Chapter 1

My father was the King of Hell. He complained that the underworld's schools were useless, teaching nothing but ghost nonsense, so he pulled some strings and sent me to study among the living instead.

He forgot to exchange my money before I left, though, and I arrived in the mortal world with hundreds of billions in underworld currency stuffed in my pockets.

When I started school, the teacher told us tuition was ten thousand dollars a year. I'd never seen such a small figure in my life, so with a wave of my hand, I handed the principal a million dollars.

He thought he'd struck it rich, but the moment he realized it was underworld currency, he immediately filed paperwork to get me a need-based scholarship instead. Not only did he waive all my tuition and fees for the next three years, he made a point of telling every teacher to look out for me.

"The poor kid's all alone in the world at his age, and he's not quite right in the head either. It's just so sad."

On the first day of school, the teacher had us fill out our personal information, including our home address. A classmate asked where I lived.

I thought about how every ghost in the underworld called my father the King of Hell. If he was a king, then surely we lived in a palace. But the second I said that, everyone around me burst out laughing so hard they nearly fell out of their seats.

Someone else asked how big my house was. The history teacher had once said the biggest palace in the world was the Palace of Versailles. Honestly, in the several hundred years I'd been alive, I'd never once managed to walk the whole length of my own house, so by that math, my house was probably about the same size as Versailles.

The moment I said that, the laughter around me only got louder.

"I'm dying. He actually thinks he's some kind of prince. Guess he hasn't heard the French monarchy fell two centuries ago."

"I used to think he was just putting on an act. Turns out there's really something wrong with his head!"

"It's not just his head. Something's wrong with him mentally too. He even tried to pay for things with underworld currency."

My father always said humans were clever. I didn't see it. I must have answered the same questions a hundred times, yet people kept asking me the exact same things, over and over, for all three years of high school.

Next time I went home, I'd have to tell Agnes to stop making so much of her special soup. Humans clearly didn't have the memory for it anyway.

My father wanted me to stay among the living for eighteen years before coming home. Once the finals were over, I figured the time was almost up. I had maybe another week before I could finally go home.

While I was packing up my things, a group of boys walked up to ask me, yet again, where I lived. I was used to their forgetfulness by now.

"The palace," I said flatly.

They exchanged a look, then burst out laughing.

"A crown prince who lives in a palace but still needs a poverty scholarship?"

"I heard when he paid tuition, it was in underworld currency, and he handed a million at a time. What a baller."

"His Highness here is quite the daydreamer too. He introduced himself once by saying his family had more servants than he could count!"

A voice cut in from behind us, telling them to stop.

"All right, that's enough laughing!"

Tyler Knight, the class heartthrob, pretended to come to my defense.

"Come on, you're being way too harsh on Nico!"

"Sure, Nico's a little slow and likes to make things up, but he's never hurt anyone. Give the guy a break."

Tyler was supposedly speaking up for me, so why did it feel like he was actually insulting me?

"I wasn't lying," I said, cutting him off.

The corner of Tyler's mouth curled up, and his eyes flicked with something sly.

"Well then, why don't we all take a class trip this summer? Let's make Nico's house the destination."

He shot me a look that was anything but friendly. "What do you say, Nico? Your house is supposedly so big, surely it can fit all of us, right?"