“Which is why she left me in the lurch,” Jillian complained, not looking up from her nails. “I hate being treated like a little kid.”

“You hate everything.” Annabel laughed. Then she turned her attention back to us. “Anyway, that night, after we got the supernatural ‘birds and bees’ from Ruth, she introduced us to someone.”

Annabel paused, and, for just a fraction of a second, her eyes darted over to Alex.

I jerked upright. “Ruth introduced you to Alex? And I’m not supposed to be freaked out right now?”

Alex sighed and shook his head. “Annabel, may I take over?”

“But, of course,” she said, smiling and giving him a mock bow of her head.

“Let me just start by saying that I don’t believe in exorcism.” Alex shook his head again, looking mildly disgusted. “I think it’s unfair, not to mention unnatural. Let the dead take care of the dead—that’s my perspective.”

Like Eli wanted to take care of me, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut as Alex went on.

“When I moved here three years ago for college, I immediately sought out a group of local Seers so I could keep learning. I knew them before I met Ruth Mayhew.”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “How did you already know what Seers were?”

Maybe I imagined it, but something in Alex’s eyes went cold again. He tugged at his collar with one finger, pulling the fabric down to reveal his collarbone. There, carved around his neck and across the bone, was an old, ropy scar.

One that looked like he shouldn’t have survived it.

When the fabric slipped back, hiding the scar from view, Alex shrugged. “Triggering event.”

“How—”

“Car accident,” he said tersely.

There was more to the scar than that, I could tell. But Alex obviously didn’t want to discuss the topic. A muscle in his jaw flexed, just once, before his face softened again. Then, with a much warmer expression, he continued.

“I could see ghosts long before I joined the New Orleans coven. And to give the New Orleans Seers credit, they’re far more progressive than the group Ruth used to lead. Still, many of their ideas are too … ecclesiastical for my taste. When I met Ruth and she told me about her family, I knew I had an opportunity to be a part of something different. So I encouraged her to introduce me to all the young people in her family at the next Seers’ meeting.”

“What he didn’t tell her,” Annabel interrupted with a wide smile, “is that he didn’t want to teach us to exorcise ghosts. He wanted us to learn how to coexist with them … and how to be aware of them without having to have a triggering event.”

“Which is awesome,” Hayley said, shifting forward in Drew’s arms. “My mom’s a Seer; and ever since I was a kid, she made me go to their meetings. In the Quarter they have this rule that you have to have a triggering event before you get a say in what the group does. And do you think I want to drop a toaster in my bathtub just so I can vote no against exorcisms? Um, no thank you. So I stopped going as much this year. I mean, I’m eighteen now, so I can do what I want, right? But I’m glad I went to last month’s meeting, because that’s when I met everyone here.”

Drew smiled broadly and pulled her closer to him. “When Hayley found out we were trying to contact ghosts without having to go toe-up for a few minutes, she was in.”

With a girlish giggle, Hayley lifted onto tiptoes and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “I was ‘in’ when I met you, sweetie.”

A retching sound came from the direction of the fireplace. I looked toward it just in time to see Jillian stick her tongue out like she was gagging. A little smile tugged at the edge of my lips before I turned back to Annabel, who’d started talking again.

“Alex has been helping us for the last month,” she said. “Teaching us how to listen for ghosts’ voices. You wouldn’t believe how much concentration it takes.”

Drew laughed. “Yeah, except when they’re in the room with you.”

“Totally,” Hayley bubbled. “You’re pretty clear …, Amelia.”

She tried out my name, saying it with a touch of uncertainty. Her eyes focused on something at least two feet above my head, and she pressed her lips together, waiting.

“Um, thanks?” I managed.

Upon hearing my voice, Hayley flashed that spot above my head an enormous smile. At that moment she annoyed me a little less than before. There was something endearing about her enthusiasm. Kind of.

“There’s one thing I don’t get: where does Jillian fit into all this?”

Joshua’s voice startled me.

I’d been too engrossed to realize it, but throughout this entire conversation, he hadn’t moved a muscle. Instead, he’d stood next to me silent and unmoving. I took a peek at his face and saw that he’d composed it into that rare, expressionless mask—the one he wore whenever he didn’t trust what was going on around him.

“Jillian called Annabel a few weeks ago,” Alex explained, not looking directly at Joshua, “to complain about your new girlfriend. One thing led to another and … I’ve been counseling Jillian. Teaching her what it means to be a Seer.”

Beside me, Joshua visibly bristled. No one needed him to say aloud what he thought about Alex “counseling” his little sister.

“Oh.” Joshua’s voice was cold. “So that’s why Jillian’s been such a sweetheart to Amelia lately?”

“That’s all me, bro,” Jillian piped up from her chair. “I accept that I can see her now. Doesn’t mean I want to have a slumber party and braid her hair.”

Despite myself, I chuckled and looked back at Joshua. “You have to admit—at least she’s honest.”

He barely reacted, his icy stare still locked onto Alex. I reached over and ran my hand, just once, down the sleeve of Joshua’s sweater. I couldn’t feel the fabric beneath my fingers, and he probably couldn’t feel the weight of my touch on his arm; still, he could see the gesture, and his face relaxed slightly in response to it.

“How are you handling this?” he asked me quietly, although everyone could hear us. “Are you okay with all of it?”

I looked around at the new, strangely expectant faces, and then I did a quick self-assessment. What I discovered inside surprised me.

“Yeah,” I said, a little stunned at how easily the answer came. “Yeah, I am.”

“You’re sure?” Joshua pressed.

I nodded, feeling an odd mix of lingering apprehension and relief.

“It’s actually sort of … nice that other people know I exist. And that they aren’t trying to kill me.” I shrugged one shoulder in qualification. “Figuratively, of course.”

Everyone laughed, albeit a little awkwardly. I guess I couldn’t blame them—no matter how enthusiastically they greeted me, most of them hadn’t joked about death with a dead girl. Except, perhaps, for Alex.

“Where’s Ruth?” I asked Alex quietly. It seemed strange to ask him instead of Annabel, but he obviously had many of tonight’s answers.

Alex flicked his eyes up toward the ceiling and then met my gaze again. “Migraine. She hasn’t come down all day, and I doubt she will tonight.”

I couldn’t help my audible sigh of relief. Then, inexplicably, I felt myself giving Alex a tiny smile. After all, he engineered this meeting. And whether he knew it or not, he’d just made my last days with Joshua more pleasant: less speaking in whispers; less skulking in corners, avoiding people who might think Joshua had gone crazy if they saw him talking to himself.

Almost imperceptibly, Alex returned my smile—like we’d just shared a private joke or I’d just thanked him. Which, in a way, I had.

After that Alex’s eyes shifted away from mine for the first time since I’d walked into the room. He and Annabel exchanged a quick glance, and then she cleared her throat.

“Well, now that that’s settled,” she said, “go unpack your crap. We’re going out.”

“Out?”

Joshua still sounded skeptical, although his voice had lost some of its chill; obviously, the fact that I’d made peace with the situation had calmed him down too.