“By yourself?”

Lara bristles. “I’m more than capable of navigating an airplane, Cassidy.”

She swallows, looks away for a second. Lara’s the kind of girl who holds all her feelings right against her chest, like a book she doesn’t want to share. But I can hear the sadness in her voice.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and I’m afraid it’s the wrong thing, because I hear a hitch in her breath.

“It doesn’t matter.” She clears her throat. “A stamp in the passport, right?” she adds, sounding like she’s trying to convince herself more than me. “Now. How’s New Orleans? Have you found any clues about the Society?”

I’m about to tell her about the black cat I saw when Jacob cuts in. “Something is hunting Cassidy.”

I shoot him a look. I was about to tell her.

Lara blinks. “You mean a ghost? Like the Raven in Red?” she asks, referring to the hungry spirit that tried to steal my life in Scotland.

I shake my head. “Not … exactly.”

She gives me a look that says explain and so I do, the best I can.

Jacob leans against the wall as I pace, and I tell Lara about what I saw back in Paris: the man who wasn’t a man, the skull mask that wasn’t a face, and the eyeless dark beyond. I tell her how I fainted, how it felt like I was being emptied out. I tell her about the voice I heard in the archway, and then the one that interrupted the séance: what it said to me, about stealing, and fleeing, and being found, and returned to the dark. I tell her everything, and Lara listens, her face going first slack, and then tight, but she doesn’t say anything. Her expression isn’t chiding or stern. If anything, Lara Chowdhury looks scared. I’ve never seen her scared before.

“When did it happen, in Paris?” she asks softly. “When did you see it for the first time?”

Jet lag makes everything stretch, so it takes me a second to do the math.

“Two days ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she snaps.

Jacob shoots me an I told you so look, and I can’t believe that he and Lara finally agree on something.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal,” I say, which isn’t entirely true, but isn’t exactly a lie. “I didn’t want it to be a big deal. I wanted it to be a bad dream. The kind of thing you shake off and leave behind. And, if it was something, I thought I could handle it myself.”

Lara studies me, her anger glaring through the screen.

“Cassidy Blake,” she says slowly, “that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Being an in-betweener does not mean you have to face things on your own. It means you have to ask the right people for help. People like me.”

I swallow hard, and nod. I’m afraid to ask, but I have to know.

“Lara,” I say. “What is it? The creature in the black suit?”