“Jacob—”

Ding … ding … ding …

Jacob and I both look up. A chandelier hangs overhead, crystals chiming faintly as they sway.

Jacob and I glance at each other.

My look says, Was that you?

And his says, Are you crazy?

The cold gets worse, and as I watch, the tablecloth begins to slide from a nearby table, dragging the place settings with it. I lunge toward it, a fraction too late. The plates and silverware go crashing to the floor, and a second later, a shape darts through the darkness to my left. It’s shadow on shadow, too dark to see, but one thing’s for certain.

It’s larger than a cat.

Before I can follow it, Jacob calls out, “Found him!”

I turn back, and see Jacob on his hands and knees on the other side of the room, looking beneath a chair.

Sure enough, there’s Grim.

But when I get close, he hisses.

Grim never hisses, but now he looks up at me, his green eyes wide and his ears thrown back, fangs bared. And when I reach for him, he darts past me, through Jacob’s outstretched hands and out of the salon. We chase after him into the lobby, where the very displeased desk clerk who checked us in yesterday catches him by the scruff of the neck.

She turns toward Mom.

“I believe,” she says curtly, “this belongs to you.”

Mom scowls at the cat. “I’m so sorry,” she says, taking the thoroughly unhappy Grim, turning her glare on me. “It won’t happen again.”

But as I follow her back upstairs, all I can think is, I’m sure I closed our door.

Mom and Dad set out the makeshift picnic on the low coffee table, and the tension dissolves as we sit on pillows on the floor, eating apples and cheese and fresh baguette. As my parents discuss the day’s filming, my mind wanders back again and again to the cold. I felt it at lunch, right before the awning broke, and again on the path in the gardens, and again downstairs in the salon. And every time, it came with the feeling, just as strong, that I wasn’t alone.

Something certainly spooked Grim. He’s handled it by collapsing into a fluffy mound, snoring softly at the foot of my bed.

What did he see? What did I see?

I think of the shadow in the salon. Maybe it was a trick of the eye, streetlights making shapes …

“You okay, Cass?” asks Mom. “You look a mile away.”

I manage a smile. “Sorry,” I say. “Just tired.”

I push up from the table and grab my phone.

I need a second opinion.

I text Lara.

Me:

Can you talk?

Me:

Need help.

Ten seconds later, the phone rings.

I head for the bathroom, and Jacob follows me inside. He’s careful to keep his back to the mirror as I close the door and answer.

“Cassidy Blake,” says a prim English voice. “In trouble already?”

I hit the video chat button, and after a second of buffering, Lara Chowdhury appears on-screen. She’s sitting in a high-back chair, a cup of tea balanced on a stack of books beside her.

Her attention flicks to Jacob. “I see you still have your pet ghost.”

Jacob scowls. “Jealous you don’t have one, too?”

“Lay off,” I say, addressing both of them.

Lara sighs and leans her head on one hand. Her black hair is pulled up in a messy bun on top of her head. It’s the first time anything about Lara could be described as messy, and— “Are those … Harry Potter pajamas?” I ask.

She looks down at herself. “Just because they’re blue and bronze—”

“They’re totally Harry Potter pajamas, aren’t they?”

Lara bristles. “They’re comfortable. If they just happen to accurately represent my chosen house—” She shakes her head and changes course. “How’s Paris?”

“Haunted.”

“Tell me about it,” she says. “I was there last summer, and I certainly had my hands full. Where have you been so far?”

“The Tuileries, the Luxembourg Gardens, the Eiffel Tower. Oh, and the Catacombs.”

“You went into the Catacombs?” Lara sounds almost impressed.

“Yeah,” I say. “It wasn’t that bad. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a day at the beach, but with so many skeletons, I thought it would be worse …”

Lara shrugs. “Graveyards are usually pretty quiet.”

“I know, but since the bodies were disturbed, I thought—”

“Oh, please,” says Lara, “if ghosts got riled up every time their bones were moved, there wouldn’t be room in the in-between.”

“But the Catacombs are haunted,” I say.

“Of course they’re haunted,” says Lara. “All of Paris is haunted. But I’m sure the Catacombs aren’t six-million-angry-spirits haunted.” Lara straightens in her chair. “Well? You didn’t call just to catch up.”

“No.” I chew my lip. “Something weird is going on.”

I tell her about the awning breaking at lunch, the sense of being followed, Grim getting out, and the tablecloth that moved in the salon—not to mention the shadow. And I tell her about the cold rush I felt right before each one.

Lara’s eyes narrow as I talk. “Cassidy,” she says slowly, when I’m done. “You might have attracted a poltergeist.”

She sounds nervous. Which makes me nervous.

“What’s a poltergeist?” asks Jacob.

“It’s a spirit drawn to spectral energy,” says Lara, keeping her attention on me. “It was probably dormant until it sensed yours, Cassidy.” Her eyes flick toward Jacob. “Or his. That cold sensation you’ve been feeling, it is a kind of intuition, a warning that strong spirits are near.”

“Okay,” I say, perching on the bathtub. “But a poltergeist is just a kind of ghost, right?”

“A very dangerous kind of ghost,” says Lara. “They feed on chaos.”

“Cassidy!” calls Mom, knocking on the door. “Everything all right in there?”

“Yep!” I call back. “Just brushing my teeth.” I lower my voice as I turn back to Lara. “But how can a poltergeist cause trouble in the real world? Shouldn’t it be locked in the Veil?”

Lara pinches the bridge of her nose. “Poltergeists are wanderers. They’re not stuck in a loop or a memory, and they aren’t tied to the place they died. They’ve come loose from the in-between. They can move freely through it, and even reach across the Veil into our world.”

“Like the Raven in Red,” I say, recalling the ghostly woman who haunted Edinburgh, stealing its children before she stole my life.

“Yes,” says Lara. “And no. Even the Raven couldn’t leave the in-between until she had your life. That’s why she had to lure you in. But poltergeists already have one foot on either side. So congratulations, you’ve managed to wake something even more dangerous.”

My stomach drops at the thought. The Raven wasn’t exactly a piece of cake.

“It’s like a video game,” says Jacob, “where the boss on each level is harder to beat.”

Lara frowns. “That’s an overly simplistic way of looking at this. But I suppose so.”

“Okay,” I say, mind spinning. “But a poltergeist is still a spirit. So I just need to find it and send it back.”

“Yes,” says Lara. “As soon as possible. Poltergeists start with little things, acts of mischief, but eventually they turn to menace and then mayhem. Violence.” I think of the torn awning, the glass shattering on the table, how lucky I was I didn’t get cut. “They don’t have any qualms about hurting people, even killing them,” warns Lara. “And the more trouble a poltergeist causes, the more powerful they get.” She looks to Jacob, and then back at me, her next words pointed. “Spirits this strong have no place in our world, Cassidy. Every minute they’re loose, they cause damage to the balance, and the Veil.”

Jacob looks down at the floor, hands closing into fists. We both know she’s talking about more than the poltergeist.

I clear my throat. “Well, great,” I say, “thanks for the pep talk. Sure you don’t want to make a trip down to Paris?”

A sad smile flickers across Lara’s face. “I wish,” she says. “But I’m here, if you need me. And, Cassidy?”

“Yeah?”

“Do be careful. And, you”—she glares at Jacob—“as long as you’re here, make yourself useful.”

She hangs up, and I’m left staring down at the darkened screen.

“You know,” says Jacob dryly, “I think she’s starting to like me.”

I sigh and kick him out so I can brush my teeth for real.

I need my sleep—tomorrow I’m going to hunt a poltergeist.

By the time I climb into bed, Jacob’s nowhere to be seen. He doesn’t stick around at night, but the truth is, I don’t know where he goes.

Sometimes, even psychic ghost best friends have secrets.

Something jerks me out of a heavy, dreamless sleep.

I don’t know what it is—a weight on the edge of my bed, Grim walking around—only that I’m awake, and the room is dark. The night is still thick beyond my window. My door is ajar, and I hold my breath and listen, straining to hear something, anything—Dad’s snoring, the ambient sounds of late-night tourists on the street—but the suite is unnaturally quiet.

Until I hear the click of a lock, the faint groan of the hotel door swinging open.