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Half-blood. His elf mother, Cordelia, had kept that from him to try to protect him. 
    “She took me to our home. The one where I lived with my mom and dad.”
    “Are you serious? Where is it?”
    “It’s in Missouri. A small town called Diamond. There’s nothing there. In the town, I mean. There isn’t anything remotely interesting about it, unless you count George Washington Carver National Park, which I don’t because to be honest, I don’t find peanuts to be all that exhilarating. It’s just a small town surrounded by lots of wooded area and farmland. It’s a place someone could easily disappear in. Except—“
    Except they still weren’t able to hide from Dugan.
    “Was it hard? Seeing it, I mean.”
    “At first.” He shrugs, “She wanted to try to find the campground we were camping at that night so we were looking for some clues.”
    “But why?”
    “She thinks there might be an entrance to the Underworld there. She wants to find it and block it off.”
    “An entrance to the Underworld? But how--?”
    “The humans working for Dugan, the ones he doesn’t value enough to give an amulet, have to have a way into the Underworld.”
    “Oh. Oh, that’s not good. But it makes perfect sense. You think it’s in the forest you were camping in with your family? Did you find the campground?”
    “Sorta, it’s over by this river called Jack’s Fork. It has several caves along the bank and there are rumors of a bottomless pool of water in one of them called Jam Up or something like that. Isobel seems pretty convinced that’s where we’ll find the portal to the Underworld. So now it’s just a matter of getting to it.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You can only get there by floating down the river. Obviously once we’ve been there once, we can transport there but the first time it’s going to be tricky. I guess the cave is hidden from view.”
    “How will you find it then?”
    “Isobel suspects I’ll be able to find it better than anyone.”
    “Why?”
    “She said that it might have its own— its own sort of aura. Sort of like an interruption in the atmosphere.”
    “Do you think that’ll work? That you’ll be able to see it?”
    He shrugs. “Maybe. I guess we’ll see. We’re going to check it out this weekend.”
    “This weekend? Can I come too?” This is such a big deal I feel like I should be there for him. Not that he would ever admit to being upset. I can’t imagine how hard it will be to be taken back to the place where his parents were murdered.
    “Of course,” he finally smiles. It's not his usual grin, but it's a smile nonetheless and I'm glad that I asked if I could tag along .
    I’m not ready for him to leave yet so in a moment of bravery (or stupidity if my Mom happens to check on me at some point in the middle of the night), I ask Jacoby, “Will you stay until I fall asleep?”
    He leans in and kisses me gently, causing tingles down my spine and filling my stomach with warm fuzzies. “I’ll stay as long as you’ll let me.”
    And with that, despite how busy my brain had been trying to process all of this new information, I fell into the most peaceful slumber I’ve had in days. 
     
     

Chapter Six
     
     
                  A s I’m heading to lunch on my first day at school with all three babysitters, I realize it’s not going as bad as I had expected.  Adele’s pretty discreet and doesn’t follow me into the stall when I have to use the restroom after all. Though we do have gym together, so she is in the locker room while I change, but I guess there’s really no way to avoid that. 
                  My only complaint is that it’s her first day and already she’s better than me in all of my classes. Apparently Adele’s a bookworm too, only instead of filling her mind with fantasy stories about wizards, vampires, and werewolves like me, she enjoys reading textbooks.
                  Nerd alert.