“This is your fault, Maya,” Winston snapped. “The Lord of Shadows and his darkbringers would be dust right now if not for you.”

Everyone was staring at me again. I wanted to crawl under my desk and hide, but I wasn’t going to let Winston or anyone else make me feel ashamed for wanting to do the right thing.

“We all heard what Oshun said,” Tisha Thomas butted in. “You convinced the celestials not to destroy the Dark.”

“None of you have even been to the Dark,” I shot back. “It’s not a mythological place, okay? There are people there . . . people like Zeran.” I looked at him, and he’d gone stone-faced. I couldn’t believe that we were even discussing this. “We’re not mass murderers, you know?”

“We aren’t, but from what I hear, your dad is,” Winston mumbled under his breath. “Also, I heard what the Lord of Shadows said. You helped him destroy the veil. You whole family is bad news.”

I jumped out of my seat, fuming, and Zeran and Frankie both held me back. Winston—the biggest bully at JMS—had some nerve calling my family bad news. “Say that to my face.”

Winston smirked. “I just did.”

“He’s not worth it,” Zeran said through gritted teeth.

Ms. Taylor turned around from the chalkboard, her eyes slightly out of focus. “Did you have a question, Maya? Why are you out of your seat?”

I shook my head in disbelief. Ms. Taylor and the human kids had the right to know what was happening right under their noses; instead, they were walking around in a daze induced by magic. “No, ma’am,” I said, glaring at Winston. Everyone knew that Papa had made a mistake with the veil, but he wasn’t the only celestial who’d made mistakes. No one was perfect, but it was really bad when an immortal messed up. And the Lord of Shadows using my and Eleni’s magic to damage the veil? That was on him—not me.

After the bell rang, Frankie, Zeran, and I rushed out of Ms. Taylor’s classroom, glad to be free of Winston, if only for a few minutes between classes. The hallway was swarming with older godlings. The ice cream truck driver, who everyone called Big Boy; Calvin from the barbershop; Jerome, who ran the food bank; Rhonda, Leroy, and Carla from the community center. Two cashiers from the grocery store, the sensei from the dojo, and a dozen others. They wore matching uniforms of all black with gold diagonal stripes across the chest.

“What are they doing?” Zeran asked as they passed by us.

“Maybe they’re here to help the celestials,” Frankie said.