There are two ways to find Death.

Either you go looking for it, or you wait for it to come to you.

We chose the latter, but as the morning goes on, I’m beginning to regret that choice. Lara, Jacob, and I trail my parents and their film crew through haunted hotels. Apparently, it’s hard to find a hotel in New Orleans without a resident ghost. According to Lucas, half the hotels were schools or orphanages once, until, like the Place d’Armes, all of them burned down.

Where are you? I think as we stand in a room in the Bourbon Orleans, while Mom’s EMF meter warbles and whines, and once, I swear, it even giggles. I shiver and retreat, leaning against a wall, only to feel the Veil lean back, whispering mischief.

“Come and play.”

But I resist the pull. Ghost hunting is officially on hold.

We go to more hotels: the Monteleone, the Andrew Jackson, the Dauphine. At each one, the cameras roll, and Dad recounts the history of the hotel and Mom recounts the stories of its ghosts. Of shadows that sit on the edges of beds and children who play in the halls. Of things that go missing and things that are found.

It’s hard to focus on the filming. My nerves tighten, my senses bristle. I keep my ears tuned to the air, waiting for any shift. For the sound to drop out of the room, or a chill breeze, or a voice drifting through the dark.

We will find you, it said.

Come and try, I think.

I can tell that Jacob and Lara are just as jumpy, though he’s no good at hiding it, and somehow she’s able to smile and pretend that she’s listening to my parents’ show, that the only thing making her shiver is one of Mom’s stories.

Lara keeps her hand on her backpack, ready to assemble the banishing spell as soon as the Emissary makes its move.

But several locations later and still no sign of it.

The sun is high and hot as we pass the Old Ursuline Convent, a massive building that looms behind tall walls and sculpted hedges.

According to Dad, the convent is older than the United States. According to Mom, it’s the birthplace of the American vampire. Or at least, one of the vampire legends. Apparently, teenage girls were sent over from France, and they arrived in New Orleans pale and gaunt, clutching casket-shaped boxes. The boxes—called caskets—were supposed to contain their dowry. But the myths grew until people believed that the boxes were literal caskets, and the girls undead.

As Mom and Dad narrate, I keep one hand in my pocket, fingers tight around the glass evil eye, and wait, and wait, and wait. But I don’t feel anything strange, save for the rise and fall of the Veil.