They just stare at me, clearly unhappy. Good.

“Oh, that’s right,” I say. “I nearly forgot. The prince and princess would never stoop so low. Well, bottoms up to us peasants.”

I’ve made everyone uncomfortable, and I don’t care. I want to laugh. It’s all a big joke, isn’t it? This thing called life, where we hurt, where we work so hard not to care, and then a bit of feeling creeps in and people use it to hurt us further.

We take our shot and it burns through my chest. I can see Anna gripping the counter, trying not to look at me as she craves the liquor in my hand.

“How’s your soda, princess?” I ask her.

“You don’t need to be hateful,” she whispers.

Her words are like a sharp pin to my inflated chest, and I feel like shite for half a second.

“If you ask me, I’d say the princess prefers a dark knight,” Ginger says.

If I’m the dark knight, Gin is wrong. “She only thinks she does,” I respond, but I’m not so sure she prefers me over Prince Kope at all. I can’t even look at Anna’s reaction.

We end up out back, and I tip up the bottle, chugging the pungent alcohol when nobody’s paying me any mind. I leave the empty bottle on the deck and head for the yard under the trees with the others. I sit heavily in a flimsy lawn chair and lean back, switching my gaze between Kope and Anna, who won’t look at me. If the two of them want me out of the picture, I’m not going to make it easy on them. It’s not how I work. I’m not a gracious loser.

Marna suggests a game of Truth or Dare, so I decide to cut to the chase.

“I’ll go first. I dare Kope to kiss Anna.”

It’s like a monk kissing a nun. Brilliant. I lean back and cross my arms, enjoying their shifty-eyed embarrassment. Anna suddenly stands, I’m assuming to get far away from me, but instead she heads straight for me and kicks my chair up. I lose my balance and topple backward like an idiot. But when I look up and see her standing over me with eyes ablaze, I can only grin.

There’s my girl. I’m relieved I’ve made her feel something.

Ginger and Blake are cracking up as Anna storms away. Jay goes after her, and then Marna trails him. I try to push my hearing out, only to realize I’m too drunk to do so.

Kopano is glaring at me hard. I get to my feet.

“Is there a problem?” I ask him, holding my arms out. I sound like my bloody father. Kope only sighs, as if disappointed.

Before he can respond, Marna is yelling my name. Excitement clutches me as I forget about Kope and head for the side of the house. Marna and Jay pass me, but I ignore them because all I can see is Anna standing there with her arms crossed and her head down. I move to stand in front of her, and my anger is smothered by a blanket of her softness. I’m at a loss. I know I’ve been a prick.

“Sorry,” I whisper, shocking myself.

“I’m sorry, too, about the whole chair-flipping thing.”

“No, I deserved it.”

She looks at me, and the world clears a bit. Just standing here, the two of us, makes me feel secure. I know it’s stupid and fleeting, but I can see in her eyes that she still feels for me, and that is all I needed.

I can’t let myself sober up while the twins are around. I can’t allow anyone to know how I feel, so I pull the flask from my pocket and take a long drag. Ugh, bourbon and tequila are not a good combination.

I’m not quite as drunk as I was ten minutes ago, but I have to keep a good buzz going. I walk with Anna back to the group. When we sit, I get a strange sensation up the back of my neck, and I turn to look for whisperers. The others are laughing and playing Truth or Dare for real, but I can’t shake the feeling something’s off. My hearing is still wonky from the alcohol, but I hear a girl near the back door say my name, and when I look up I see the platinum hair through the window.

She’s looking for me, and I don’t want to deal with it right now. So I get up and move to hide behind the tree while Blake tells her I’m not out here. That’s a good boy.

I expect the strange feeling to pass, but it doesn’t, so I keep alert.

“Everyone cheats,” I hear Ginger say.

“That’s not true,” I mumble without thinking. They all stare at me and I could kick myself for saying something so pure out loud. I can only shrug. “Well, it’s not.”

Ginger likes to think everyone cheats because she can get 99 percent of them to do it, but in fairness she only goes for the ones who seem dodgy anyhow, just as I go for the ones who are showing signs of lust for me.

“What the hell do you know about it?” she snaps. I hate my life as much as the next Neph, but Gin is poisonous about it.

“Nothing, I suppose.” I’m feeling prickly, like I need to do a perimeter check for whisperers. I don’t want the others to worry, but that sensation of being watched will not go away. “I know I need another drink.”

I send my hearing around me in a circle like a radar as I walk to the house. But when I get inside the feeling dissipates. It’s something outside. I go back out and freeze at the edge of the deck.

No. Blood slams through me as a giant dark spirit circles Anna. I can’t make out his features, but he looks vaguely familiar. Everyone is still until the whisperer flies off. Marna quietly sends Jay away. As he comes up to the deck, I make my way down the steps at a jog.

This is not good.

“I would swear it was Azael,” Marna says. “But what was he doing?”