There doesn’t seem to be a front door.

As soon as I’ve taken it in, I blink and forget the whole thing. I have to start looking at it all over again.

Green, split-level, no door.

I keep the facts firmly in my mind, but even as I stare right at the house, they start to drift. If someone asked me to describe the Lilly house, I would let out a mouthful of nothing.

At first I think maybe Imogen’s parents are so boring that they chose the world’s least exciting house without meaning to. And then I wonder if Imogen’s magic did this, made my eye keep slipping away.

Is this what protection looks like?

Learning to be invisible?

Once we reach the yard, I let the Grays take the lead. Hawthorn knocks on the side door, and we all wait.

A small version of Imogen answers the door. “Hey,” she says. “Imogen’s not here.” She’s the kind of pale that looks sickly, the kind of pale that shines. She has the same curly red hair as her sister, limbs so skinny they look ready to break at the slightest suggestion. She must be thirteen or fourteen, though something about her skews younger.

“Hi, Haven,” June says in a slightly cute version of her voice. It’s probably how she talks to her own brothers and sisters. “Can we come in?” She eyes the inside of the house. We’re one tiny girl away from getting what we need.

“Why?” Haven asks.

“We have to find something,” Hawthorn says. “Homework. It’s due next period. Rush left it, but she can’t remember where.”

“Why are there so many of you?” Haven asks, narrowing her eyes. “I mean, if it’s just Rachel’s homework?”

Rachel? I’ve never heard anyone use that name, not the other students at school, not even the teachers. Her nickname seems to have dug in, like a thorn, and stuck. I never even wondered if it was made up.

“There are this many of us because we travel in a pack,” Lelia says. “We’re called Bel’s Hells.”

“I thought you were the Grays,” Haven says with a few hard blinks.

“Oh, we are. Unless we’re cracking skulls,” Lelia says. “Then we’re definitely Bel’s Hells.”

Haven’s eyes flit upward. She clearly wants to roll them but can’t quite manage — as if she’s too afraid of the Grays to give them a full eye roll.

“Why aren’t you at school?” I ask her.

Haven looks at me for the first time, like I wasn’t even there until I interrupted.