“You won’t be a scarecrow, Amelia,” Ruth chided. She tilted her head to one side and offered what she probably thought was a reassuring smile. “You’ll be a Trojan horse. A distraction for the demons, in case they try to stop us from distributing the dust inside the netherworld.”

Despite her flattering words—and her rare use of my first name—my angry smirk deepened. “In other words,” I said, “I’ll be bait.”

“Exactly,” Joshua chimed in. In fact, he growled the words, though from anger or a lack of sleep, I couldn’t tell. He leaned forward in our front pew and glared meaningfully at the Seer elders, all of whom had taken more comfortable seats in the choir loft behind the altar.

“You’re treating this like some sort of holy Seer mission,” he accused, “where Amelia and all the other people that the demons killed are just collateral damage.”

One of the elders, a middle-aged man whose sweater vest barely covered his paunch, raised his eyebrows as if to say, Aren’t they?

Seeing this response, Joshua made a disgusted noise and flung himself back against the pew.

“Screw that, dude,” Joshua spat. “You can do this without us, then.”

Unlike her companions, Ruth knew how to play the diplomat when she wanted to. She waved her hands in a sort of settle-down motion and then looked from the Seers to us with a forced composure.

“No one is saying that, Joshua.” She kept her voice low and soothing, but her grandson still laughed darkly.

“Not out loud,” he replied. “Not yet, anyway. Just give them until tomorrow night when it’s time to destroy the netherworld, and let’s see how many of them wait for Amelia to get out.”

Suddenly, at the weirdest possible moment, I wanted to throw myself at him again. To wrap myself around him like silk.

I mustered up a little more self-control and then placed my hand upon Joshua’s, which he’d clenched to the edge of the pew. He didn’t feel my touch, but he saw it. He released the pew and flipped his hand over so that our palms would have touched, if they could.

“What do you want?” he asked me. I met his probing gaze for a moment, before I looked down at our not-quite-entwined hands.

“To win,” I answered quietly, even though everyone in the room could still hear us. “To stop the demons from killing anyone else . . . in any way we can.”

Joshua immediately blanched. But before he got the chance to argue with me, the eavesdropping Seers sent up another one of their annoying, riotous cheers. Almost in unison, they started to climb out of the choir loft to congratulate me on my decision, and themselves on their plan. They began talking all at once, and soon it seemed as though everyone in the church was excitedly repeating the words “dust, demons, and defeat.”

Everyone except Joshua. He watched me silently, still wearing that stricken look. Probably because he alone knew what my concession meant. By agreeing to play the sacrifice game, I’d basically agreed to the demons’ original terms. Whether the Seers won or lost, I would likely be dragged into hell. Not that the Seers cared—they continued to chatter and clap each other on the back, walking out of the church without even one backward glance at the distraught teenagers who’d just solidified their crusade.

“You can’t,” Joshua whispered harshly, after the last of the Seers had gone. Suddenly, he looked so much older. So much more fearful, like all his optimism had left him in one fell swoop. I lifted my hand to his cheek, once again wishing for the ability to touch him so that I could smooth away the troubled lines around his mouth.

“I can, and I will.”

I spoke gently, and I smiled to soften the blow. But the effort didn’t work. Joshua shook his head, hard, as if the strength of the shake might take back what I’d just said.

“This is crazy,” he hissed.

“Yeah, it is.” I felt my lips tug into a bitter half grin. “But it’s also the best plan we’ve got.”

“It’s the only plan we’ve got.”

“Then I guess that settles it.”

When Joshua tried to argue, I raised my palm to silence him. “Do you know why I’m not as worried as I should be, Joshua? Because you’ll be there too. And I know you won’t let them shut the netherworld without me escaping it first.”

He hesitated, obviously unsure of what to say or do next. Then he groaned, raked his fingers roughly through his hair, and dropped his hand to the top of the pew beside me.

“Okay,” he sighed. “Okay. We’ll do it: you’ll be the demon trap, and I’ll be your lookout.”

He seemed so worried that I felt the ache in my chest awaken and writhe. So I offered him what little I could, in the form of a small smile.

“It’ll work,” I assured him softly. “This plan will work. Because I love you, and you love me, and we’ll be together tomorrow night. The plan won’t fail, because it can’t.”

Hearing this kernel of positivity—from me, of all people—Joshua responded with a small smile of his own. “Well, if you think we’ve got a chance, then we actually might. So that’s it, then: the plan won’t fail, because it can’t.”

“It can’t,” I repeated, ignoring the cruel voice inside of me that whispered the exact opposite.

Chapter

FIFTEEN

This place is just so damn creepy,” Jillian whispered.

She cast a wary look around the moonlit riverbank where we stood and then wrapped her arms more tightly around Scott’s waist.

“Yeah,” he said, pulling her to him. “After you find out that a place is impervious to hand grenades, you kind of lose your desire to party there.”

“Or die there again,” I muttered low enough that no one could hear me as I drew closer to Joshua. From the corner of his eye, Joshua caught my movement and mimicked it so that we stood as close as possible.

“It could be worse,” he replied to everyone in a jokey tone. “We could be hanging out with a bunch of old witches on one of our last Saturday nights of the school year. Oh, wait. . . .”

Scott and I chuckled, but Jillian just rolled her eyes. I guess I couldn’t really fault her bad mood. None of us had slept well last night, after our little Friday-night hoedown with the southeastern Oklahoma Seers.

Today hadn’t been much better either, at least not for me. I’d had to go invisible while I watched Joshua and Jillian spend their Saturday afternoon playing family with Ruth, who pretended that she’d just flown up for an impromptu visit—no demon-fighting ulterior motive whatsoever. Poor Scott had to stay at home all day, completely alone, waiting for tonight’s battle. Frankly, I think we were all a little tired from the effort.

Now Joshua and I stood on the muddy riverbank with Jillian and Scott, each of us trying not to look up at the hulking form of High Bridge. Just as it had on the night of Serena’s death, this area felt colder than the rest of Wilburton. Almost as if this place was so dark, so unrelenting, that it had the ability to swallow the warmth of spring and turn it into something bleak and frozen.

I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Just a few minutes after we arrived, Jillian insisted that she and Scott make an emergency run back to the Mayhews’ house for hoodies and coats. If we had to be here on a Saturday night, she argued, we shouldn’t have to freeze for it. Of course, the four of us were only here—a full hour before showtime—because of our “orders.”

Our current job was relatively simple: stand guard near the bridge until the “moon was right” for the other Seers to arrive and perform their spells. If something eerie happened, we were supposed to call Ruth so that she could get a team of Seers here earlier than planned.