"That's an understatement," I muttered.

 

And the war council adjourned.

 

FOUR

 

WE BURN A METAL SHROUD

 

I dreamed Rachel Elizabeth Dare was throwing darts at my picture.

 

She was standing in her room . . . Okay, back up. I have to explain that Rachel

doesn't have a room.

 

She has the top floor of her family's mansion, which is a renovated brownstone

in Brooklyn. Her "room" is a huge loft with industrial lighting and

floor-to-ceiling windows. It's about twice as big as my mom's apartment.

 

Some alt rock was blaring from her paint-covered Bose docking system. As far as

I could tell, Rachel's only rule about music was that no two songs on her iPod

could sound the same, and they all had to be strange.

 

She wore a kimono, and her hair was frizzy, like she'd been sleeping. Her bed

was messed up. Sheets hung over a bunch of artist's easels. Dirty clothes and

old energy bar wrappers were strewn around the floor, but when you've got a room

that big, the mess doesn't look so bad. Out the windows you could see the entire