Page 49 of Some Kind of Haunted

Nora laughs, though there’s an edge to it. “We prefer the oral tradition in Midas. And maybe a few banjos?”

I find that I deeply enjoy the way she’s treating him. It’s what he deserves for the way he acts around her, so different from how he acts around literally everyone else in the entire world. I wish I could let them snipe at each other forever, but sadly, I also think there are more important things at hand.

Like the dreams that might come for me in a few hours.

And not making it all about me, the fact that foundlings have these wild dreams, too. Or portents. Or warnings or memories or whatever they are. I wonder if that means my mother was like me—something I suspect I’ll hold on to now.

Despite how entertained I am by Nora’s retorts, I, too, want to know if there are any records we could look at. I also wonder if that means that the foundlings might be more connected to the demons than anyone’s mentioned yet. Maybe more connected than the founding families that struck deals with them.

But I’m kind of afraid to pose that question out loud. I need to work through the implication that I might be part demon myself. Because that’s what I’m thinking here. And I need to decide if I think my foundling mother and my new foundling friend are maybe some kind of demon—so that means I am, too, and maybe so is Logan—before I say something like that out loud.

Jack’s warning that we should have no secrets echoes in my head. And Nora dreams like I do and she has to be the furthest thing from a demon there is. Having lived as long as I have in New York City, I feel certain I’ve met a few. She also seemed certain that a harbinger isn’t good or bad, just a human-shaped warning sign of the Feed to come.

Besides, I’m also a Darling. All the locals seem to think that matters. That it makes me good.

I so desperately want to be good here.

“Is Cleo’s grandmother okay?” I ask, because I want to know, but also because I need Logan and Nora to stop poking at each other now.

Nora sighs and looks pained. “I’m not sure. Something isn’t right there, but Cleo is independent. Very independent. Even when she works with us, she has a hard time letting her guard down. She says she’s like Amelia, but I’ve always thought it’s wrapped up in her mom leaving the way she did.”

All these motherless children, I think. “How did she leave?”

I’m not sure Nora is going to answer, but she does. Eventually. “When Cleo was very little her mother would try to leave town. And she would get in crashes, like the one we saw. She got more and more . . . volatile and unpredictable. Eventually, Cleo’s dad had to have her committed.” Her mouth twists. “Midas let her go then.”

I am horrified and dumbfounded. I feel for a woman I’ve never met. And my heart aches for Cleo. It sounds awful. To only be able to escape when they’ve finally driven you completely crazy, and to have to abandon your own child, too.

Logan snorts, interrupting all my feelings. “Maybe she doesn’t like letting her guard down because her best friend is talking about her business to a complete stranger.”

“A complete stranger.” Nora gives a bitter kind of laugh I don’t understand at all, then focuses on me. “None of what I showed you tonight will stop the dreams, Lexi, but it should help keep you in the house. Did Jack tell you that you need to write the dreams down?”

Oh, right. I remember that moment in the hangar when it felt like Jack and I were the only people in the whole wide world. My palms twitch again. “He did,” I say. Not huskily at all.

Nora nods. “Good. Anything you remember from any dream, even if it doesn’t seem to connect. Harrison really believes that the more information we collect, the more answers we might find to survive this.”

“Survive it or stop it?” I think about what Harrison said in the antique store that night I sleepwalked—about surviving being winning. More to the point, I think about the way Jack turned away like he didn’t agree.

Nora gives me a reassuring smile that reminds me of the old man. “Obviously, it would be amazing if we could stop it. I know Jack won’t rest until he does—or dies trying.” I don’t like that idea at all. The way she shakes her head, I don’t think she does, either. She blows out a breath that is a lot less reassuring. “I don’t really want anyone to die.”

“Sounds like people die either way,” points out Captain Obvious. And being Logan, he digs in. “From the demons feeding or from trying to stop the demons feeding. The honorable thing to do would be to fight.”

“And you’re an expert on honor?” Nora asks him—sharply, I think.

She pins him with a look and for the first time, he meets it.

There is something charged there that I do not understand. I open my mouth to say something, to ask why they’re both so weird with each other—

But Nora abruptly turns to me. “I better get home. Thank you for coming out to the airport tonight. You should be good to go for sleep now. Or contained sleep anyway.”

She goes to the door—all of three steps—and reaches out for the doorknob, but I stop her. I move without meaning to and literally stop her with my hand.

“You shouldn’t go out there alone,” I say.

It’s dark. There are demons. There are terrible things out beneath the Midas sky, and the thought of her out in all that alone makes my skin crawl. Remembering the eviscerated raccoon on what is essentially her back porch puts me even less at ease.

But she pats my hand over hers on the knob. “It’s fine. I promise. I have my protections, and there’s a path of light.”

“Nora.”