No one questioned her. Closets were handy places to hide secret passageways. That was how I first found a way into the Dark to save Papa when the Lord of Shadows had kidnapped him. As soon as we crowded inside the room next to the cleaning supplies, we started to ascend. It was like being on a high-speed elevator.

“Ugh, dirty mop water just splashed on my kicks,” Eli said, grimacing at his shoes.

The previous times we had visited the orisha council, we’d gone through the metal detector next to Carla’s desk, and we’d been pitched forward, not up. But before long, we were standing in front of the familiar two-story, golden doors that marked the gods’ realm’s entrance.

Frankie and I pushed open the doors into the starry nightscape. I inhaled a sharp breath and marched inside with my friends. My heart pounded with nervous energy. This wasn’t the first time we’d shown up uninvited. I was beginning to see a pattern.

Lightning bugs nestled in the ceiling, and a cloud of darkness swelled beneath our feet. Four pillars marked the edges of the room, with nothing but endless stars beyond them. It was hard to explain the vastness of this place or the overwhelming feeling that I was standing in the middle of something so much bigger than I could ever wrap my mind around.

“Where’s everyone?” Eleni asked.

“Carla said they were busy,” I mumbled. “I guess she was right.”

The gods’ realm was empty except for the larger-than-life thrones that sat with their backs to the stars. “Nana!” Eli called with his hands cupped around his mouth. “We come bearing a gift!”

Frankie snickered and pushed up her sliding glasses. “That’s an understatement.”

Suddenly a pulsing light floated in from among the stars and melted into the shape of a woman. It was Oshun, the orisha of beauty. She strolled across the room in a gold chiffon dress with a long train behind her. She didn’t even glance our way as she moved toward her throne. The other orishas appeared one by one.

Shangó, the thunder god, wore double axes across his chest. Ogun, the war god, strolled in next with his hammer. General, who had six eyes and a row of sharp teeth in his celestial form, trotted beside him. It was always weird to see Ogun like this when he wore a tracksuit during our defense training. Eshu, the god of balance, always reminded me of Papa a little. He had a bushy white beard and a harmonica on a string around his neck. Then there was Eli’s grandmother, Nana, decked out in shades of purple with her gray braids pulled back into a bun.

Nana propped her hands on her hips, ready to give us a proper scolding until she saw who Eli’s ghosts were carrying. “Do I want to know how she got here?”