“Jules, I appreciate your willingness to go above and beyond. It’s a nice change from your usual MO.” Tricia laughed like the soulless bitch she was. “But we do have to stick to policy, which says that nobody goes through a maskhål alone.” Tricia turned her blank gaze back to Ava. “Furthermore, I’d like you both to keep in mind that there’s a young woman sitting in the cafeteria who’s scared for her grandmother. Customers always come first.”

Ava was, possibly for the first time in her life, too angry to speak. If she lived through this, she decided, she was going to track Derek down and kill him.

“Let’s get you the FINNA,” Tricia said. “Oh! And don’t forget these!”

She slid the two gift cards across the table.

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

“Okay, so, listen,” Jules said.

Ava dropped the box carrying the FINNA on the ground and squatted next to it. Behind them, in the Nihilist Bachelor Cube, the maskhål squirmed in the air. The seam between their world and another universe twitched restlessly. Ava turned her back to it, so she wouldn’t have to look.

“I’m listening,” Ava said, opening the box. The FINNA looked like some of the equipment she’d seen on Ghost Hunters reruns, with a massive gray case, a black-and-green console, and two antennae on the side. It was lighter than it looked, at least.

Jules peered over her shoulder. “The instructions should be in here,” they said, plucking the booklet out. “In Swedish, French, and Japanese, great. I can muddle through the French— Or yank them out of my hands, that works too.”

“You don’t need written instructions, the diagrams are made to be universally understandable,” Ava said, flipping to the pictures.

She knew she was acting like a royal bitch, but she was still so angry at Tricia, at her corporate overlords, and at the universe—sorry, the multiverse—in general. She tried to rein her irritation in as she said, “What were you going to say before?”

Jules took a deep breath and let it out slow. They’d gotten good at not rising to her bullshit, not taking the bait she waved in front of them. Their discretion hadn’t helped; Jules’s calm demeanor while Ava lost her shit had just made her feel even angrier. The heart was a stupid, hurting animal, and her heart was stupider than most.

“I know that you don’t want to do this,” Jules said. “And that I’m the last person you want to do it with. So here’s my proposal.”

Ava stopped flipping through the diagrams, enough to signal that she was listening.

Jules took a breath. “Go through the maskhål far enough to be out of sight, and chill. I’ll find Ursula on my own, and then meet you back there.”