Rush’s breath sticks halfway through an inhale. I want to run my hand up and down her back, free whatever is caught inside her. But I don’t touch her. Not in front of Imogen and her sister. “What are you doing?” Rush finally asks in a smoky rasp. “Why aren’t you . . . where you’re supposed to be?”

Imogen doesn’t respond.

I think Rush is going to choke up, to visit the verge of tears, but her eyes turn to liquid fire.

“Ouch,” Haven says. “Looks like someone isn’t interested in giving you the time of day.” Haven walks over to her sister and goes up on her tiptoes. “Imogen, you don’t have to stay. Rachel’s leaving soon.”

Imogen turns and drifts out of the room. Rush and I share a questioning look. Imogen clearly just responded to what Haven told her, even if she didn’t speak to us. Maybe she can follow directions, as long as they’re simple enough.

Haven gives us another glare, and then she leaves, too.

Rush closes her eyes, and the pain on her face is so clear, I feel like I could gather it in my hands. A song simmers on her lips, the song that I heard pouring out of her that first morning in the woods.

“What are you singing?” I ask.

The question breaks her song midnote. She presses her black-cherry lips together. “Imogen.”

I stand very still, waiting for her to explain.

“I took her name and turned it to music,” Rush says. “I used a cipher. Letters to notes. I picked the Mixolydian mode, because it’s hopeful, and added a few embellishments that . . . sound like her.”

I prickle with the heat of the Lillys’ sunny house, and a sudden rash of jealousy. I want someone to know me well enough to turn me into music. To melt me out of this body and pour me into pure notes and warm breath.

I work my way back to what matters. Rush’s songs are spells. “You’ve been trying to sing her back.”

“It was all I had until . . .”

Until I showed up. Until I failed to bring her back, too.

No point in pretending otherwise. Right now we’re on damage control, trying to keep any of us from following in the footsteps of Sebastian and Neil. We head in the opposite direction from Imogen, stepping into the slightly higher half of the split-level ranch. Three white doors in a row. I point to the one in the center. “Imogen’s?”

“You’re good at this,” Rush says, running a hand down my arm, giving me that hot staticky pressure between my legs. In another world, that would be flirting. But Rush and I live in a world where Imogen is missing, and no one can disappear too far into a good feeling.

“Thanks,” I say, taking the compliment and trying to leave the rest of my response behind.