“So, wait, you have a plan?” Addy squeaked over the line.

“Yeah, I think we do.” I twisted my key in the ignition, and the car rumbled to life, more like an ailing house cat than a purring tiger, but so long as my poor car moved, I wasn’t going to complain.

“What should I do?”

I rebuckled my seat belt and flicked the switch to start my windshield wipers. “Stall them until we get there.” The passenger side wiper stuttered across the glass once, then died without so much as a whimper. Fortunately, I didn’t need to see through that side. “Say whatever you have to say. But don’t let her sign that contract, and do not let the reaper take Regan to the Netherworld.”

“Okay, I’ll try.” But she sounded less than confident.

“Try hard, Addy.” I punched the button to make the hazard lights stop blinking and glanced over my left shoulder before pulling into traffic again. “You only have one sister, right? And she only has one soul.”

“Yeah, okay.” She sniffled again, but this time determination echoed in her voice like a vow sworn in a cavern. “I’ll keep her here if I have to chain her to the kitchen cabinets.”

“I hope you’re kidding, but in case you’re not, that won’t work. Neither your cabinets nor your chain exist in the Netherworld, because they’re in a private residence.” Huh. Look at that. I’d actually learned something in how-to-be-a-bean-sidhe lessons…

“Yes, but the concept has some real potential,” Tod muttered from behind me, and I glanced in the mirror to see him grinning lasciviously.

“I’ll come up with something,” Addison said. She obviously hadn’t heard the reaper’s last comment.

“Good. We’ll be there as soon as we can.” I nodded at Nash, and he closed my phone, but held on to it, so I wouldn’t have to dig for it if it rang again. Then I stomped on the gas, and nearly had a heart attack when my poor little car hydroplaned a good ten feet before finding traction again.

“I’d rather be late-but-whole than punctual-but-dead,” Nash suggested, teasing me much more calmly than I could have managed if he’d nearly killed me.

“I’m gonna find Levi and meet you guys there,” Tod said, and I frowned when I realized the fear shining in his eyes probably had as much to do with my driving and the possibility of his own second death than with being late to Regan’s soul harvest.

Was that some kind of residual human fear, or could a car crash actually hurt a reaper, if he didn’t blink out in time? And for the first time, I wondered exactly how dead Tod was….

“Wait!” I shouted, and Nash reached for the wheel again when I stretched my neck to catch his brother’s gaze in the rearview mirror. Tod arched one brow at me. I’d caught him rightbefore he would have disappeared. “Reapers don’t have death dates, because they’re already dead, right?” I asked, and Tod nodded. “So…do you guys still have souls?”

He scowled. “Do my eyes look empty to you?”

I breathed a little easier, knowing the dead boy in my backseat wasn’t soulless—even if his conscience wasn’t exactly bright and shiny. “So, what happens to a reaper’s soul once it’s confiscated?” I asked, watching his face for any unspoken reaction. Because a fired reaper was a dead reaper. Permanently dead.

“It’s recycled, just like a human’s,” Tod said, and I could see the gears grinding behind his eyes, as he tried to follow my thought process. His brother’s expression was eerily similar, only without that edge of suspicion. Nash might not have known exactly what I was up to, but he trusted me completely.

I wasn’t sure whether that made him sweet or naive.

“So…who collects it?” I asked, not surprised to see my brow crinkle in the mirror. “Can just any reaper kill a fellow reaper and take her soul?”

Tod shrugged, and suddenly looked completely invested in the conversation—a relative rarity for him. “In theory, yes. But that would be a really good way to piss off your coworkers. So we usually leave that to managers and Dark reapers, like Libby.”

The rain had started to slow, so I dared a little more pressure on the gas pedal. “Does it work the same way it does with humans?”

“As far as I know. Though, reaper souls are much rarer than human souls, so I’ve never actually seen it done.”

“What are you getting at, Kaylee?” Nash asked, as I put my blinker on to pass an old pickup in the right lane.

“I was just curious,” I said, not yet willing to mention the kernel of an idea sprouting slowly in my head. “Do you know how to get to Addison’s mom’s house?” I asked Nash, and when he nodded, I eyed Tod in the mirror. “Go find Levi. We’ll meet you there as soon as we can.”

He nodded, then disappeared.

I drove as fast as I could without risking an accident or police intervention, and when we got to Hurst, Nash gave me directions to her neighborhood. Which is where we got lost. The roads in Addison’s subdivision wound around in interconnected circles and cul-de-sacs, several of which seemed to share variations of the same name. And all the houses looked the same, especially in the dark.

My ten-thirty curfew came and went while we wandered the neighborhood, trying to call Addy the whole time, but she never answered her phone. Finally, Nash suggested I let him drive while I took a peek into the Netherworld to see if I could give him a general direction from there. Reluctantly—very reluctantly—I agreed.