“Nothing will happen to you. You said yourself this won’t last more than a few days. Just wait it out.”

“I don’t wait very well.”

He laughed and leaned his cheek against my forehead. “I know you don’t. Don’t worry. Most of us do far more dangerous things than walk two blocks, and we survive just fine. Yeah, that car kind of sucked, but even still, nothing happened.”

“It’s two and a half blocks,” I corrected. “Not two.”

“Right. I forgot that extra half one where the sharks and land mines are.”

I pulled away slightly so that I could look into his face. His arms stayed around me. “I have to find Jerome, Seth.”

His smile faded. The worry returned. “Georgina . . . if you want to stay safe, going after him probably isn’t the way to do it. You don’t always have to take this stuff on yourself, you know. Let someone else look for him. Stay home.”

“That’s the thing . . . I’m not sure anyone will be looking for him. Why would the other demons want him back? They want his territory. They aren’t going to be happy if he’s found.”

Seth sighed. “Great. Now I’m the one worried about you leaving the house.”

“Hey, I thought you said everything was going to be okay?”

“Gotta be careful what I say.” Eyes thoughtful, he reached up and smoothed some hair on the side of my head. “Why are you so brave?”

I scoffed. “Are you insane? Didn’t you just witness my near breakdown?”

“No,” he said gently. “That’s the thing. You are scared. You don’t know what’s going on or what could happen to you. Yet, in spite of that fear and uncertainty, you’re going to throw yourself out there to hunt him down. No one else would do that, and you do that kind of thing all the time.”

Inexplicably, I flushed under his praise. “I was only going to do a Web search.”

“You know what I mean. I think you’ve got more courage than anyone I know—and what’s truly amazing is that it’s so subtle, hardly anyone ever notices. You do so much, and it goes unseen. I wish I was that brave sometimes.”

“You are,” I said, growing increasingly unsettled by our proximity. I also noticed then that he was still smoothing my hair back. “What are you doing to my hair? Does it look bad or something?”

“Your hair never looks bad.” He dropped his hand sheepishly. “It’s just . . . a little messier than usual.”

“I brushed it fifteen minutes ago!”

Seth shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just kind of frizzy, but that’s probably normal. There’s a little humidity out.”

“Frizzy? My hair’s never frizzy.”

“Georgina,” he said wearily. “Considering everything else going on, I don’t think you need to worry about your hair being frizzy.”