“Books? Look, I’m sure you guys are in a hurry for me to get this job done, so why don’t we skip this part? I’m really more a hands-on kind of gal.”

The girl appeared, grinning mischievously. “Oh? Well, in that case, let’s do it the hands-on way.”

She waved a hand, and a ball of light whipped out and blinded me.

“What the—” I began.

“Shhhhhh.”

The light fell in a shower of sparks. I blinked, then saw only darkness. The same voice continued to shush me, a long-drawn-out monotone of a breath that, after a moment, I realized wasn’t a voice at all, but the rush of air past my ears.

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head, willing my night-vision to kick in. Like all my visual abilities, this one came supercharged, the legacy of having the Lord Demon Balam, Master of Sight, as a father.

A sharp wind whipped through my clothes. Something tickled my fingers. I grabbed it, and with a tug, the thin strand broke free. I lifted it to my nose. Grass.

My sight began to clear. The first thing I saw was waves, the rhythmic rise and fall of waves rippling toward shore. But I didn’t smell water. Didn’t feel the spray of it or the weight of it in the air. Instead, the wind was dry and smelled of…grass. I blinked again and saw waves of grass, rising and falling on hilly soil, bowing in the wind. An ocean of grass.

Once upon a time, this would have surprised me, but after three years of traveling around the ghost world, I’ve seen some pretty strange geography. In the unoccupied areas, plains are common, vast empty stretches of rock or sand or grass. I’d even popped into a plain of lava once. Not pleasant…especially when I realized it wasn’t as empty as it appeared. At that thought, I peered into the long grass. It didn’t look like there was anything down there, but you could never be sure.

I looked up. Sky. A night sky, overcast.

“Okay,” I called to the Fates. “You can skip the detention. I’ll do my homework.”

A high-pitched laugh answered me. Now, I’m sure the child Fate would get a giggle out of their trick, but the voice sounded too old to be hers, and neither of her sisters was the giggling type.

When no one answered, I headed in the direction of the laugh. If there was someone else in this ghost-world wasteland, it probably wasn’t someone I wanted to meet, but a little danger would at least liven things up.