As usual, Lurine looked fabulous. She had poured herself into a clingy black spandex dress that hit her at midthigh. When I arrived, she was checking her flawless makeup in an immense lighted mirror at her vanity table.

“Hey, baby girl,” she greeted me. “Let’s see this magic necklace.”

I handed her Stefan’s pendant. “He said you have to hold the image you want to project in your mind to invoke it.”

Lurine glanced in the mirror and pursed her lips. “This is the image I want to project.”

“I just need you to dial it down a few notches,” I said. “Just for tonight.”

“I know, I know.” She examined the smoky quartz. “Interesting. I don’t recognize the signature.”

“It has a signature?”

“All magic has a signature. Okay, let’s give this a try.” Lurine lowered the chain around her neck, the pendant nestling in her cleavage.

The shift was subtle and instantaneous. As Stefan had indicated, it didn’t change her likeness entirely, but Lurine looked . . . different. She looked like she could have been her own younger sister: not quite as gorgeous, not quite as glamorous. A little less intimidating, a little more approachable.

She made a face in the mirror. “Well, it works.”

I smiled. “You look perfect.”

“Come on.” She grabbed her clutch purse. “Let’s go meet some frat boys.”

I drove north toward Appeldoorn. There was a brief frisson as we passed out of range of Hel’s domain: a sense of loss, like a little of the brightness had gone out of the world. I stole a quick glance at Lurine to confirm that the pendant’s charm was still working. It seemed to be holding just fine.

Lurine sniffed disdainfully and wriggled in the passenger seat. “Ah, back into the mundane world.”

“It can’t bother you that much,” I said. “You spent years in it.”

She shrugged. “I’m an immortal monster, cupcake. It would take more than a few years for me to run the risk of fading away without an underworld beneath me.”

“You’re not a monster,” I said automatically.

“Actually, I am,” she said in a pragmatic tone. “As surely as you’re a demon’s daughter. That’s one of the reasons I’m so fond of your mother, Daisy. When I saw how determined she was to love her hot-tempered little hell-spawn . . .” Affection filled her voice. “Gods, you were a handful!”

“So I’ve heard.”