Though Mischa hadn’t even watched me do that, with her back turned to me, the spirits said, “Of course. Wouldn’t want to play any games without your precious sister.”

I felt Trey’s hand on the small of my back, and I knew that he was thinking the same thing I was: We may very well have been in way over our heads. From the wide doorway leading into the parlor, Henry looked over at me. I could see the rise and fall of his chest as he inhaled and exhaled. I was more terrified than I’d ever been—even more than in the moments following the avalanche we’d survived in Michigan, when I’d been buried in snow.

“You’re right, we wouldn’t,” I replied, using the spirits’ acknowledgment of Jennie as an excuse to place one of my earbuds in my right ear and tap my radio app on.

“Well, we’re all here,” Trey said, leaving my side, walking past Henry, and strolling into the parlor. “Might as well get down to business.”

Mischa confidently followed him into the parlor and stood at its center with her arms extended outward, like the ringmaster of a circus welcoming a crowd. “Yes. Let’s.”

I swallowed hard, listening for guidance from Jennie over the earbuds. Although I could sense her presence, she was silent, and I assumed that she was remaining quiet for our safety.

Henry, Violet, and I stepped into the parlor and fell into a circle formation around Mischa, who sat down on one of the sofas, facing us. The mason jar containing the real Mischa’s soul was set on the coffee table in front of her, and she smiled at it. I tried with all my might not to think about the handgun stashed under the pillow on the sofa behind me. Violet had stationed herself directly in front of it, presumably so that she could reach behind herself and grab it when she needed to.

“We’d like to propose playing a game with you,” I said, ad-libbing. I’d rehearsed this part in my head at least ten times since Jennie and I had devised this plan at dawn, but I still wasn’t certain what was going to come out of my mouth next. I knew that no matter what I offered Mischa, it wouldn’t be good enough, and she’d counter with something else far more dangerous. “Double or nothing. If you win, you get me and my twin sister. And if you lose, you lose your claim on me, now and forever.”

I was already expecting the spirits to refuse this proposal because it was flimsy, nothing more than empty words. But I still bit my lower lip when she raised an eyebrow as if considering, and then viciously cackled. “That’s not much of an offer! It’s more like nothing or nothing. We came all the way here to make a deal, and we’re sure it won’t surprise you that we already have a proposition in mind.”

Perhaps because the spirits weren’t trying very hard to convince anyone present that they were Mischa Portnoy, teenage gymnast, Mischa had gone pale since we’d arrived. Veins throbbed beneath the skin of her face, delicate blue webs of blood coursing beneath her eyes, up her temples, and into her hair.