy corn eyes—“said a boy from the world she comes from found his door and went away, to someplace where he was better suited. If I stayed here, and Belyyreka wanted me back, could my door still find me?”

“Nadya, no,” said Cora.

“Yes,” said the Lord of the Dead. “And for that, for Belyyreka, I would let you go. For that, I would stand aside and release all claim to you.”

Nadya looked around at the others. “I’ve been at the school for five years. I’ll be seventeen in a month. A year after that and then I graduate, and my family starts expecting me to go somewhere, to make something of my life. I can’t live on a countdown. I want to go home, and that means waiting until Belyyreka calls me back. I’m not a political exile like Sumi. I’m not a cultural exile like Kade, either. I just got caught in the wrong current. I want to go home. I can wait here just as well as I can wait on campus.”

“Nadya, no,” said Cora, with more desperation. “You can’t leave me. You’re the only real friend I’ve got.”

Nadya’s smile was uneven and quick. “See, that’s the best reason for me to stay here. You need to make more friends, Cora. I can’t be the only estuary in your waterway.”

“Aunt Eleanor’s going to kill me,” muttered Kade.

“Not when you tell her it was my choice, and that this place is closer to Belyyreka than the school ever was,” said Nadya, dismissing his concerns with an airy wave of her hand. She turned to the Lord of the Dead. “If you’ll let my friends go, and you’ll let me take my door home when it appears, I’ll stay with you. I’ll haunt your rivers and terrorize your turtles and I’ll never be still, but you don’t want someone still, or you wouldn’t have asked for any of us. You just want someone to stay so you feel like you’re in charge of everything.”

“Guilty as charged,” said the Lord of the Dead, with a very faint smile. “You will stay?”

“I’ll stay,” said Nadya.

Kade closed his eyes, looking pained.

“The compact is sealed.” The Lord of the Dead turned to the group. “Your payment is given; the shade may go with you. Nancy?”

“Yes, milord?”

“Show your friend to the river.”

“Yes, milord,” said Nancy, and turned to Nadya. “Follow me.”