Finally, I took the towel off the mirror to look at myself. Torin was still there, and I scowled, trying to see around him. "Lovely, Isolde," he told me, and I had to admit, I looked... Okay, maybe I was no Leslie, but my hair actually looked...pretty all down around my face like that.

Still, my hands itched to braid it again. Brannicks never wore their hair down, because it only got in the way of staking vamps or shooting shifters or taking out witches.

I heard the front door open. "Iz?" Mom called. I gave myself one last look before grabbing my jacket and heading downstairs.

Mom's hands were full of books, old ones that were flaking little bits of leather binding everywhere and filling the room with the smell of musty paper. "Everything I could get from the university library on-Oh."

She paused in the doorway. "That's a new look."

"There's this boy," I blurted out. "Adam. And he, uh, asked me to go meet him at the school for a basketball game, and I was thinking you could drive me there. If that's all right. It's part of my cover."

Mom blinked a couple of times before shifting her stack of books to her other hip. "Like a date?"

"Like a mission," I corrected, and I thought the corner of her mouth tilted up a little bit.

"Okay, then. Just let me...um, put this stuff away."

I walked over to help her, scooping up a few of the books. As I followed her to the guest room, I glanced at the spines. Two of them appeared to be about hauntings, but one had a title so faded I couldn't even read it. "What's the deal with all the books?" I still had no idea what Mom was up to while I was busy at school all day, although she'd mentioned driving to the university in the next town over to get some "materials."

Sighing, Mom shouldered the door open. "Research." From the tone of her voice, I knew that's all I was going to get.

Once again, a twist of guilt and anger coiled in my stomach. Did the research have something to do with Finn? If it did, I didn't understand why Mom was being so secretive about it.

"Izzy?" Mom said, and I realized she'd asked me a question.

"Sorry." I laid my books down on the bed next to Mom's half of the stack.

"I was just asking if you've found out anything at school yet."

"Yeah, actually," I told her, tucking my hair behind my ears. "For one thing, I'm pretty sure who the ghost is." I filled her in on Mary Evans and what I'd learned from PMS. When I was done, Mom raised her eyebrows. "Sounds pretty typical."

"That's what I was thinking." I perched on the edge of the bed. "Some stories become legends for a reason, I guess."

Mom nodded. "And how was the ghost hunter club? The usual?"

"Yeah. EMP detectors they ordered off of TV, files of local legends. That kind of thing. And they want to do a seance at some point, so I need to come up with a way of stopping that."

Sighing, Mom glanced down at one of her books, the one called Ghosts and Hauntings. "Make sure you do. Last time I dealt with one of those civilian ghost hunter groups, they did a seance. Ended up opening a portal to the Unseelie court instead, and brought through some seriously nasty faeries. I don't want to clean that up again."

I didn't know if she meant clean up in the "closing the portal, banishing the faeries" way, or if it was more a "and then I mopped the humans' blood off the wall" kind of thing.

I decided maybe it was better just to wonder.

"Anyway," I said, fiddling with the ends of my hair, "it seems pretty cut-and-dried. The frog and Barbie thing is odd, but-"

Mom held up a hand. "The what?"

Oh, right, I'd forgotten to tell Mom about Romy's theory that Mary was somehow warning her victims. As briefly as I could, I filled her in.

When I was done, Mom was frowning. "That is odd," she said. "But it doesn't really matter. If this Mary Evans is the ghost you're after, get rid of her."

"Planning on it," I told her. "But you have to do a banishing on the last day of the month, right? That's still a couple of weeks away."

Mom made a noncommittal sound in reply, and I thought of what Torin had said. Was coming here really about protecting the students of Mary Evans High? Or was it Mom's attempt at letting me have a taste of normal life?

"So this Adam," Mom said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Is this part of the job, or is it-"

"Part of the job, for sure," I said quickly, and for some reason, Dex's face suddenly appeared in my mind. How would I feel if it were him I was meeting tonight? Just the thought sent my heart racing in a way that wasn't totally unpleasant.

Mom peered at me. "You're blushing."

I just stopped myself from covering my cheeks with my hands. "What? No, I'm not. I'm just...it's kind of hot in here."

But Mom was not so easily fooled. "Iz, I know we haven't talked much about boys."

"And we don't need to," I hurried on. "Dex is just a friend."

I didn't realize my mistake until Mom frowned at me. "I thought you said his name was Adam."

"It is," I said, turning away and heading for the door. "Dex is just this other boy. He's in that ghost hunter thing, and you had mentioned that, so it was on my mind. We should go if-"

Mom stood up. "Two boys?" she asked, and I wasn't sure if she was horrified or impressed.

"Friends," I said again. "Nothing else. And didn't you say it was important to blend in? Going on a...er, going to a basketball game is totally blending in."

I could tell Mom was struggling between the Brannick part of her that wanted to believe I was doing all of this for the mission-which I so was-and the Mom part that suddenly realized she had a teenage daughter. A teenage daughter who was hanging around teenage boys.

She reached out, and I think she was going to lay a hand on my shoulder or something, but in the end, she just let her arm drop to her side. "Izzy, I'm glad you're so dedicated to this, but...you have to remember that these kids you're spending time with are just part of a job. You can enjoy spending time with them, but in the end, there isn't any room for them in your life permanently."

I should have just nodded, but instead I said, "But you have friends. Or connections, or whatever. People like Maya. Like whoever found you this house."

Mom frowned slightly. "Those aren't my friends, Izzy, and they're not...civilians. They're people who are already wrapped up in this life. People who know about Prodigium and what we do. It's different."

"I understand that," I replied, but Mom just ducked her head to look into my eyes. "Do you? Do you really?"

I thought of Dex again, and the way it had been kind of...nice sitting with Romy in English class.

But I looked at Mom and said, "Absolutely. A job. Means to an end, all of that. On it."

Mom held my gaze for another beat before sighing. "Okay," she said at last. "Then let me grab my car keys and we'll get you to this game."

CHAPTER 14

The gym was brightly lit, and as I made my way down the hill from the parking lot, I could hear the banging of drums, the squeak of sneakers, and the occasional shout. Inside, it was even louder, and way more packed than I would have expected. Apparently sports are a really big thing around here.

Adam was waiting just inside the door, and I was relieved to see he was wearing more or less the same thing he'd had on at school today. That was one thing I'd gotten right at least. And from the look he gave my hair, I guess that had been right, too. "You look nice," he told me, waving his hand in my general direction.

"Thanks," I said, forcing myself not to shove my hair behind my ears again. "You, um, too."

On Everton and Leslie's first date, he'd taken her to this fancy restaurant that had ended up burning down by the end of the episode. But before that, the date had looked like fun. I didn't remember them standing around awkwardly, struggling for things to say.

Because that's a TV show, dummy, and this is real life, I reminded myself.

Finally, Adam nodded toward the inside of the gym. "I, uh, usually play in the pep band, but I took the night off. Drums."

"Oh," I said, unsure what else to say. "Drums are... loud."

Adam tilted his head to one side, like he couldn't decide if I was being funny or not. Then he just shrugged and said, "Yeah, they are. So do you like basket- ball?"

I peeked around him, watching as boys in satiny-looking outfits raced up and down the court. "I don't know. I've actually never seen a basketball game before."

Adam's eyes widened. "Whoa, seriously?" From the tone of his voice, you'd think I'd said I'd never, I don't know, been outside before. Breathed air. "Like, you've never been to one, or you've never even seen one on TV?"

"Both," I told him. "We never had a TV before, so..."

Now Adam didn't just look surprised, he looked kind of horrified. Maybe that's what made me sound so defensive when I jerked my head toward the court and said, "I've seen stuff like this."

Then I remembered that that had been a "party" this coven of dark witches had been throwing, and it hadn't been a ball they'd tossed between them, but a human head.

That little story didn't seem like one I should share with Adam.

He shook his head. "Okay. Well, then I'm glad I could introduce you to your first real basketball game. I mean, our team sucks, but still, right?" He smiled at me, but it didn't reach his eyes, and I knew I wasn't the only one disappointed by the way this "date" was going.

"We should go in," he said, turning toward the gym. I did the same, and promptly collided with a boy.

"Sorry!" I said, reaching up to steady him without thinking.

But since it was Ben McCrary, and I'd just put my hand directly on the shoulder I'd dislocated, he gave a hiss of pain.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" I said again, holding my hands up. Ben just stared at me, pale and wide-eyed, and attempted to put as much space as possible between me and him.

"Just-just stay away from me," he sputtered before darting off.

Adam and I watched him go.

"I...um, I kind of dislocated his shoulder in P.E.," I said.

Adam was still staring after Ben. "Okay," he said slowly. "I heard that, but I thought it was just a rumor. I mean, no offense, but you're kind of tiny, and Ben McCrary is...not."

"I throw a mean dodgeball," was all I could think to say.

Turning back to me, Adam blinked a few times. "So you've never seen a basketball game, you didn't own a TV, and you can dislocate shoulders with dodgeballs?"

I didn't think any of that was meant to be a compliment, but I smiled anyway. "Yup."

Adam took that in. "I'm gonna grab us some Cokes," he finally said, nodding toward the concession booth. "If you want to go on in and grab a seat, I'll find you when I'm done."

"Great," I said, relieved for any suggestion that would put an end to us just standing there.

The game seemed to have just started, but the bleachers were already pretty full. I spotted a few empty spaces in the middle, and was just preparing to wade through the crowd when I glanced up and saw Romy, Anderson, and Dex sitting in the very top row.