Leena heard the sounds of Mackenzie’s approach growing steadily closer.

  Bram’s head came up. He tugged at her. “No…Leena…we cannot…Theo…”

  “I know,” she soothed, even though her own heart quaked.

  But there was nowhere else to go.

  Before Leena could decide whether to trust Theo and go forward, or turn around and face Mackenzie with Bram’s pistol, the choice was no longer hers to make.

  She hadn’t seen the figure crouched in anticipation of their arrival until his strong hands had gripped her by the hair, dragging her away from Bram and into an open doorway at the side of the alley.

  She scratched the attacker, hearing a grunt when she raked her nails down his arm, all the while trying to reach for Bram’s pistol, but her assailant’s grip didn’t loosen.

  “Enough, dearie.”

  She froze, recognizing that voice. “You?”

  Only a single sconce burned in the house, and in that pool of light she could see the ugly face of Mr. Orley, demon leader of the Black Coats.

  Bram staggered after her, lunging for the pistol that was hidden in Leena’s pocket.

  Orley, expecting this, jammed his fist into Bram’s wound. Leena gasped as Bram let out a guttural moan before slumping onto the floor, unconscious. Blood bloomed through his shirt and stained the hardwood floor.

  Orley wiped his hands delicately on a handkerchief. Theodore Daye stood by his elbow, refusing to meet Leena’s eyes.

  “Now that he is asleep, my love,” Orley said pleasantly, “we can speak freely.”

  Leena tore into her pocket for her pistol, holding it aloft in trembling hands, but Orley barely spared it a glance.

  “You’re a traitor, Theo.” The accusation came out choked from Leena’s throat.

  Theodore Daye flinched.

  She could make out dim shapes of furniture in the weak light filtering from the sconce, and a hallway that extended farther into darkness. She could not see another door or window other than the one behind her.

  She made swift calculations in her head. She could shoot Orley and drag Bram out, but she quickly dismissed the idea. She could not lift Bram. So she would have to shoot Orley and barricade herself with Bram in this house. She peered uneasily at the hallway behind Orley’s shoulder, wondering if anyone else lingered in the shadows. She didn’t know how many bullets she had.

  As if sensing her thoughts, Orley let out a high-pitched giggle. “Ah, my friends have joined the party.”

  Mackenzie Crane stood blocking the entranceway, slamming the door shut and bolting it. He grinned at her, a smile crammed with the stolen teeth of others, waving his bandaged hand at her like a greeting. A young Burr stood beside him, leaning against the windowpane.

  She kept the pistol aimed at Orley, standing in front of Bram like a shield, but she knew that her actions were the desperate ones of a captured animal.

  Orley watched her in fascination.

  “Theodore told me how you treated him like a friend. It’s delightful. But Theo was mine all along, my dear.” The blacks of his eyes widened, thin lips moving as if he tasted something in the air. “Ah, your distress is so sweet.”

  Leena’s grip on the pistol tightened. “You’re a demon.”

  He sounded pleased. “So our mutual friend, Mr. St. Silas, has not left you completely in the dark.”

  Leena’s eyes hardened at Orley’s gall to even utter Bram’s name.

  “Can you see ghosts as well?” she grated out.

  Once more, Orley’s tongue poked out to lick his lips. A trace of color appeared on his cheeks, as if he were drunk on her fright.

  “No, I was not blessed with that gift,” he responded with an exaggerated sigh. “Mackenzie, have you ever heard of anyone possessing an ability quite like this lovely lady?”

  Leena stilled as she waited for an answer. Her arm began to ache from holding the pistol aloft. She wished that Bram would stir, that he would give her any indication that he hadn’t been more gravely injured, but she didn’t dare turn her back to check on him.

  Mackenzie’s answer came slowly, as if awakened from deep thought. “No, I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  A shiver ran down her spine and she thrust her pistol in the air. “You’ve lured us into a trap, Orley, using Theodore Daye. If you cannot see him, then how could you plan this?”

  From behind Orley, Theodore’s eyes were wild in his thin face, pleading for Leena’s forgiveness. She turned away from him.

  Orley held up a hand, the light glinting off the dozen rings he’d stuffed onto his elongated fingers. “I can speak to the dead. Their chattering is incessant, a gift that has always belonged to my family. We used to entertain at the courts of nobles.” He sniffed. “We used to be artists, before I was so unjustly banished to this world.”

  There was so much new information striking Leena from every direction that she felt dull with it.

  World?

  Rather than allow herself to dwell on it, she released the safety on the pistol. From the side, she heard a similar click, and turned to see Burr holding a pistol of his own. This time his hands were steady, his gaunt boyish face splitting into a monstrous grin.

  “For Adam,” he whispered, and Leena remembered with a shudder the Algaraan boy they had buried.

  “Now, now, hold fire,” Orley cautioned. “We all can be of use to each other.”

  “Use?” Leena’s laugh sounded shrill even to her own ears. “Are you not working for Hargreaves and the Wake?”

  “I’ve worked for them in the past, yes,” Orley replied. “It was I who told them about your abilities, and it was I who sent our ghost here to lead you on the hunt for the red diary.”

  It was further confirmation for Leena: Lord Avon was never going to come.

  Everything we’ve been through, coming to Weavingshaw—it has all been for naught. Leena’s chest was entirely hollow, as if her insides had been scooped out to fester outside her body.

  “Do you want the red diary?” she asked dully.

  All hopes of bargaining for their freedom were lost with the shake of Orley’s head. “I do not care for the diary. It is the Wake who want it. I want you.”

  Leena’s own lips curled in disgust. “What do you want from me?”

  “Hargreaves agreed to deliver you to me once his business had been concluded, but I began to believe that he would do no such thing. Yet you are endlessly valuable,” Orley responded. “I needed you to be outside of the Saint’s protection so that I might be able to act.” At her expression, he laughed. “I needed you to be desperate, and I believed being hunted from all sides would make you very desperate.”

  “Aye, the King’s army is approaching,” Mackenzie said, rapping on the doorframe with one large fist. “They’re not too far off. They will starve this town into submitting to the King’s will.” He flashed her another grin full of stolen gold. “It is truly your misfortune that the same day you leave Weavingshaw is the day for which the King’s soldiers had planned their siege.”

  Leena stilled completely, her horrified eyes nearly too wide for her face.

  “And I assume Lord Hargreaves is not far off,” Orley continued, sensing her fear and taking pleasure from it. Leena wondered if whatever the Wake wanted with her was better than whatever these three had planned. Lord Hargreaves could be bribed with the red diary. Orley could not.

  “Choose wisely, dearie. I am your best option.” At her silence, Orley continued, his tone oily and persuasive. “All I want is to make a deal with you.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  Orley threw a pointed glance at Bram’s collapsed form.

  She stayed silent, her mind frantically debating the choices set in front of her.

  “Can you believe it, Mackenzie?” Orley breathed, watching her with awe. “A vessel within a human. I never thought it possible.”

  “How can you be sure?” Mackenzie asked, tilting his head at her with significantly less amazement.

  “I have never been more sure.” Orley’s fascinated gaze had still not left Leena.

  Burr looked between the two of them. “What’s a vessel?”

  Leena jabbed her pistol in the air. “Answer him.”

  “Apologies.” Orley bowed low. “But ever since Theodore told me that you could see past the veil of death, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.” He laughed when he saw repulsion twist her features. “Oh no, not like that. I’d never lower myself to a human. Lovely as you are.”

  “What is a vessel?” Leena asked now, through gritted teeth.

  “I am a demon and I am far from home, trapped in this world littered with humans for centuries.” Orley blinked, his eyes turning misty. Leena wanted to throttle him. “I want to return. But demons, unlike humans, cannot travel easily between worlds without a vessel.”

  “Like a key,” Burr shouted, bouncing on his feet.

  Orley snapped his fingers. “Exactly like a key. Your human Saints destroyed too many of them, and they are now hard to find, and exceedingly valuable. They take the form of objects. A pebble on a beach full of pebbles might be a vessel. A seed. A twig.”

  She felt suddenly lightheaded. “And what does that have to do with me?”

  “A vessel has possessed you. I’m not yet sure how or when, but that is why you are connected to the spirit world.” Orley smiled, showcasing surprisingly white and healthy teeth. “And it is why you will help me return to mine.”

  That was the reason her life had stagnated—because she was nothing more than a host for some sort of vessel?

  The walls were closing in on her.

  Every breath leaving her chest was a gasp.

  “I will shoot everyone here,” Leena yelled, but her threat was made from desperation. Bram was unconscious. Mackenzie Crane blocked the door. Burr held a pistol. An army approached. And the Wake was hunting them.

  Then, a pounding at the door.

  Burr parted the curtains to look out. “Soldiers,” he called. “A few of them. They’re preparing to break down the door.”

  Orley glanced at his timepiece. “Our time is up. You’ve got no choice, madam. You will take me back to my world.”

  “I want a deal,” Leena demanded. If Bram had taught her anything, it was the importance of a deal.

  The demon locked his jaw.

  The pounding intensified, the wood of the door splitting.

  “Quickly,” he hissed.

  Leena did not allow herself even a moment’s pause to think. “I will not leave without St. Silas. You will take us to a safe place. And you will hand me the cure for Detritus Poison.”

  She wanted it in writing, but the hinges of the door began to rattle.

  “Agreed, agreed,” Orley said, then turned to Mackenzie Crane. “I relinquish all ownership of the Black Coats to you. Glad farewells, my friend.”

  Mackenzie raised a hand in parting.

  Orley, oddly strong for a man his size, lifted Bram by the shoulders and dragged him down the dark hallway into the back of the house. There he led them into a chamber, empty save for a long mirror framed in gold and a few lit candles burned nearly to the stubs.

  Leena looked down. The entirety of the wooden floor was covered with swirls drawn in salt, except for a path that led straight into the mirror. It was too dim to make out the shapes in the salt.

  A scream curled in her sternum, an aching panic.

  This room was unnatural.

  No, it was the mirror that was wrong. Evil.

  She felt the same shuddering fear looking at her reflection as she had staring into the dark waters of the Hall of the Lake. A feeling of anguish, deep within her bones, imprinted on her spirit—an ancient understanding that no human should go near that mirror. That it was not meant for them.

  “Come,” Orley urged, dragging Bram forward.

  Leena took a step. Then another. A gallows walk.

  Her reflection no longer resembled herself. The girl staring back possessed the same dark curls now loosened down her back, the same wild brown eyes, but her face was twisted and pained. Tear tracks ran down her cheeks. Terror was carving a new face out of the one she already had.

  A voice inside her begged her to turn back, to claw her own eyes out before allowing herself to see what lay behind the mirror.

  As if sensing her thoughts, Orley grabbed her hand in a fleshy grip.

  “Now,” he shouted. She could hear shouts from the other room—a shot being fired, a clash of steel. “Now! Take me back!”

  She knew what would happen before she reached for the mirror.

  At her fingertips, the solid glass dissolved like a curtain made of water.

  She could taste sweetness on her tongue, like ripping the skin of a peach, as she stepped into the demon world.

  A fire burned Leena from the inside out, so potent it felt as if her spine was being ripped apart.

  She collapsed to her knees, entirely blind to her surroundings, attempting to breathe through the pain. Blood dripped from her nose and eyes, splashing the hardwood floor like crimson teardrops. She began gagging, and it took her bleary mind a moment to realize she was also coughing up blood.

  It took minutes for the agony to finally cease. Leena collapsed onto her side, blinking through the haze. The bleeding had stopped, and she wiped her face with the back of her sleeve.

  Slowly, her senses returned.

  They had entered a small room containing only a bed, a wooden chair, a washstand, and a fireplace stacked with wood.

  Leena jolted up to a sitting position, searching for Bram.

  He was on the mattress; Orley must’ve put him there. Leena staggered toward him, emitting a sigh of relief when she saw the ragged rise and fall of Bram’s chest, although he was still unconscious.

  A candle was already lit by the bedside, the candelabra caked with years of rust. A few art prints hung on the wall, but the glass in their frames was covered by a thick dust.

  Orley stood by the window, and Leena was surprised to see tears dotting his eyes.

  “I’m home,” he choked out. “You do not know how long—” Another sob tore from him.

  Leena peeked through the dirty window. Wherever she was, it was pitch-black outside and she could only see her own horrified expression reflected back, streaks of blood still running down her cheeks. It was dead quiet—no soldiers pounding at the door, no townspeople constructing a doomed barricade.

  “We’re in the demon world.” The words felt foreign to Leena’s ears.

  “Yes, Bastmore. A safe place, as I promised.” Orley bowed once more. “This is where I used to stay when I came to the island to entertain at the Duke’s court. You are lucky that no traveling minstrel has taken up residence; they come and go as they please. You’ll need to keep a candle lit by the window so that they know the room has been claimed—if that is indeed the way they still do it. It has been years.”

  Leena stared at him. “I meant a safe place in the human world.”

  Orley shrugged. “Then you ought to have specified.”

  “Take. Us. Back.” Leena slammed a fist into her thigh with each word.

  Orley wagged a finger at her. “That was not part of the agreement.”

  It took a long moment for Leena’s tired mind to process this piece of unsettling news. It was another stab wound in a body that had already suffered a hundred.

  “My theory was right.” Orley clapped his hands in delight. His eyes roved her body as if she were a feast. There was nothing lecherous in his gaze, only fascination. “You are a vessel.”

  Her head felt heavy. “That means that the only reason I can see spirits is because I’m infected by a…a…parasite?”

  “Not a parasite, a vessel,” he corrected, chiding her like a schoolteacher. “Who knows how one has got into you?” Orley paused, then looked at her in a faintly pitying manner. “Hmm. You hoped there was a reason for your ability to see the dead? No, my dear, there isn’t. You are nothing—a happenstance, a host.”

  Leena swallowed.

  The demon sniffed the air. “Is that shame I can taste? Yes. How delicious.”

  Leena reared back. “I’m not ashamed.”

  “Yes, you are. You are ashamed of your nothingness.”

  Leena rose up to her full height. She could not afford to dwell on this now. “Our deal still stands, demon. You’ll fetch me the cure for the poison.”

  Orley’s face tightened with distaste. He sighed, then headed for the door. “Once I fetch you the cure, we will be free of each other.”

  Leena watched him go, then she quickly turned to check on Bram.

  The pulse in his neck pounded rapidly against her finger. His eyelids remained closed, his skin an unnaturally high color, and when she pressed a hand to his cheek he still felt warm.

  Leena wanted to check his bandages, but didn’t want Orley to come back and see the Saint of Silence in such a vulnerable position. Instead, she brushed a tendril of black hair away from his forehead and turned to investigate the room.

  She went to the mirror first, attempting to stretch her fingers through it, but was met only with cool glass. Her reflection showed a wild version of herself, stained with blood. Leena wiped her cheeks until the skin was raw, just to return to a sense of self.

  There was also a small room tucked away at the side that Leena hadn’t previously noticed. It held a claw-foot tub with only a curtain to act as a door. The tap creaked when she turned it, then spewed forth rusty water.

  Winter bit harder here, and she could see her own breath in the air. Beneath the bed, she found a musty blanket which she used to cover Bram.

  Finally, just as she steeled herself to take another look through the window, Orley returned.

  The demon held a brown package.

  Seeing this, Leena started forward, desperate to get her hands on the antidote. Things would be better once Bram was healthy again. They would make a plan then.