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“W here’ve you been?” Luke asks when I open the back door of the black Impreza .

It’s 10:31. Clearly, I am criminally late .

“So sorry,” I tell him. “I’ve been busy being terrified of being kicked out of school, or kidnapped, or both .”

Luke makes an impatient go-on-with-it-then gesture with his hand .

I pull my seatbelt across my chest as he puts the car into drive, then accelerates out of the school parking lot so quickly that the force presses me into my seat. “I ran into a Kappa Omega grad .”

“How did he even know you?” Luke demands .

“I don’t know. Maybe one of your many new friends pointed me out ?”

Luke sighs. “I don’t like this .”

“You don’t like it? I’m stuck here for the next four years with these people.” I wish Luke had made up a more convenient lie in the foyer of the frat house. But I can’t complain. He’d been fast on his feet .

“Well, you can’t come with us,” Luke says .

“Let it go,” Mave tells him .

“No one wants to go with you,” I tell Luke in exasperation. “I don’t think Mave even really wants to hang out with you .”

“It’s true I would rather not,” Mave says. “But I don’t have a lot of career options as a banished Fae .”

“He’s super special,” Luke says. “Now, let’s go exorcise this ghost. That way Ash’s biggest problem can go back to being her mouth.” His tone is light-hearted, and a smirk plays around his lips. I guess we’re back on good terms after our spat the other day .

I lean forward to punch him in the upper shoulder, not thinking about it much, just like I do with Jax. When I hit Jax like that, he usually translates for me aloud: “I hear your joke and I don’t think you’re funny, but I like you anyway.” I guess Jax isn’t wrong .

“You don’t want to hit a hunter.” Luke’s tone is playful. “We have no sense of chivalry. We hit back .”

“That is not true,” Mave says. “Luke’s actually quite chivalrous .”

“Shut up, Fairy Wings .”

“Do you really have wings?” I demand .

Mave sighs. “Not really. It’s a lot to explain .”

“I would really like to hear all about it,” I say. “How am I supposed to be a good medium if I don’t take every opportunity to learn more about the supernatural world ?”

“She has a point,” Luke observes. Mave gives him a sidelong, long-suffering glance .

“All right,” Luke says. “Since Mave isn’t talking, I’ll give you Fae 101. He just gets shy. He doesn’t like to talk about how more-than-manly he is .”

Mave groans, running his hand over his blond- streaked hair .

“So what kind of more-than-manliness are we talking about?” I ask. Luke snorts, and I add, “ Superpowers ?”

“I have some gifts,” Mave admits. “I’m stronger than normal. There’s… the glamour. Not that you would know anything about that .”

“Yeah. And wings ?”

“I can’t use them. I don’t even know if they work anymore .”

“You don’t know ?”

“He’s a rule-follower.” Luke says. “Rules are, no wings in the human realm .”

“Whose rules ?”

“Luke,” Mave says. “There are reasons. It’s not a big deal, anyway. No one has wings. Why would it bother me to be like everyone else ?”

“Who doesn’t want to be special?” I ask .

“Do you feel like you’re special?” Mave asks, which I would take badly if it were coming from Luke, but Mave always sounds so sincere .

Luke takes the turn off the highway a little too fast, and I’m jolted around in the backseat. I cling to my seatbelt as we roll past the state park welcome sign. But at least over-reacting to Luke’s bad driving gives me a second to think .

“I mean, not everyone sees ghosts,” I say. “I wouldn’t say I’m an endlessly fascinating human being in my own right. But the psychic thing? Trying to do something to help other people? That makes me kind of special, I think .”

“You don’t really have a choice if the ghosts are going to keep finding you. You’ve got to do something to get rid of them. Right?” Luke asks .

“I have a choice.” Now I feel defensive and irritated. If we could start this conversation over, I’d give them a glib “I sure am special.” and be done with it. “Just like you. Do you have to roam around from town to town like this ?”

“It’s the life I know,” Luke says. “The Fae are a pissy bunch, so Mave is always going to have a fight waiting for him. As long as you have to fight, might as well fight for something .”

“Thanks for that reminder,” Mave says. “You always make me feel so cheery .”

“What did you do to piss off the Fae?” I ask Mave, and he shakes his head .

“Let’s get to know each other better first, Ash,” Mave says, but his voice is kind. His mysterious distance might be more annoying—and by that, I mean alluring—than Luke’s rough masculinity .

We park in the gravel lot at the base of a trail. Luke puts the car into park, cuts the engine, and reaches over to pat Mave’s shoulder faux-appeasingly. “Let’s go burn a poltergeist, that should cheer you up .”

Half an hour later, we’ve laid out our salt circle, set out the supplies, and we’re ready to exorcise this ghost. More or less. It’s funny how the ritual itself can become almost routine: salt, object, oil, fire. But it’s nonetheless terrifying .

We nestle the necklace and the lighter on top of the folded square of gauze in the ring of salt. Better safe than sorry. We’ll summon for all three. I kneel carefully, my feet outside the circle, making sure my jeans hem doesn’t drag in the salt and break the circle. I have to touch the things while I bless them and call on the ghost they belonged to. And then I am getting out of the salt before Hell answers the phone call .

“I pour out oil…” I murmur as I bless the objects, beginning the long incantation. As soon as I’m done, as I drop the bottle of oil inside the circle and move quickly back, Luke bends to pour more salt around the circle, making sure it hasn’t been scuffed .

For long seconds, only silence .

Luke’s voice, calm and cool, softly chants the Imperative; Mave joins him, a second later. I wait until they begin the second round, adding my voice to theirs. It’s a warm fall day, and a soft breeze blows over all four of us .

All four of us .

A figure stands across from me, at the interior edge of the salt circle. It’s a slight body, as tall as me, not quite defined around the edges. She’s hazy. Our poltergeist is a she ?

My heart stops .

“I want revenge,” she says .

In the distance, there’s a sudden pop and then a rushing sound. It’s the sound of hell breaking loose .

“No,” she says, her voice slurred. It’s the voice from the attic. “Please.” It’s a plea .

“Stop,” I raise my hand, looking to Luke and Mave. “It’s one of the girls .”

“Go on,” Luke tells Mave. His voice savage, he turns on me. “She could be the murderer, Ash. She doesn’t belong here, either way .”

“How could she be the murderer?” I demand .

“She could have been a victim herself, playing out revenge now. Don’t be stupid .”

“I’m not being stupid. You’re being heartless; you’re not thinking this through .”

“He killed me,” she says softly .

Luke grabs my forearm, rough, his handsome face too close to mine. “Do. Not. Listen. We have a job to do .”

I yank away from him. “Don’t touch me .”

“I’m just telling you, I’ve seen a lot more of these things than you. You think a ghost with a taste for killing would be trustworthy? That they can’t trick you ?”

“If she’s not the poltergeist, she can help us. Isn’t the whole point to make sure no one turns up dead again ?”

“How are you going to figure that out, Ash? If you want to talk to her before she gets zapped off to Hell, go right ahead .”

“Please,” she says .

I stumble to form some questions, to find some way to prove–to the boys and to myself–that she is one of the victims and not the killer. “Who did this to you? Who are you ?”

“He killed me in the secret room, he took me to the woods. He left me where you found me, with just my necklace left …”

“Who?” If ghosts ever answered direct questions, my job would be a lot easier .

“The man with the ring,” she says. “I didn’t even know his name. But he was a handsome man with a fancy emerald ring. Sooo fancy .”

“Why are all our ghosts idiots,” Luke mutters beneath his breath .

“She’s not an idiot,” I say. “She’s drunk, I think, or on drugs.” She can’t quite string words together, she’s talking nonsense. Maybe she’s damaged from being murdered, or maybe she’s been like this since before she died. Maybe she’s …

“Are you Claudia?” I ask, my voice urgent. “Is that you ?”

“I don’t want to,” she says, and I don’t know if she’s reliving that scene, from the time before she died .

She shoots straight up in the salt circle, her slight figure disintegrating into ash. There’s a baying in the woods near us .

“Hellhounds, seriously? They are the fucking worst.” Luke says. Hastily, he joins Mave again in the Imperative, eager to dispatch Claudia and close the gate to hell .

Claudia screams, high in the air above us. Her body shimmers in the air, and black smoke curls around her. Suddenly the smoke forms into a face; a demon’s second face, with three eyes and a mouthful of bloody teeth. It snarls at us, its eyes narrowing in hate. Adrenaline, and deep fear I haven’t felt in a long time, stabs my chest .

Our ghost is already bound to a demon. That’s how she had the power to disrupt the world so much in the attic, and maybe when we found her grave .

But she’s not the killer .

Luke doesn’t break the Imperative, but he reaches out and touches my arm impatiently, flashing me a look. His eyes flicker to the demon .

Right, he thinks it’s worth sending the victim off to Hell to keep this demon from walking loose any longer. He expects me to join in .

I’m not. “She’s bound to that demon. You can’t send an innocent girl to hell. Stop it !”

Luke shakes his head without breaking stride. From his perspective, sending any ghost off to the Far where they belong makes sense. He’s concerned with the living .

I reach out for Mave’s arm, my fingertips grazing his corded forearm. His eyes are on the demon/ghost combo above us, but they flicker to me. His eyes widen as he stares down at me, surprised by my reaction, but he doesn’t stop chanting either .

The two Hunters think they’re doing the right thing. I’m not going to reason them into doing what I know is right .

A ghost doesn’t deserve to be sent to Hell, but to the Far, where they make their own decision about where to go. The afterlife is meant to be a choose-your-own-adventure. It’s not my place to make that call, not for someone who might be innocent. I’d rather let a poltergeist go free a little longer than condemn an innocent to hell .

I did enough of that already .

So I step into the salt circle, scattering crystals. Luke jumps after me, cursing, breaking off the imperative, but he doesn’t cross the circle. As I scoop up the water bucket and douse the flames, I’m at risk if Claudia attacks me. But she doesn’t .

The screaming stops. The rush recedes suddenly, a powerful whoosh of evil being pulled back, closed up in hell again with the pop of a bottle being corked. The forces of darkness are always right there, a breath away from our world, stomping back and forth behind the gates .

When I look up, standing in the broken circle, no one is there. There’s a beautiful fall sky above, a brilliant shade of blue, cloudless .

“You are an idiot,” Luke says. The boy who seems so unflappable in the face of danger is hand-shaking-angry. “You all but invited a demon to wear you like a pretty, stupid skin-suit. And you cost us the chance to burn that geist .”

He steps forward to look at the ashes in the burning basin, confirming for himself that we’ve burned the items, but not the geist. Then he gives me a furious look, like he wants to throttle me. Those beautiful green eyes are a little bit terrifying when he’s so eye-popping angry. He spreads his fingers out stiffly as if stretching, as if he’s trying to keep himself from making a fist, before he turns and strides away back down the trail towards the car .

“Ash,” Mave says. He looks at my face, and I don’t know what he sees, but his voice is kind when he says, “You have a good heart .”

“But you think I’m an idiot with a good heart.” My voice comes out tart .

“I don’t think that was a wise decision.” He begins to collect the debris of our binding spell, the candles, the spilled bottle of oil, tossing it all in the backpack he used to bring it here. I pick up the trash, too, sweeping the salt up with my hand to scatter in the leaves. We don’t want to leave a trail. We work in silence .

When we’re done, when I’ve kicked up the leaves so that the granules are scattered and even the white trail we left around us has vanished into the earth, Mave says, “Luke should have cooled down by now .”

For some reason, I feel an ache over having disappointed him. It’s not just the curdled-stomach dread of tension of having someone mad at me. Some part of me cares what Luke Chamberlain thinks about me .

“Don’t worry,” Mave says. “I make him angry all the time. He’s 100% likely to survive .”

“That’s good,” I say. “What about me? He’s a scary kind of mad .”

“It’s all bark,” Mave promises. “He is one of the good guys, despite the rough edges .”

I shouldn’t feel so bad about having made Luke mad. I’m only going to date nice guys. Like Jax .

There’s just something about Luke, sometimes. Some pure animal magnetism that makes me want something. Maybe I don’t want a relationship, but I do want him to be attracted to me. And to respect me. And to not act like an asshole .

As Mave and I walk down the path together back towards the car, red and brown leaves drift slowly down the gravel path. Mave is quiet, but what he has said is kind .

“When I was in the Far,” I say, “it was mostly forest .”

And then I stop. I think of the Far whenever I cross a forest, but it’s a random thing to tell Mave .

“What do the Fae believe about heaven?” I ask .

“Just like humans, they believe a variety of different things, all of them with unnecessary intensity. What do you believe ?”

I shake my head. “I walked through the Far and saw more of Hell than Heaven .”

“I don’t think you have to travel all the way into the afterlife for that,” Mave says. “We make Hell here on Earth all the time. And the Fae do the same .”

We reach the bottom of the path and walk across the lot towards the car. Luke sits in the driver’s seat, the ignition on, thumping the steering wheel in tune with a hard rock song on the radio. His gaze is fixed forward .

“We have work to do,” Luke says. “Let’s drop her off on campus and get to it .”

“Luke.” I don’t know what I’m going to say. I’m not sorry. But I don’t like the way things feel between us right now .

He shakes his head, his jaw set hard .