I was taking my last group across the river. It had been a slow day on the ferry. That thought made me smile. It wasn't like I was running a donut shop or a shoe store. I couldn't even blame a heat wave or bad weather. Apparently death was just having an off season slump.

Catch stared down at me from the dock. He leaned casually against one of the pylons, tossing something shiny on the palm of his hand. Catch was more clever and much more handy than the other goblins, which was why he had been given the undesirable but, nonetheless, important job of soul driver. He never seemed to mind dragging reluctant and often ornery souls to their eternity. In fact, it seemed he took pleasure in it.

My dad had talked often of the squirrely, long nosed creep. He said Catch was great with the horses and terrific at his job, but he was still, after all was said and done, a goblin. And they were never to be trusted completely. My biggest worry had been that Catch would discover that I was not Trex under the cloak and veil. Twice, I'd let my real voice escape through the forced gravelly whisper that had become the signature voice for Trex. Talking low and disguising our real tone was something my great-grandfather had started. He'd had an exceptionally deep, baritone voice, one that pushed him to near stardom in the church choir. One day, the soul of a sour old neighbor boarded the ferry, and great-grandfather worried the man might recognize his highly distinguishable voice so, just like his face, he disguised it.

Catch tossed the shiny coin on his palm as he stepped to the edge of the dock. "Welcome friends, to your final destination." With his free hand he held up his list. "Once you have departed the ferry, I'll line you up for the journey." Catch glanced at his list and clucked his tongue loudly. "Oh boy, I see we have two souls heading to Vapour's realm. Terribly sorry about that—" He squinted his already beady eyes at the paper to read the names under the flickering flames of the torches lining the river. "Unser Turnbill and Miles Rotten, you have been very bad, and well, what can I say except you've earned what's waiting for you. Of course, Miles, you were sort of predestined with a name like Rotten, eh?" Catch's sharp laugh frightened the already terrified souls. He waved at them with his pointy fingernails. "Step on up. I don't have all night."

One by one, the souls walked past with their heads drooped in shame and disappointment. I climbed out after them. It was payday and Steemer kept track of my fares for the week.

I tied off the ferry and headed past Catch and his weary, downtrodden tourists. The gold coin he'd been tossing so excitedly arced in the air and landed at my feet. It spun around twice and fell flat against the worn wood planks.

I leaned down to pick it up and stared at it on my palm. I recognized it instantly. Catch was lumbering toward me as I glanced up. I was so stunned to see the coin, I nearly spoke in my real voice. "Ca—Catch, where did you get this?"

Catch's greedy fingers grabbed for the coin, leaving me with a light scratch on my palm. He quickly shoved it into his pocket. "A friend gave it to me. Steemer says it's really old, maybe a hundred plus years. And it's mine now because a friend gave it to me."

"Yes, you said that and it belongs to my fath—to me. It belongs to me." I had to work hard not to speak up in my real voice. My father had carried the lucky coin in his ferryman's cloak, just as his father had done. It was the first coin my great-grandfather had earned on the ferry.

"Nonsense. You'll need some kind of proof or verification that it belongs to you, a bill of sale perhaps?"

"It's a hundred and fifty years old, how would I have a bill of sale?"

The souls lining up for their journey began to howl and moan in despair. "I've got to go before Feenix hears these fools whining." Catch spun around and plodded away.

He was right. If he didn't get the souls off the riverbank and to Vapour or Cashel, then he'd hear a raging earful from Feenix or worse, his rotten smelling brother, Paygon. I decided to let him finish his task while I went to pick up my pay.

Steemer was sitting large and a few good pounds past jolly behind his table. "There's the ferryman." His voice boomed inside the tent. I'd heard my father talk about Steemer many times. He'd lost his leg to a wraith's sickle just a few months into his job as one of the Boys of Wynter. After years of training and exposure to all the secrets of the underworld, Feenix was loathe to let Steemer return to the mortal world. It turned out he was more than useful in accounting so he became the bookkeeper. And he knew everything there was to know about the inhabitants and the people who worked in the underworld. Everything except that the person hiding beneath Trex's veil was the twenty-three-year-old great-granddaughter of Trex. No one ever questioned how Trex had stayed ferryman for so many years. They just assumed he was some strange immortal who had been given the job of taking ferries across the River of Souls.

"All counted and recorded. It was a good week for you, but I guess not so great for your passengers." Steemer's jowls jiggled with laughter as he handed me the leather satchel filled with the week's pay. When I'd decided to step into my dad's place, both to find out where the hell he was and to preserve the family business, I dreaded the idea of spending so much time in the underworld. Admittedly, it took a few weeks for me not to curl up in suffocating panic attacks in the thick, grimy atmosphere. It took even longer to get used to the hollow, bewildered stares of the souls as they looked up at me on the captain's helm. But oddly enough, once I got into the routine, I found it to be a low stress job with an impressive salary. My father was the first Trex not to have a son. He'd wanted one so badly he wouldn't allow my mother to come up with any girl's name. Of course, when the reality hit and he discovered he had a daughter instead of a son, he compromised and let my mother soften the name Richard to Rikki. I'd always worked on the trawler, but I'd never really thought about working on the ferry until I had no choice.

Steemer had the pay counted out for Maximus and his pack mates, which meant they'd be coming to collect. "I'm just waiting for the Boys and then I'm cleaning up shop for the night." The fatter Steemer grew, the more his eyes disappeared into his cheeks. His brows bunched together over his deep set eyes. "Are you shrinking, ferryman? I could swear you look shorter."

I swallowed and constricted my throat to produce the grating tone. "Just gettin' old. Bones are starting to fuse together at the joints." I lifted the satchel and nodded to him. It was the second time he'd asked me about my height. My dad wasn't tall for a man, but I was still a good five inches shorter. I had been wearing the thick soled work boots I wore on the trawler, and I'd piled my hair up on my head so the hood of the cloak stood up taller. Between my small height additions and the murky air surrounding the river, no one else seemed to notice. But Steemer always saw me standing over his table in a tent that was lit by oil lamps. Fortunately, he just didn't care enough to pursue the topic after I reminded him I was getting old. More than a century old, considering he thought the original Trex was still working the ferry.

I walked out of Steemer's tent. The Boys would be off in an hour, and they'd be at the river waiting for a ride to pick up their pay. Barq, Maximus's gray stallion was not standing in the makeshift paddock Catch had built for the horses. That meant Maximus was hunting on horseback. I had only caught a glimpse of him as he rode through with the others. I was across the river at the time, but I was sure I could still see his brown eyes watching me through the clammy mist. I was more than a little nervous about seeing him again. And not just because he knew my secret. Just thinking about him put a wobble in my knees that I couldn't seem to stop.

I walked over to the ferry and began to untie it from the cleat when I heard Catch's screechy voice. He dragged the knuckles of his hand across the ground as he pulled himself along toward the two dead blackened tree stumps that marked the entrance to Wynter.

The portal that I took to reach the river skirted around the outside borders of Wynter so that I never had to step into the hideously uninviting landscape. I'd heard scary tales about how Wynter was so foul with wraith odors and underworld castoffs that spending an hour inside would drive a sane man to madness. Unless, of course, you were trained to navigate its horrors and dangers like the Boys of Wynter.

But I was sure most of the tales were gross exaggerations. I needed to follow Catch. He had my dad's lucky coin, which meant he knew something or someone that could lead me to my father. It was my first real clue and the first sign that my dad was still nearby, somewhere in the underworld. The more I'd thought about the wraith that had grabbed my veil, the more I was sure that someone had sent it to the ferry. Whoever it was that had sent the wraith knew my dad was no longer on the ferry. They obviously wanted to unmask me and find out who had replaced him. Unfortunately, the wraith was long gone leaving me back at square one. It seemed I had no choice but to follow Catch into Wynter. I needed to find out who had given him the coin.