“He’s wrong for that,” I said, annoyed. “I knew we couldn’t trust him. Kishis are always tricksters. Well, at least they are in the stories.” I sighed. “Sorry, that’s not right. The fact is Charlie broke his promise.”

“I’m good at finding stuff on the internet,” Eleni volunteered. “Maybe I’ll uncover a lead.”

Frankie glanced across her shoulder, looking longingly in the direction of home. “I hope you have better luck than I’ve had so far.”

“As for Nulan, let’s start asking around to see if any of the other godlings have heard anything suspicious sounding,” I suggested. “I’ll talk to Tisha Thomas tomorrow at school. She has the gift of foresight, so maybe she’s seen something useful.”

“If the celestials didn’t know what Auntie Tyana was doing here, then how will we figure it out?” Eleni asked.

That was the million-dollar question, and I had a zero-dollar answer. “I don’t know yet.”

After we parted ways with Frankie, we saw Miss Lucille taking groceries from the back seat of her and Miss Ida’s red sedan. I mean, the twins didn’t need to go shopping, but they liked the human side of their lives. That was why they were so fussy about their prized tulips, which they grew without magic. Right now, there weren’t any tulips in their yard, just piles of snow.

It was still hard to believe that Miss Lucille, her twin, Miss Ida, and my sister were technically around the same age. Well, Eleni was about a thousand and fourteen, while the twins were two thousand years old, give or take a few decades.

“Have you seen Zeran?” Miss Lucille asked, juggling three paper bags. “My sister said he wasn’t home yet. He’s supposed to help her with dinner.”

Eleni looked at me, and I resisted the urge to shrug. So much for strawberry cheesecake. “We got separated at the community center,” I said, not exactly fibbing. “You know how it gets down there on bingo night.”

“Maybe I should go fetch him before it gets too crowded,” Miss Lucille said.

She wasn’t going to find Zeran there, which only brought up more questions. Where was he? Who else did he know on this side of the veil besides the cranky twins and us? There were the other darkbringers who’d snuck into the human world, plotting to carry out orders from the Lord of Shadows, but if he was secretly meeting with them . . . then that would mean . . . it would mean that Tisha Thomas’s vision was true. I swallowed hard.

“I’ll get those bags, Miss Lucille,” Zeran said, stepping out of the shadows.

Miss Lucille frowned at him. He’d clearly come from the opposite direction of the community center.