Act normal, I told myself as I pushed through the front doors of Erin Heights High School. Everything’s going to be just fine.

That thought lasted exactly thirty seconds. Then I saw Melinda, my best friend, waiting for me by our lockers. The look on her face immediately made me nervous. She looked way too excited about something.

It was eight thirty on a Monday morning and freezing cold outside. The roads were sheets of ice that only looked like roads. Everything else was blanketed in thick snow. Christmas break was still a whole week away. Obviously, in my opinion, there was nothing for Melinda to get all that excited about.

It was probably nothing. But I couldn’t help being on edge. After all, I now had a secret that had to be kept from everyone, including Melinda.

A week ago, I was a normal, boring teenager.

Then I met my father for the first time and found out he was a demon. And not just any demon: he was also the king of another dimension, called the Shadowlands.

Which made me a princess — a demon princess.

So very not normal.

That was the secret I now had to keep from everybody. After all, I didn’t live in the Shadowlands. I lived here, in the real world. With homework, crabby teachers, and a curfew.

Not that anyone would believe me if I actually told them the truth. It sounded all kinds of crazy, didn’t it?

I approached Melinda warily. I hadn’t spoken to her since Saturday morning — during a quick ten-minute phone call in which I pretended I was sick to get out of going to the mall with her. I’d been recovering from my near-death experience in the Shadowlands, when my demonic aunt Elizabeth had tried unsuccessfully to kill me and my father so she could take over the throne. That I wasn’t up for a few hours of shopping the next day didn’t make me a bad friend — just one who needed to sleep in as long as possible.