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Rose smiled, looking on as Laine clipped it around her neck. “In case you ever forget about me,” she said, almost too casually, trying not to let her own fears show through.

She thought Laine would give her that quick laugh and bright gaze. Instead, Laine smiled and finished her bite of cake. “You think that little of me?” she said.

Something about her answer wasn’t quite the right vibe. Rose swallowed, confused, then smiled quickly back.

“You know what I mean,” she said, forcing out a laugh and digging her spoon into the pint again.

Laine leaned back on her arms. “So?” she said. “Did you talk to Dan?”

Rose replied casually, letting the strange moment fade away, forgotten. Maybe it was nothing. Laine’s answer was as good as solid. But to Rose, there was something wistful about that moment, like it already felt nostalgic.

Later, she would think maybe Laine had already sensed it. Maybe they were always doomed.

8

It is snowing in New York City on the day of my first test.

I stand shivering before the Metropolitan Museum of Art, taking in the two giant banners hanging on either side of its entrance, each showcasing the newly discovered Leonardo da Vinci painting that is the star of its current exhibition.

The Florence Funeral is a masterpiece of chiaroscuro, the juxtaposition of light and dark that he was so skilled at, depicting a young noblewoman preparing for her husband’s burial. Several attempted thefts of the painting were foiled before it found a home here at the Met. According to the news, the crowds jostling to be the first to see it are even more intense than those for the Mona Lisa.

As a sacred tribute to Raven’s dominion, as well as a mortal thing infused with the energy from our world that he needs in order to exist, it’s no surprise that acquiring this painting is to be my first challenge as Regent-Elect.

Now, two long lines snake down the main entrance steps and curl around the building in opposite directions, while a tour group stands in between them, their guide holding an umbrella and giving a history of the museum in Spanish. Farther down the street, storefronts are brightly lit and decorated for Christmas, bundled-up tourists and shoppers alike hurrying past displays of holiday gowns and pine garlands, fat ornaments clustered atop the lampposts.

My flight into New York had been a bumpy one, made worse by my general unease over my test. I don’t know when Étienne will show up, or what he’ll do to me. I don’t know whether I’ll recognize him. I don’t know how he’ll attempt to disprove my worthiness in becoming my patron god’s understudy. I don’t even know if he’s right to judge me unworthy for this task. Maybe he is.

Now I find myself eyeing the other museumgoers skeptically, wondering if one of them is Étienne in disguise, whether my test has already begun.

I don’t bother heading up the main steps or joining the madness of lines. Instead, I turn toward 81st Street and walk down the block, where there’s a small, nondescript entrance with no crowds around it, a quicker way into the museum meant for members and those who already have tickets.

As I near the door, I see a crow perched on the roof. No—not a crow. A Wraith. It resembles a bird, but upon closer inspection, I notice that it has no eyes. Its feathers move ink-like in the air, bits flaking away and dissolving into the space around it, moving as if animated by a brush. When it opens its beak to call, the sound turns my stomach—wrong, off pitch, the kind of sound you hear and forget in your dreams.

But what makes the back of my neck prickle is the sight of it picking at the carcass of a pigeon under its talons.

The dead pigeon does not look like a Wraith, with mirage-like feathers that waver and vanish. It looks real, solid. Mortal.

Wraiths can’t affect the mortal world. They are harmless ghosts. Fragments of souls.

I repeat the words to myself as I step up to the entrance. But hadn’t Raven told me about the strange phenomenon of Wraiths clustering together recently? That they are starting to act on their hunger for the real world?

Instinctively, I look around. And now that I do, I see the others—a gathering of crow-like Wraiths, all sitting in the skeletal branches of nearby trees, observing the crowds down the street. Their wings waver in the air like currents of black ink. Overhead, several circle the building before doubling back in the direction of the museum’s main steps.

I turn my eyes down, heart hammering, thinking of what Raven had told me during my confirmation. Wraiths, gathering near cracks of imbalance in the mortal world. Starving for pieces of it.

I tell myself that it’s not uncommon for there to be more than one Wraith in an area. It doesn’t mean that this is an example of what my patron god had told me. I shrink deeper into my scarf and quicken my steps, careful not to look back up at the Wraith pecking at the pigeon carcass. Still, I know it’s watching me, its sightless head turned down in my direction.

Harmless. Fragments of souls. But why is it eating the carcass of a dead bird? That should be impossible.

I step inside. Unlike the main entrance, there are only a few people waiting here. I shove the Wraiths out of my thoughts and look around, half expecting to see Étienne, but he’s nowhere.

I pass through this smaller line, then I make my way down the hall until it rejoins the main lobby, where I’m suddenly thrust back into the throngs of people. I push through them and toward the separate security gate that leads into the new exhibit’s hall, where people are putting their belongings through a metal detector and opening their bags for an officer.

I step forward to the front of the gate, where I hold up my ticket.

The guard scans it. Except it beeps red.

She frowns at it, then at me. “Ticket’s invalid,” she says.