Gremma returned from spring break in a rumpled, mascara-smudged state. She made a sound like a dying animal when Dee turned on her bedside lamp.

“Sorry,” said Dee, and flicked off the light. “How was your spring break?”

“Not very memorable.”

“Because nothing happened or because you don’t actually remember what happened?” asked Dee. Part of her took a perverse delight in her roommate’s suffering.

Gremma blinked, as if she didn’t know quite how to answer.

Dee said, “Is that ketchup or blood on your shirt?”

Gremma glanced down. “Not mine.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“Ignorance,” said Gremma, with as much dignity as she could muster, “is a good policy.” She pressed the heels of her hands against her forehead, as if she was trying to hold her brain together. “Next year, we stay in.”

“We?”

Gremma’s fingers eased apart, and one eye slid over Dee, disconcertingly perceptive. “You look more hungover than I am. So you went out? Met some people? Did something crazy?”

Dee considered several answers before saying, “Ignorance is a good policy.” Her fingers went to the soft yarn of the knitted heart in her pocket.

The average resting heart beats between sixty and ninety times a minute. It varies from person to person, depending on age and fitness level. Dee knew her own resting heart rate had been around seventy—she’d had to take her own pulse during her last gym class.

Dee spent hours sitting with the knitted heart tucked into the crook of her elbow. With her left hand, she kept two fingers on her throat. Waiting, searching. For that familiar flutter of sensation, for any hint of movement.

But there was nothing.

She tried not breathing. It didn’t hurt, not exactly, but something about it felt wrong. Stasis, the demon had said. Her body would simply go on without her heart. But did that mean all her other systems were frozen? What about going to the bathroom? Eating? Was she going to spend the next two years without her period?

Actually, that might not be so bad.

But there was a sense that something vital had been taken from her. Which it had. She felt strangely hollow.

Two years. Two years of this.

Two years, and then her life was utterly her own.

That thought calmed her when nothing else would. She would never have to worry about going home, about cramming herself into tiny nooks, hoping to remain unnoticed, would never have to force herself to look down and swallow so many hurtful words that her stomach was always in knots.

And with this hollowness came something else—buoyancy. She felt lighter without her heart, without the throb and pulse of it.

It was easy to slip into old routines, to ignore the knitted heart shoved in her purse and the deadened sensation in her chest. She could tell herself everything was fine, everything was normal, and there were stretches of time she actually believed it.

It felt as if everyone should have known just by looking at her. Dee spent her classes feeling oddly conspicuous, waiting for someone to touch her and realize. Surely something like this left a mark on a person, some indelible sign that some part of her was missing.

A week after her encounter with the demon, she woke to a strange text from an unknown number. It contained a bank account and password. When she checked the balance online, she let out such a curse that she woke Gremma from a sound sleep.

Perhaps the demon didn’t know how much schools cost these days, because he’d overshot it a bit.

All right. He’d overshot by a lot.

Brannigan was paid for.

So was college. And possibly her first year of grad school.

But she would be damned—if she wasn’t already—before she informed him of his error. She stared at those numbers and thought: This is how much a human heart is worth.

Dee picked up the scrap of paper James had given her at the hospital. She knew Portland well enough to recognize the address’s general location—Pearltown, an odd place for a demon to make its lair. Somehow she had thought this paper would lead her to a sewer or a castle.

It was a Saturday. She had a signed permission slip that allowed her off campus on weekends—she had forged her mother’s signature herself. If she wanted to check out this address, she might as well get it over with.

“I need to get out of here,” said Gremma, as if hearing Dee’s thoughts. She was sprawled across her bed, a chemistry book before her. “You want to come get coffee with me?”

Dee hesitated.

“Can’t,” she said. “I’ve got errands to run.”

“And you can’t make time for a teensy coffee with your roommate in between whatever you’re doing?”

Dee didn’t bother to think about it. “Nope.”

Gremma rolled over. “You’re heartless sometimes.”

Dee snorted out a laugh. She snagged her purse and her bus pass and hurried out of the room.

The address did not lead to a sewer. Nor a dark tower, a castle, or a cave.

It was one of those warehouses—the kind that had been converted into apartments for young up-and-comers. There was a food truck parked on the opposite curb, and a man in a custom suit held the door for Dee when she walked into the building. It was clean, neat, and everything she had not expected. She took the stairs, too keyed up to stand still in the elevator.

The apartment door was slightly ajar, a sliver of light piercing the gap between wood and frame. Dee swallowed, pushed on the door, and it swung silently open.

Inside was a large space of unfinished brick and concrete. It looked as though some designer had gotten fed up and abandoned the project halfway through. One entire wall was nothing but windows, crisscrossed with metal. The whole area was wide open, with curtains cordoning off what must have been a bedroom. Closest to the door were two couches and a ratty recliner. There was a kitchen—if she could really call it that—with a fridge, a microwave, a portable camp stove, and a cluster of tables that were clearly being used as counter space by whoever lived here.

“Hello?” she called.

A groan came from the clump of furniture. Dee jumped, ready to flee, but the noise hadn’t sounded aggressive.

“Cora?” It was definitely a male voice, rusty and surprisingly familiar. “If we’re being sent on another mission, you’d better have brought bagels.” A hand appeared, grasping at the back of the couch, and a face followed the hand.

It wasn’t the demon. It was Mr. Not-Homeless. James, she thought, taking a moment to place the name. His hair was rumpled and stuck up on one side, and his expression was fuzzy with exhaustion.

“You’re not Cora,” he observed.

“And you’re definitely not homeless,” she said.

He pushed himself off the couch. He was dressed in an old flannel shirt and sweats. His feet were bare, and something about that made her feel safer. If she did run, he’d have to put on shoes before giving chase.

He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Dee, right?”

She nodded.

James let out a breath. “All right. All right.” He repeated the words quietly, as if they weren’t meant for her. “I’ll call the welcoming committee. You”—he waved at the couch—“make yourself at home.”

She hesitated, unsure about venturing farther into the apartment, but then James was walking away, his gait unsteady. He blindly reached out and hit a button on the coffee machine before tottering into the curtained-off portion of the apartment.

The couch was Ikea-standard, a model made for comfort and sturdiness. There was a gray stain across its red fabric. And sitting at the coffee table was a knitted red heart. She picked it up. It was dirtier than hers, worn, and a few strings were knotted together as if they’d come undone and been clumsily fixed. Papers were everywhere, smudged with charcoal and pencil. Dee set the knitted heart down, picked up one of the papers instead.

It was a drawing that belonged in some art history book. A Renaissance painting before it became a painting.

It was… beautiful.

The sound of running water came from what must be the bathroom, and then James strode back into the living area. He’d put on jeans and his hair was wet, as if he’d run dampened fingers through it. He poured two cups of coffee into paper cups, stirred in liberal amounts of cream and sugar. With a careless little gesture, he pushed the crumpled sketches aside and placed one cup before Dee.

A knock came at the door.

“It’s open,” called James, taking a swig of his coffee.

A girl around Dee’s age strode into the apartment, carrying a paper bag in one hand and a folder in the other.

She was pretty, with dark skin and smooth hair that sent a pang of yearning through Dee. She’d tried straightening her hair a few times, but her stubborn curls refused to flatten. Self-consciously, Dee ran a hand through her bushy hair and glanced down at her own jeans and flip-flops. This new girl wore a blouse and lace skirt, and she seemed to carry herself with a poise that Dee could never manage. But the moment she saw Dee, the girl hurried over and without so much as a greeting, she pulled her into a hug.

Dee went rigid.

“Hey,” the girl said, voice close to Dee’s ear. She spoke with a gentleness usually reserved for small children or wounded animals. “It’ll be all right. Whatever James told you—ignore it.”

Dee waited a beat, then pulled back. The girl let her.

“I haven’t told her anything, Cora,” said James. “So you can stop with the Team Mom routine.”

The girl didn’t exactly glare at James, but it was close. “She looks terrified. What have you told her?”

“Not a thing,” said James. “She’s seen most of it for herself already.” He sat with his legs in a tangled sprawl. He took up half the couch and he looked comfortable doing so.

“Why did you give me your address?” asked Dee quietly.

“You have questions. The others can answer some of them,” said James. “And as I’m the only person with a usable apartment…” He let the thought trail off.

Cora rose and strode to the kitchen. She upended her paper bag onto the counter. Half a dozen bagels spilled out. “Barely usable. Please tell me you have a knife somewhere?”

“And here I thought introductions were going to be awkward,” drawled James. “Dee, this is Cora—our fearless and self-appointed leader. And knives are in the second drawer over.”

Dee glanced between Cora and James; she wondered if all demons kept teenagers at hand to do their dirty work. “How many of us work for the Agathodaemon?”

“Four of us, counting you,” said Cora. She vanished behind the counter and reappeared a moment later. “You’ve met Lancer. There’s also Cal and me.” She scowled at something on the counter. “Okay, when I said, ‘knife,’ I meant something other than the plastic kind.”

“You mean those things you have to wash?” James beamed at her.

Cora picked up a disposable plastic butter knife and began cutting a bagel. Well, cutting was perhaps too generous a word, Dee thought. Shredding, maybe.

“Dee’s practically an old pro at this,” said James. “She helped us in the hospital. Not sure if you need to give her the usual lecture.”

Dee glanced between Cora and James, taking in their rapid-fire quips. It was clearly a regular occurrence, Cora coming here and complaining about the cutlery. Even James’s and Cora’s jibes felt blunted, as if the insults had lost their edge over time.

“How long ago did you make your deal?” Dee asked, looking at Cora.

Cora straightened. “I was the first heartless in Portland. That’s why I’m in charge. Seniority.”

“And your being naturally bossy didn’t come into it at all.” James smirked.

“And your being naturally lazy also had nothing to do with it,” Cora replied smoothly. She put one mangled half of a bagel into the toaster. “No wonder the Daemon didn’t want you in charge.”

She pronounced it differently than Dee did, and she could almost hear the capital letter. “You mean the demon?”

“Don’t call him that,” said James. He walked to the counter, reaching for the bagels. He picked one flavored with dried onions. “He doesn’t like it.”

Dee felt herself frown. “What’s the difference between demon and Daemon?”

A new voice spoke. “One hard vowel.”

Cal strolled into the apartment, his hands shoved in his pockets, smiling at Dee.

“Dee, you remember Cal,” said James, waving his hand in a lazy introduction.

Cal sat beside Dee. “You know,” he said, “I don’t think I ever got your full name. It isn’t really Dee, right?”

“Deirdre Moreno,” said Dee, after a moment’s hesitation. She always felt a little self-conscious; she had been the last person in her first-grade class to be able to properly spell their own name. “I was named after my grandmother.”

“You have no idea how lucky you are,” replied Cal. “Carroll was the name of some dead uncle. And apparently, I was a difficult birth, so my mother decided to curse me with it.”

“Seems little has changed since then,” said James brightly.

Cal gave him a narrow-eyed look. “And when was the last time you showered?”

James took another bite of bagel.

“Well,” said Cora, ignoring the boys, “we’re glad to have you, Dee. I suppose you’ll need our numbers.” Without asking, she reached out and took Dee’s purse. It was half open, and before Dee could utter a word, Cora fished a cheap cell phone from it. “I’ll give you our contact info and loop you in on the troop texts.”

“Troop?” repeated Dee, sure she had heard Cora wrong.

Cora took a delicate bite of bagel, chewed, and swallowed before speaking. “We’re the Daemon’s Portland troop of heartless. There are other troops, in different places around the country—a few international ones, too.”

“Like the one I transferred from,” said James.

Cora ignored him. “Dee, if you want the basics, here they are: Three people are needed to destroy the voids. When a void appears—and it doesn’t happen that often, maybe once every few weeks—the Daemon will fetch us. Two people will carry the explosives into the void, get them to the center of it, and then set off the trigger. The third person stands in the mouth to ensure that when the void starts to explode—”

“Implode,” said Cal. “It does not explode, it implodes.”

“—Implode,” said Cora. “The third person keeps the mouth of the void steady so the other two can escape.”

A memory came back to Dee—that inhuman leg, there one moment and gone the next. No one had mentioned things living in the voids.

“What are they?” she said. “The voids, I mean.”

Cora, Cal, and James all went silent. A look was exchanged, one heavy with meaning. “Thing is,” said James, “we don’t really know that. I mean, we have our theories, but…”

Dee drew in a breath. “And what are your theories?”

Cora spoke first. “I think they’re doors,” she said. “A temporary portal into another… world, I guess you could say. And the Daemon uses us to close those doors. So obviously what’s on the other side is a threat to him.” She lowered her lashes, and spoke more quietly. “What is the natural enemy of a demon?”

Oh.

Well.

That wasn’t gut-clenchingly terrifying at all.

“Angels,” Dee said flatly. “You think we’re slamming doors on angels?”

But that didn’t make sense. What she’d seen in the void wasn’t at all angelic, not unless stories about angels had been wildly inaccurate.

“That’s one theory,” said Cal with a little nod. “I still think the so-called demons are actually very advanced aliens. The voids could be a warping of reality used to travel long distances in a matter of moments.”

“But then how do you explain the magic?” said Cora.

Cal chewed absentmindedly on the edge of his paper cup. “Well, if you sent us back in time a few hundred years, I’m pretty sure our phones would be considered magic, as well.”

Dee looked at James. He had remained silent through all this, watching Cal and Cora with the air of a detached outsider. “And what do you think?” she asked.

He jerked in surprise, as if he hadn’t been expecting the question. “Don’t know,” he said, a little too quickly. “Guess it never mattered all that much to me. We do our job, and we get what we want. It’s messed up, but it works.”

Dee gazed around the small group—Cora as the leader, Cal as the brains, and James as the… she didn’t know. He didn’t seem to have an obvious role, other than the Guy with the Apartment.

“So, three people,” said Dee. “That’s how many you need to destroy a void. But then… why would the Daemon have made a deal with me? I mean, he already had the three of you…”

Her words trailed off.

There had been something inside that void. Something inhuman and quick. She remembered the flash of motion, the sense of a presence. She remembered the grim look on James’s face as he sprinted toward the void’s entrance.

Three people were required.

But she suspected the demon would want a fourth—just in case one of them was killed.