I sip sparkling pear cider and stand next to Alice, watching Susannah, Mary, and Susannah’s girlfriend dance. The venue my school rented for the Spring Fling is decked out in luxurious Titanic decor. Green velvet chairs surround antique tables strewn with nautical napkins and flower displays in the shape of anchors. The walls are dark wood with bookshelves, and there is an enormous, blazing fireplace. The ceiling is covered with tiny lights that look like twinkling stars. A string band plays everything from modern to classical. Almost everyone is on the dance floor, with a few groups hanging around the food tables.

Everyone is dressed in Titanic-inspired evening gowns and suits. We, of course, are in all black. When people ask us who we’re dressed up as and Alice tells them that “we’re in mourning for all the passengers who were locked behind gates and never given a chance,” there is an awkward silence, and then they walk away.

Jaxon catches my eye from the drink table. He’s with Dillon, and they’re both laughing so hard that Dillon is wiping at his eyes. I smile at Jaxon and he nods at me.

“Are you positive you’re okay with all this Titanic stuff?” Alice asks, studying my face.

I must look a little emotional. It’s hard to be here and not miss Ada and Mollie, my aunt and uncle, and all the others. To know the fate so many of the passengers suffered, how little chance most of them had of surviving. And yet, I know how lucky I am to have met them at all. “Yeah. I really am okay with it.”

“If you say so,” Alice says, but her tone is doubtful. She’s been by my side all evening. I half think she’s guarding me.

I turn to her. “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Okay?” There is something quieter about her since this whole thing happened.

She exhales. “Truth? I don’t know. It was a close call, Sam. I didn’t see what you guys saw about Niki and Blair. And I missed Matt entirely.”

“I missed him, too.”

“Yeah, but you had a spell on you not to recognize him. What’s my excuse?”

I shake my head. “Alice, don’t do that.”

“It’s hard not to.”

“I’m serious. Don’t do it. I did that with Vivian. Twisted it through my mind over and over. I hated myself.”

Alice’s eyes are strained, like she wants to believe me but can’t quite.

“And when I couldn’t come to terms with it, I tried to push it away. Bury the whole thing. Vivian, magic, you guys…everything.” I pause. “You were actually the one who helped me stop. Did you know that?”

She lifts a surprised eyebrow. “When I yelled at you?”

“When you told me that I had the opportunity to do something and that I was being selfish.”

“You were.”

I smile. Leave it to Alice to insult me while I’m trying to cheer her up. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said these past couple of days.”

“About teaching me how to see spirits?” Her icy blue eyes brighten.

“About getting over myself and doing something. When you got that message from your bones, you knew something horrible was coming. You came to me. But I was too stuck in my own head, worrying about my own problems.”

Alice nods in agreement, but not in a judgmental way.

“There I was, watching Matt repeat the injustice of what had happened to all those spirits. Noticing how the accounts we were reading left out Ada and Mollie and so many others. And yet I didn’t understand my role in it. I couldn’t see what you and Redd could see, that something had to be done. And what wound up happening? Matt manipulated me and those spirits for his own agenda. Vivian, Matt. I’m not gonna let that happen again. It’s time for me to make my own decisions about what I do with my magic, about who I want to be.”

“Like helping dead people pass on?”

“Exactly.” I take a good look at Alice. “It’s up to us, isn’t it? That’s what you were trying to tell me that day you yelled at me. It’s up to us to make sure this doesn’t keep happening.”

She smiles. A rare occurrence for her.

Mary bounces up to us, her curls in an elegant updo. “Oh no. Alice is smiling. What’s going on?”

Alice looks happier than I’ve seen her in days. “I think we’re starting a detective agency for the dead.”

Mary’s mouth opens. “I love it! We’ll be like Sherlock Holmes. The hats, the capes, the whole nine.”

I laugh. What did I get myself into?

“And Sam’s going to teach us how to see spirits,” Alice says.

Mary shivers dramatically. “No way. That’s your deal. I’m good not seeing them.”

Across the room an old woman with long salt-and-pepper hair sips tea and stares at me. Redd?

I put down my pear cider. “I’ll be right back.”

I weave through the dancing people, catching glimpses of her as I go. Just as I reach the edge of the crowd, she raises her eyebrows at me and blinks out.

I do a three-sixty, but she’s gone. Maybe I’ll start with Redd. Help her finish what she needs to so she can move on. That’s the least I owe her for what she did for me.

I turn back around. Elijah is standing in a shadowed corner watching me.

“You know, I found a lilac on my bedside table this morning,” I say, moving closer to him.

He’s in a suit with his hair combed. It’s unfair how attractive he is. “There is no scent in all the world more alluring.” He offers me his hand. “May I have the pleasure?”

I slip my hand into his. “You may.”

He wraps his arm around my body. I move slowly in rhythm with him, my face tilted up toward his.

“Elijah, do you ever think about the spell Vivian did that almost brought you back to life?”

“Every day,” he says, and pulls me closer.

In my peripheral vision I can see people stopping to watch me dance with thin air. And I couldn’t care less. This is who I am.