Nadia prayed for the ancient secretary behind the counter in her lilac polyester suit to find whatever the heck it was this girl wanted so she’d leave already. Or shut up. Either way.

The door opened and shut behind her; Nadia didn’t bother turning around. The girl in front of her did, her sandy hair falling over her shoulder. Almost instantly, her freckled face went from pleasant to nasty, her expression from vapid to mean. “Speaking of total fake bitches,” she said into her phone, far too loudly, “that skank Verlaine just walked in.”

Nadia couldn’t help but turn back to look.

The first word that came into her mind when she saw Verlaine was Goth. But that wasn’t right. The black dress she wore wasn’t lace or leather; it had puffed sleeves and a wide belt at the waist like something from a 1950s movie, and her shoes were cheerful kelly-green Converse sneakers. Her complexion was so white that Nadia had assumed she was wearing that stuff Goths used to come across like porcelain dolls or ghosts—but Verlaine was really that fair all over. And her long hair wasn’t an elaborate wig or even a dye job, unless she’d been thorough enough to even do her eyebrows. Instead, it was really, truly, totally silver-gray, though Verlaine seemed to be no older than Nadia herself.

The most striking thing about her, though, was how … hopeless she looked. Like people were mean to her all the time, and she no longer even dreamed of anything better. Her only response was to roll her eyes and say, “Kendall, give it a rest.”

Kendall said, “I have to go. If I don’t get out of here soon, the skank overload will kill me.” She stowed her phone with another withering glance toward Verlaine; Kendall’s bubbly personality seemed to have changed in an instant. “You’d think having two fags for dads would mean at least somebody would tell you what to wear.”

Nadia couldn’t hold it back any longer. “You’d think anybody wearing those shoes would know they didn’t have the right to tell anybody else what to wear.”

Kendall, caught up short, stared down at her shoes like she was trying to guess what was wrong with them. They were fine, as far as Nadia could tell, but with fashion, attitude was half the battle. Verlaine’s face lit up; her smile looked uneven, as though she didn’t get much practice.

“Here you go, Miss Bender.” The secretary shuffled out with a manila folder, which Kendall snatched from her hands before stomping out. “And you are?”

“Nadia Caldani. I’m new. You should have my records from Chicago.”

“Oh, yes. We have your schedule—right back here—” The secretary wandered toward the back room, still in no hurry.

“Thanks,” Verlaine whispered. “Kendall was being such a witch.”

Nadia tried to brush aside her momentary annoyance. “I prefer bitch, actually. Most witches are perfectly nice people. Sorry—pet peeve.”

“No worries. About time somebody else with some attitude got here. Captive’s Sound is mostly a graveyard for the living.”