Darcy back stared at her. “Are you complimenting my intelligence or insulting my character?”

“Just working out my own issues.” Imogen disappeared back into the kitchen.

Darcy didn’t bother to answer that. Lately, Imogen was overwhelmed with her own anxiety about the first draft of Phobomancer. Two deadlines in the house at once was perhaps one too many.

Open on Darcy’s laptop screen were a dozen documents, the twelve best versions of the end of Afterworlds. Some were dark and melancholy, some light and uplifting, and some straight-up Happily Ever After. Darcy felt as though she’d written every possible ending for the book, and now it was simply a matter of picking one.

“I’m a writer, not a decider,” Darcy mumbled to herself. The words danced in her head for a while, as meaningless as the burble of boiling water from the kitchen.

Maybe she was afraid to pick an ending, because once this book was finished, the die was cast. She would either be a success or a failure, all her realness determined by that single throw.

Or maybe it was because she wasn’t so much a writer as a thief. She’d stolen her little ghost from her mother’s childhood, a kidnapping scene from her girlfriend, and the love interest from her own religion. Maybe she had no perfect ending because there wasn’t one to steal.

Imogen popped out from the kitchen again, a paring knife in hand. “What do you think of River Treeman?”

Darcy looked up. “Who’s that?”

“No one, yet. But how do you like it as a name?”

“Sounds like they had hippie parents. Or is this person an elf?”

“Crap. Never mind.” Imogen disappeared again.

Darcy shook her head, staring again at her laptop screen.

If only Kiralee Taylor had just told her how to end her book, or shamed her into fighting for her original tragic ending. But she’d made the whole experience a test of skill, in which Darcy either had to write a happy ending that went with the unhappy themes of her novel, or an unhappy ending that kept her unhappiness-hating publisher happy.

The word “happy” had started to sound wrong in Darcy’s head, like a random collection of Scrabble letters.

“What about Amanda Shearling?” Imogen called from the kitchen. “As a name.”

“Sounds like a really rich person.”

“Ugh.”

Apparently, Imogen’s mechanism for dealing with stress was to make up bad character names and cook. Of course, both were probably more useful than Darcy sitting here staring, as if her eyes could arrange the letters on the screen.

What if it was too late? What if she’d already written so many endings that she would never find the right one? Like kids who’ve told so many lies that they can no longer remember the truth.

“Gen?” she called. “Once the stew is stewing, I think I need you.”

It wasn’t long before Imogen emerged from the kitchen again, pulled out the chair opposite from Darcy, and sat down.

“The ribs are stewing, the mushrooms soaking. What’s up?”

“All my endings suck.”

“How many pages are we talking about exactly?”

“The last four chapters. Lizzie’s killed the bad man and chopped his memories up, then returned home and found out what her mom’s disease is. But after that . . .” Darcy stared her laptop. “Maybe the book’s already over. Killing the bad man is the cl**ax, and confronting her mom is the denouement. Maybe I’m just waffling for another ten thousand words. Maybe I’m already done.”

Imogen didn’t look convinced. “This isn’t an action movie, Darcy. You don’t kill the bad guy and then roll the credits.”

“If it’s not an action movie, what it is? A horror-slash-romance? A Bollywood musical? An indie film about a wilted helium balloon?”

“It’s not a movie at all, Darcy; it’s a novel. And novels are messy and tangled and complicated. If you end it right after the bad man dies, then we never find out what happens between Lizzie and Yamaraj.”

Darcy shook her head. “Maybe the book’s not really about him. Maybe Kiralee’s right, and he’s just there for purposes of YA hotness.”

“That’s not what she said. And what about the death cult? You want to leave that up in the air? And Mr. Hamlyn? And Anna’s disease?”

“Maybe all that stuff can be in Untitled Patel.” Saying the nontitle of her sequel filled Darcy with despair. She only had seven months left to turn in a first draft. How had she gone from someone who could write a whole novel in thirty days to someone who took half a year to rewrite four chapters?

“When you finish this book, then you can worry about Untitled Patel.” Imogen pulled off her Sparkle Pony apron, wadded it up, and cast it aside, all business now. “You can’t forget about Yamaraj. He’s the key to your ending. Your book is all about facing death!”

“Okay.” A little shudder of relief went through Darcy. Maybe if she just listened to Imogen talk, she might understand her own novel again. “What does fear of death have to do with Mr. YA Hotness?”

“People don’t just fear death. They get hot for it too. That’s why teenagers love slasher films—fear and excitement and lust, all wrapped up around getting killed. That’s why Lizzie wants Yamaraj.”

“Because she’s in love with death?”

“Not in love with, hot for.” Imogen was shredding the air with her hands now. “In those moments at the airport, Lizzie faces her own mortality. And Yamaraj is the guy who’s already faced it. He can hear it in the stones, smell it in the air. If she holds on to him, maybe death won’t be so scary! That’s why Mr. Hamlyn collects the memories of dying little kids, because it makes him feel like he has control over death. But of course it never works. That’s why you can’t end with killing the bad man. That isn’t even a victory, because you can’t win against death.”

Darcy stared back, dazzled as always by Imogen’s rantings. But behind the intensity was something subtle and true, a new facet of Yamaraj that Darcy had never glimpsed before. He was beautiful, not because he was hot, and not only because he’d faced down his own death. But because he was noble. Every day, he fought a war that he knew he would lose.

But she had to ask, “So they aren’t really in love?”

“Maybe she needed to love someone, after what happened to her. But love isn’t always a forever thing.”

Darcy sighed at that. Even though it was probably true, it went against everything books were for. In novels, love was perfect and without end.

“Can you just write this for me?”

A laugh came from Imogen. “Too busy making stew. And coming up with names. What do you think of Ska West?”

“Ska, like the music?” Darcy shook her head. “What are these for, anyway? Are you adding a bunch of new characters to Phobomancer?”

“They aren’t for characters,” Imogen said. “They’re pen names.”

“For who?”

“For me.” Imogen stood up and left the table.

Darcy sat there, stunned for a moment, but then pursued Imogen into the heat and sizzle of the kitchen. “Gen. Why do you need a pen name?”

Imogen began to chop, her knife slicing through daikon and scallions. “For when I have to start over. For when Paradox pulls the plug on my series, and no bookstore ever stocks me again.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Writers do it all the time. It’s better than dragging around a busted sales record.”

Darcy took a step closer. The thought of Imogen writing under another name was horrible. As if it would change her into someone else.

“They’re not going to cancel your series, Gen.”

“I’ll be glad when they do,” Imogen said. “Like in those hard-boiled crime novels, when the criminals are relieved to be caught.”

“Stop it, Imogen! You’re not a criminal, or an impostor, and Paradox isn’t canceling your series. And you don’t need a pen name, because Imogen Gray is going to be a famous bestselling author!”

Their eyes locked, Darcy challenging Imogen to dispute her. There was silence in the kitchen, except for the burble in the pan.

“I’ve already got a pen name,” Imogen finally said.

“No. Imogen Gray is your real name. That’s who you are.”

“I remember when you didn’t think so.”

“I was wrong.”

Imogen reached out to brush Darcy’s shoulder, her lips playing with a smile. But a moment later the expression soured, and she turned back to the cutting board. “This isn’t about me, it’s about business. Books fail. Writers fail. It’s not all YA heaven.”

The last two words stung, as they had ever since the argument over Imogen coming down for Pancha Ganapati.

“Where’s all this coming from, Gen?”

“My agent doesn’t like the new opening.”

Darcy shook her head. “You sent it to him?”

“Yesterday, to get him all excited about Phobomancer. Not a good move, it seems.” Imogen turned away to push her wooden spoon around the pan. “He says the inside of a car trunk is the wrong place to start a book, because there’s nothing to see.”

“But that’s the point!”

“Then the point is not clear.” Imogen let out a sigh. “He also says it’s not scary. Which is true, and makes perfect sense. I’m not really claustrophobic. When you drove me around in the trunk, you were the one who was nervous. I was having a blast!”

Darcy closed her eyes. It was true—Imogen wasn’t afraid of anything.

“I wish I could fix this for you.”

“Yeah, I know. You wish everything was YA heaven.”

There it was again, the magic words for mocking little innocent Darcy, who thought everything was easy, because she’d never had it hard.

She made herself swallow the insult. “Your career isn’t over, Gen.”

“Not yet. But you never know.”

“True. You could get hit by a bus tomorrow,” Darcy said, accepting that the real world was gritty and brutal, that life could suck. Sometimes, she wondered if Imogen’s pessimism was designed to toughen her up. As if Darcy was a project—hard work, as Gen had said on the night she’d found out about Imogen White.

“Or a taxi,” Imogen pointed out.

“Do you want to read the opening to me?” Darcy asked. “Sometimes out loud helps.”

Imogen looked down at her stew. “I read, you stir?”

“Perfect. And if it still sucks, I’ll think of some way to scare the crap out of you, I promise.”

Imogen smiled at last, and Darcy gathered her into a hug.

“Let me take a shower first. Gotta wash away the stench of failure.” Imogen pulled away to face her. “Thanks for talking me down.”

“I didn’t just piss you off more?”

“Only at first,” Imogen said, giving Darcy another smile. She handed over the wooden spoon. “Keep it simmering and skim off any foam.”

She headed for the bathroom, pulling off her T-shirt as she went.

Darcy took a slow breath, feeling more settled than she had all day. Helping Imogen through a freak-out had made her own crisis seem surmountable. Six days was long enough to make an ending. The main thing was not to panic.

Darcy focused on the simmering pot, letting her mind drift away from the various endings of Afterworlds. Maybe her subconscious would come up with something brilliant while she skimmed and stirred.

But her reverie didn’t last long, because watching stew simmer was boring. Darcy went to get her laptop, propped it open on the kitchen counter, and checked her email. There was a query from Rhea, her editor’s assistant: Can Nan call you tonight before she leaves work? She wants to see how the new ending’s going.