She gestures to Michael, who pulls the curtain aside. Lara and I step through, out of the shop and into a narrow room. Jacob tries to follow us, but when he reaches the curtain, he begins to sniffle and sneeze. And when he tries to come through anyway, he … bounces off. Like there’s a plate of glass there instead of an open doorway.

He rubs his forehead.

“Oh yes,” calls Philippa, “I’m afraid that room is warded.”

Jacob looks from me, to Lara, to the floor, and shoves his hands in his pockets. “I guess I’ll just wait out here, then,” he says, and I swear the temperature drops a little with his mood.

“I’ll be back soon,” I tell Jacob.

Philippa pats a stool by the counter. “Come and sit with me,” she says. “I’ll show you a fun trick.”

Jacob frowns a little, and I realize there’s never been a place I’ve gone that he couldn’t follow. But he turns away, and the last thing I see is his back before the curtain falls shut between us.

Chapter Fourteen

The Society room is filled with books.

Shelves run along every wall, interrupted only by sofas and chairs, and a small round table in the center. It feels a little like a library, and a little like an office, and a little like the séance room in Muriel’s, just as cluttered but far less ominous.

It’s so quiet in here, and it takes me a second to realize it’s because of the Veil. Or rather, the absence of it. Ever since I got to New Orleans, the other side has been a crush against my senses. But here, in the back room of the Thread & Bone, the Veil drops away, taking the whispers and the music with it.

“I thought the Society would be …” Lara turns in a circle. “Bigger.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” says Renée with a shrug. “Have a seat.”

I sit cross-legged on an ottoman, while Lara chooses a high-backed chair. Her legs don’t even reach the ground, and yet somehow she still looks dignified. Michael leans against the bookshelves, while Renée stands, arms folded, studying us behind her pink glasses.

“In-betweeners,” she muses. “You’re both so young.”

“Age is a number,” replies Lara briskly, “as I’ve said in my letters.”

“Yes, as you’ve said. And as I’ve said, Miss Chowdhury, the Society’s restrictions on age are in place for a reason.”

“Well, it’s a foolish reason, if you ask me.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, “can we please focus on the thing with the skull-face mask that keeps trying to kill me?”

“It’s not trying to kill you,” says Renée.

“Not in the strictest sense,” adds Michael, pulling a book from the shelf. “It’s trying to undo the fact that you lived.”

Somehow, that isn’t very comforting.