“Thanks.” I bet he would, too. I tried not to let my face show how much I appreciated the thought.

“Don’t worry.” I managed to sound like I wasn’t feeling a little light headed. “Everything’s gonna

be okay.”

I wondered how many times Dad used that phrase when he didn’t believe it, either. The thought was

a pinch in a numb place under my heart, and when I stepped forward next, the line down the nose of

the door-face widened. They swung inward soundlessly, and I saw a short red-carpeted hall with another, smaller door at the end.

I stuck my hands in my jean pockets, touched the switchblade in my right. I’d slid it in while getting

dressed in the bathroom and checked to make sure the bulge wouldn’t tell under the hem of the long

gray hoodie.

You never know. And after everything that had happened, I was damned if I was going anywhere

unarmed.

Jealousy

CHAPTER FOUR

I wasn’t sure what I expected. But four teenage-looking guys and two guys apparently in their mid

twenties lounging on couches—one of them smoking a cigar thicker than two of his fingers—was

so not it.

The room was windowless, and a fire burned in the massive stone fireplace, crackling cheerily.

Dark leather, shabby dark-red carpeting that looked Persian, crystal vases on the mantel holding

white tulips. One of the djamphir looked twenty-five and Middle Eastern. He lowered the newspaper he was hiding behind and gave me a once-over with coal-black eyes. He wore jeans and a crisp

blue dress shirt with creases that looked starched in.

I remembered Dad being big on spray starch until I refused to touch the stuff anymore and he had to

iron his own jeans. He decided pretty quick that it was more trouble than it was worth. For a moment I was twelve again, ironing and smelling spray starch and fabric softener while Dad played

Twenty Real-World Questions with me and loaded up clips of ammo. How do you disrupt roach

spirits? What’re the five signs of a Real World gathering-place? What are the rules in a good occult

shop?

I shoved the memory away with an almost physical shiver. You’d think that if I practiced long

enough I could just stop thinking about painful things.

The second door—mahogany, uncarved, and giving the impression of being plenty heavy despite

soundless hinges—closed with a whisper behind me.

“Dear God.” A redheaded djamphir with a flock of freckles that somehow avoided looking bakedon bolted to his feet. “Milady.”

There was a rustle, and all of them were standing. I swallowed hard and wished I wasn’t in jeans

and a gray hoodie that had definitely seen better days. My hair was actually behaving for once,

falling in sleek curls. But this was just the sort of situation it would pick to start frizzing out on me.

I also felt grainy-eyed and puffy-faced.