Lara straightens to her full height, which is still a good inch below mine. “We’re here to seek your guidance.”

“No need to be so formal,” says Agatha. “Just tell us the trouble.”

Lara glances at me.

I swallow and say, “I’m being hunted by an Emissary.”

For a second, no one says anything.

Hazel stares at me with wide, sad eyes, and the ancient woman, Magnolia, thumps her cane thoughtfully on the floor.

Agatha nods and says, “Right. Best tell us everything.”

I do. I tell them about the stranger on the train platform in Paris. I tell them about the Place d’Armes and the séance, the skull in the stone and the voice in the dark, and what it said. I tell them about the close call in St. Roch, and when I’m done, the words hang in the air for a moment, like smoke.

And then the napping man, Charles, sighs and sits up.

“That’s no good,” he says, which feels like a bit of an understatement.

“The historian wakes!” scolds Agatha. “Honestly, Charles. This is a society, not a sunroom. Now, Theodore,” she says, turning to the man with the book. The in-betweener. “Have you ever seen an Emissary?”

The old man with the mustache closes his book. “Only once. Gave me the shivers. Lucky it didn’t see me. But we did lose another Veil-walker, didn’t we? Some years back.”

The historian, Charles, nods at the bookshelf. “Joanna Bent,” he says. “She’s gone on her way, but she made notes.”

Hazel sets her Rubik’s Cube aside and studies the books, fingers trailing over the spines before she pulls down a slim journal and turns through the pages.

“Dangerous things, Emissaries,” says Theodore. “Like spotlights, scanning the dark.”

Hazel clears her throat.

“ ‘Death’s Emissaries,’ ” she reads in her Southern drawl, “ ‘are drawn to things out of place. To life in the presence of death, and death in the presence of life. To people who embody both.’ ”

“That’s why they’re so good at finding in-betweeners,” says Lara. “We’re life and death mixed up in one.”

I shake my head. “But I don’t get why they want to find us. In-betweeners have a purpose. We clear out the Veil. We send spirits on. Shouldn’t Death be grateful?”

Agatha purses her lips. “I don’t think Death cares about the dead. Think about what the Emissary said to you. ‘You stole from us.’ It was talking about your life. The ghosts in the Veil don’t have lives anymore. Just look at the threads in our chests.” She gestures to her own. “All the light’s gone out. But you—”

I look down at the blue-white light glowing behind my ribs.

“That’s what you stole, when you survived. That’s what Death wants back.”