For the next three hours, I sat at the rickety kitchen table with my father, talking about the only thing—other than our species—that we had in common: my mother. He’d always been reluctant to talk about her before; this time he told me everything he could remember about her, probably because, for a few minutes, he’d thought he’d lost me, too. He even answered my questions as I interrupted with them. The only thing we didn’t touch on was my death—followed by hers, to save me.

That discussion would have to wait, in spite of the questions I had ready. We were both too tired and distraught from the latest shock to my not-so-human system to handle memories so painful.

But by the time my alarm clock went off, I felt like I truly knew my mother for the first time since my third birthday.

And like I knew my father a little better, too.

8

NASH’S ARMS WRAPPED around me from behind as I swung my locker door shut, and his voice relaxed me like little else could. “Hey, beautiful,” he whispered, dropping a kiss on my neck, just below my ear. “Rough night?”

“Seriously rough. I can’t even explain how messed up last night was.” I sighed and settled into him, letting the warmth of his chest against my back ease some of the tension left over from my interdimensional field trip. But he couldn’t help me fight exhaustion. Fortunately, for that I had two twenty-ounce sodas in my backpack, their condensation probably making a soggy mess out of the chemistry homework I’d forgotten to finish.

“You really crossed over in your sleep?”

I twisted in his arms to face him, laying my cheek against the thick chenille weave of the white letter E on his jacket.

“Yeah, it was weird. Scary. I was asleep, dreaming that someone died, and in the dream, I was standing in a bunch of that gray fog you see when you peek into…”

I lifted my head to make sure no one else was close enough to hear. Across the hall, a small cluster of students was gathered around a girl showing off the answers from her algebra homework, but they hadn’t even glanced our way. The mohawked junior with the locker next to mine was rifling through his stuff, but his headphones were playing loud enough for me to recognize the bass line of Korn’s “Evolution,” so there was no way he could hear me.

“…into the Netherworld,” I continued, whispering just in case. “I couldn’t see who was dying, and I couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but scream.”

Nash’s arms tightened around me and the greens and browns in his eyes swirled rapidly as he listened.

“And when I woke up, I was screaming for real, and I’d already crossed over. I was standing in a field of razor wheat, barefoot. In my pajamas.”

Before Nash could reply, Mohawk man slammed his locker and took off down the hall in the growing stream ofearly-morning students.

“Damn, Kaylee.” Nash sank onto the cold tile floor in front of the lockers and drew me down with him, brushing aside a crumpled piece of notebook paper. “How could that happen?”

I shook my head slowly, almost washed away by the wave of fear that crashed over me at the reminder that I still had none of the answers I needed. “My dad thinks that because I subconsciously repressed so much of my bean sidhe heritage for so long—” because no one had told me I wasn’t human “—that now it’s basically demanding to be recognized.” I hesitated, reluctant to mention my father’s other theory. “That, or I’ve somehow developed too strong a connection with the Netherworld.” Or with someone—or something—in it.

Nash paled, which almost sent me into a tailspin of panic. I’d hoped for something more optimistic from him than I’d gotten from my father, as grateful as I was for my dad’s honesty. But Nash had no comfort to give. “That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever heard.”

I rolled my eyes and pulled my backpack onto my lap. “Thanks, Nash,” I snapped. “You’re a huge help.” I’d just about reached the limit of how much fright and frustration I could take. At least, on so little sleep.

“Sorry.” He turned so that I could see him. “You’re sure you can’t remember who died in your dream?”

I nodded. “I’m not sure I knew even during the dream. All I saw was an outline in the fog. I couldn’t even tell if it was male or female.”

“Do you think it was just a normal dream, or could it have been part premonition, too? Maybe the way your brain deals with them when you’re asleep?”

I shrugged and leaned with my left shoulder against Mohawk man’s locker. “I don’t see how it could have been a premonition. I’ve only had them about people I’m physically close to at the time, and there was no one else in the house but my…”

Oh, no… Terror lit my nerve endings, which blazed until it felt like my entire body was on fire. I sat up, and when I looked at Nash, I knew from his expression that my irises were swirling madly.

“What if it’s my dad?” I demanded in a horrified whisper. I’d already lost my mother and had just gotten my father back. I couldn’t lose him again so quickly. I couldn’t.

“No.” Nash shook his head calmly, running one hand up my arm, over my sleeve. “It can’t be. When you have a premonition, someone dies quickly, right?”

I nodded, not yet willing to grasp the branch of hope he held out to me. “Usually within the hour.”

“See? And you had that dream in the middle of the night, right?”