What did he say to someone like her? Phillip’s talents lay in his knowledge, his ability to build and transform. But that wasn’t some universal adapter that could be plugged effortlessly into any conversation. Small talk, the weather, the markets, the symphony—his parents’ idle chatter bored him at best, and out here, it seemed impossibly wrong.

Yet the silence felt easy. When Rebeka looked over her shoulder at him, he smiled, and she smiled back. Easy. Maybe words were overrated for her, too.

“So. The demons.” Simone tore at her nail cuticles. “Why aren’t you worried about them?”

Rebeka nestled into the woolen blanket she’d brought from inside. “I can’t speak for all of them. But I think I have an understanding with some.”

“What about Liam?” Phillip asked.

“Some of them want him dead. They made that very clear.” Her gaze hardened in a way that sent a chill through Phillip.

“And why is that?” Simone asked.

“He’s the same as all the others who’ve used their world before.” She shrugged. “Just wants their power for himself.”

Phillip braced himself. “What about your brother?”

For a long moment, she was silent, gathering up her words. There was a way her lower lip twisted when she was being careful, this pensiveness that had weight to it.

“He will do what he always intended to do,” she said finally.

Phillip had one more pressing question. He fiddled one hand into his pocket and rubbed his fingers over a radio crystal nestled there. Just one tiny geode offered enough energy to power an emergency field radio. It seemed more like alchemy than science. And yet, expanding out from the small crystal, from radio waves, he had arrived at something world-changing. Secrets sent around the globe.

“Liam said frequencies were a part of opening the path between the two worlds, right?” Phillip asked.

“Something like that.” Simone cut suspicious eyes toward him. “I didn’t understand half of what he said.”

Rebeka nodded into her arms. “A combination of finding the right frequency, and using . . . pain . . . as bait. To draw the dark energy out.”

“Right. You need the bait to open it, pull them into our world.” Phillip let go of the crystal. “But maybe not to close it again.”

Simone scoffed, but Rebeka chewed at her lower lip, lost in thought. Phillip caught himself staring—at the bow of her mouth, the long cast of her eyes as she retreated back inside her head.

“If it is about frequency . . . then that might explain why it ‘chose’ you, too. By which I mean—it didn’t choose you at all.” Phillip nudged her foot with his own. “Everyone gives off their own little bit of radiation. You just happened to get the lucky number.”

“What, you think I’m tuned to the same frequency as the shadows? Like a radio set?” Rebeka asked.