She was light-headed by the time he pulled back. Closing her eyes for a long time, she tried to get her thoughts to settle. Before, she’d hoped he would distract her from the pain, but now she found herself concentrating on the pounding in her head to keep from feeling an ache between her thighs.

  Car. Drive. Pharmacy. Home.

  Fuck.

  “If you’re done…” Charlie said, clearing her throat. She was shivering and hoped it was from the cold.

  “I can only take what you allow,” Red reminded her, voice turning stiff.

  He hated being bound to her. He might hate her, full stop. He didn’t remember agreeing to work for the Cabals. He had no reason to believe that she’d only bound herself to him to keep him out of worse trouble. All he remembered was Salt and Remy and blood, then nothing.

  To him, Charlie Hall was just a stranger to whom he was tethered. A stranger with the power to make him do unspeakable things. Of course he resented her. She just wasn’t sure what to do about it.

  Charlie turned the key, letting the van purr to life. Vince’s van, the one filled with spray bottles and plastic bags for his under-the-table job cleaning up crime scenes. She remembered him pressing her against the driver’s side door, his hands under her skirt, her nose against the hollow of his throat.

  Charlie tried to concentrate on anything else as she drove to the nearest Walgreens. Inside, she ignored the alarmed look she got from the floppy-haired teenage boy manning the front register and started filling a basket with medical tape, gauze, antiseptic wipes, peroxide, superglue, and black licorice Twizzlers.

  Christmas was only a few weeks away so the shelves were crammed with small tinsel trees, stuffed toy reindeer, and gift boxes of hot sauce, peppermint bubble bath, and cheap perfume, all making a play for last-minute, desperate shoppers. A shelf of televisions reported in chorus on the “Hatfield Cult Massacre” that had dominated the news in the last twenty-four hours. Charlie didn’t like hearing about it. Her mother had gotten married to her second husband at that same church where the bodies were found. Charlie and her sister had stood by a pew in their fancy dresses, wilting bouquets of Queen Anne’s lace in their sweaty hands. Even though none of them had gone down to the basement, where the murders actually happened, it still felt too close. The grisly reportage in the background made the weird, gnomish outdoor Santas even creepier as Charlie made her way through the aisles. The elves on shelves leered. A snowman with a glowing body blocked her way.

  Charlie wasn’t ready for another holiday. Thanksgiving had been bad enough. Her mother, of course, had asked about Vince and about—well, everything in the papers. Remy. Salt.

  “If he was so rich, you should have charged him rent,” her stepdad, Bob, said over their Stop & Shop turkey dinner—reheated in the oven of her mother’s long-stay hotel room.

  Charlie had taken a big gulp of not-so-bad boxed wine to buy herself time. She didn’t want to talk about Vince, not when Red was a shadow at her feet, listening to everything she said.

  “We did,” Posey said, interceding, for which Charlie was grateful.

  “Well, you should have charged him more.” Bob winked at Charlie. He was being nice and she knew it. They were all being nice, even with their questions. Dancing around what they really wanted to ask.

  “And he’s spending the holiday with his family?” Her mother poured Korbel champagne into glasses for the four of them. Mom might believe in astrology and mediums, but she didn’t even consider the idea Vince would give up having Thanksgiving at a table set with real crystal, where they would be eating a dinner prepared by a chef off plates rimmed in real gold. No one would love Charlie enough to choose her over that.

  Rich boys, they were different. Her family all knew that, even Bob. You might spend time with one, but you better get what you could when you could, because everything they promised you would evaporate like morning mist once you started to bore them.

  Red wasn’t really one of those rich boys. But he wasn’t exactly not one either.

  “Yeah, with his family,” Charlie had lied. “Maybe next year he’ll spend it with us.”

  It stung, the way her mother had looked at her after she said that. Pityingly. As though Charlie had become the one who didn’t understand how the world worked. Her mother, who had been a fool over men and believed their bullshit since before Charlie was born.

  Yeah, Christmas was going to suck.

  Charlie passed by some glitter-encrusted angels. She threw a lipstick and a bottle of Gatorade into her basket. Then she headed for the checkout counter.

  “You’ve got some…” the clerk said worriedly, making a motion at her face.

  Looking up, Charlie caught her distorted reflection in the overhead mirror. A red streak ran over her forehead and down one cheek. Reaching up, she ran her fingers through her hair. It was sticky, like honey crystalizing in a jar, and a place just over her ear stung. Another scrape from the shadow. Not as bad as the claw mark on her back, but head wounds bled more.

  “Thanks,” she told the clerk, then sighed. “Give me a scratch-off while you’re ringing that through. My luck can’t stay this bad forever.”

  The Hall women were born to hard breaks and bad decisions. They fell in love with the wrong people so consistently it was as though an ancestral curse doomed them to heartbreak, from a grandmother married to a guy so terrible she killed him, to Charlie’s last boyfriend, who shot her. Posey said that a man had to have a hole in his head, his heart, or his pocket for one of the Hall women to go head-over-heels for him—and Posey told people’s futures for a living.

  Scratch-off in one hand and bag swinging in the other, Charlie left the drugstore, trying to pretend she didn’t notice that the shadow following her looked nothing like one she ought to have cast.

  Even by the standards of Hall women, Charlie was in trouble.

  3

  Tame

  Bellamy had explained how it was going to go once he’d accepted that Charlie would be the next Hierophant.

  They’d been in the abandoned watchtower in Holyoke. That’s the place where the faction of the Cabals who called themselves masks and focused on obscure theories of shadowcraft used as their stronghold. Malik had been there, representing the puppeteers, Cabal members who used their shadows to control people. So had Vicereine, of the alterationists, who could reshape shadows—along with the nature of those bound to them. And Bellamy, of course, the mask leader. Three factions, representing three of the four aspects of shadow magic. The last, carapace, masters of physical shadow magic, went unrepresented.

  Five years she’d be the Hierophant, they’d told her. Three if she did particularly good work or if someone else pissed them off enough to be up for the position. “You’ll be happy to see the back of me faster than that,” Charlie had said, figuring some swagger never hurt.

  “Don’t push your luck,” Malik had told her.

  They’d give her the necessary supplies for the job, and she’d even earn a bounty on every Blight. A bit of cash for cat-sized ones and enough money for the human-sized ones that if she dispatched one every month and a half, she could probably afford to quit Rapture. Of course, if there was a human-sized one terrorizing the locals every month and a half, it was possible she had a bigger problem.

  “Give us your oath,” he’d said. “And we’ll give you the Blight.”

  So Charlie had looked into their eyes and promised to serve out her sentence for past wrongs by hunting down rogue shadows.

  Moments after, they’d brought out Vince, wrapped in chains of onyx. His eyes burned like living coals. She hadn’t been afraid of him then. She’d thought he was only angry because he hadn’t wanted her to tie herself to him, to the Cabals, to that mess.

  Back then, she thought she’d won. Outwitted them all. Stolen her lover back from under their noses. And she’d been certain she’d go on winning. That whatever bargain the Cabals made with her was going to be like one of those deal-with-the-devil ballads, where the fiddler triumphed in the end through talent and cleverness.

  Charlie Hall, drunk on love.

  Vicereine had formed a needle from her own shadow, pinching off a little at the edge. Then she seemed to reach into Vince and pulled on a piece of him. He gave a hiss when she touched him, as though what she’d done hurt. He was the sort of person who hid discomfort, so it must have really hurt.

  “What are you doing?” Charlie demanded. “Stop it.”

  “Preparing to bind him to you,” Vicereine told her, rolling a little bit of what she took into thread and handing over the rest to Bellamy. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “It doesn’t have to be like that,” Charlie said.

  “Ah, but it does,” Bellamy said, rolling the piece of shadow into a scroll-like stone tube. “With what we took of your Blight, we can track him should he ever attempt to disappear. And we can use it against him in other ways if that’s necessary.”

  “It will keep you safer, us having it,” said Malik. “Remember, he has only ever been bound to his creator. He might chafe at being yours. He might even come to wish you harm.”

  “Not everyone is like you,” Charlie had told him.

  “No one is like me,” said Malik, with a self-important smile. “Now, remember, he will be able to hear you when you speak, even if he isn’t manifested. As a shadow, he’s always present. Never forget that.”

  “Right,” Charlie said uneasily.

  “Emotions might also bleed through, if they’re very strong, but he won’t be able to pick through your thoughts unless you send them at him.”

  Well, that was a relief. Maybe it wasn’t going to be as bad as she’d feared.

  “What about memories?” she found herself asking.

  “He’s not your shadow, so there is a limit to the connection you can have with him. He’s not going to grow to become more like you. If you give him memories, he can absorb energy from them and experience them in that moment, but they won’t become his memories.”

  That was also a relief.

  Still, she couldn’t help wondering whether, in the night, he’d be able to rummage around in her dreams.

  Stop being paranoid, she told herself. Vince would never do that.

  Of course, if he did, if he even could, it’s not like she would know.

  Malik went on, hands behind his back as he paced. “The most important thing—the thing you must do—is give him your blood regularly. Every day would be best, but every few days at least. That’s the only way to keep the connection strong enough for you to command him.”

  He stopped and looked her directly in the eye. “And never forget—he’s not a person, he’s a Blight. You must control him, Charlie Hall. If you don’t—if we ever find that the tether has been broken or he’s acting independently, you will both lose the chance we’re generously granting you. And you will lose him, permanently.”

  “Meaning what, exactly?” Charlie asked. “Spell it out.”

  “Let’s leave it just as I said it.”

  Vince looked at Malik with those burning eyes and smiled. “I will be tame for Charlie,” he’d said.

  But Red didn’t recall making that promise. Once she and Vince were bound, he went silent. Outside, as she walked to her car through falling snow, she’d tried to cajole him, thinking he was mad at her for making a sacrifice of herself. Tried to tempt him with fresh blood squeezed from a finger.

  And then those first words echoing in her mind. You’re not Remy. That voice, soft with menace. His body, forming out of shadow with no recognition in his burning eyes. Triumph souring in her mouth.

  Charlie thought of that night often, wondering over the piece of Vince that had been taken from him. As far as she could tell, he’d lost more than a year of memories. Maybe if she could get that part of his shadow back, she would get Vince with it.

  4

  Redredred

  Charlie Hall was a puzzle and not one Red liked.

  When he was young, Remy had asked him where he went when he was a shadow. Red had tried to explain the nowhere place, the not-here and not-there. How he could see the real world from it, but blurred and distorted and silvery. Time moved differently there too, as though he was watching a movie that played normally for a few minutes, then fast-forwarded, and played again, and so on and so on.

  Watching Charlie clean her wound from the nowhere place, time seemed to slow instead of speed. She was facing away from him in the front seat of the van, using the rearview mirror to see her bare shoulder. Parked in front of her own house, but not going inside.

  The shortness of her black hair framed the strong bones of her face, but it also emphasized the exhausted hollowness under her eyes. Not even the bright pattern of scarabs tattooed along her collarbone could distract from them once you noticed.

  And he found himself noticing everything.

  When she drew up her shirt, biting her lip as she poured peroxide over her skin, Red could barely look away. Most of the liquid missed the wound, soaking the seat of the van. The little that hit fizzed like soda as she winced.

  He didn’t understand her.

  Why not tell him to do it for her? He wouldn’t have been unkind about it. He had been slow in the mill building, but he hadn’t realized that the thing had just fed. He’d thought it would be weak, the task easy. He hadn’t known Charlie was in danger until she called out, and even then, he hadn’t realized how much danger.

  He was haunted by the moment he arrived and saw her bruised and bleeding, Blight towering over her.

  Red wished time would speed up, the way it used to, taking that memory with it. Instead, he was forced to watch as she haphazardly glued her wound shut. Forced to note the shine of her eyes, the way her wet lashes dragged over her cheeks when she blinked, and how she swallowed a sob. The movement of her throat as she drank her Gatorade slowly, as though the electrolytes could cure blood loss.

  Why had she put herself in that position in the first place, back at the mill building? She had talked the Cabals into tethering him to her by agreeing to be their Hierophant, but why? What did she gain? He’d been valuable to Salt as a killer, but he didn’t think she wanted him for that. Despite being a self-described con artist and thief, she seemed squeamish about murder. But perhaps that was why she needed him? Or perhaps she thought he could be valuable in other ways. He could steal too, he supposed. He knew the layout of various gloamist estates with large libraries full of rarities.

  She told him that she’d tricked her way into being Hierophant because she loved him. Because she wanted to save him.

  That was ridiculous. People were afraid of Red, not worried about him. He made them uncomfortable. Even Remy, who cared more about him than anyone else, had been afraid and uncomfortable around him. And fine, she hadn’t known what he was for some of their relationship. But she’d known when she tethered herself to him.

  I am not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do.

  Everyone said that. Salt had certainly said it to Remy in the beginning, when he’d first come to live at the manor. Remy had even said it to Red, though by then he’d made Red do plenty. All saying it meant was that the person wouldn’t make you do something awful right away.

  So it didn’t matter that Charlie gazed at him with convincing warmth in her big brown eyes or treated him as though she really thought he was a person. He didn’t believe she’d been willing to put her own life on the line to save his. He didn’t believe any of it. She was a con artist and this was a con.

  5

  Hall Family Curse

  Charlie’s little sister, Posey, looked up from packing at the slam of the screen door. The kitchen cabinets were all open, half their contents haphazardly piled into cardboard boxes with wildly random, yet highly specific Sharpie’d labels—TINY UMBRELLAS, MUGS, SPATULA, TONGS & PASTA STRAINERS or LEMON SQUEEZER, KNIVES, TIARA & COFFEE GRINDER. Their cat, Lucipurrr, was in the box marked WORM BUCKET, barely visible except for the shine of her green eyes.

  “You’re finally back,” Posey said to her sister, glancing up. “Want to order a pizza?”

  Charlie smiled as though she wasn’t hurting. “Sure.”

  “I found us a place,” Posey went on. “The people from State Street called back. We just have to go over and sign the lease. We can be in next week.”

  “In Northampton?” Charlie asked, suspicious of good news. “You’re sure we can afford it?”

  “You’d be surprised—it was kinda cheap,” Posey said. “No idea why. Maybe a different murder happened there.”

  A man named Adam had been killed by the previous Hierophant in the Hall sisters’ current rental. His shadow had painted the walls of the living room with Adam’s blood. RedRedRed, written all the way up to the ceiling in gruesome letters, because it had been Red he was looking for.

  Charlie and Posey had moved back in as soon as the crime scene tape was taken down and the blood removed. But their ruthless practicality hadn’t mattered to the horrified owner, who’d offloaded the place as fast as he could onto some oblivious Brooklynites moving to the Valley after the birth of their second child. They were closing on the house just before Christmas, so that was the deadline when all of them—girls, cat, Blight—needed to be out.

  “So what do you need from me for the deposit?” Charlie wasn’t flush with cash, but she would be due a bounty for this Blight. And she’d caught two—albeit small and not that impressive or lucrative—before that. Plus, if she needed to, she had a couple of things she’d lifted from Salt’s mansion that she could pawn.

  “Nothing yet,” Posey said.

  Which might mean she’d need the whole thing and just didn’t want to give Charlie the bad news. Posey had been working as a tarot card reader over Zoom for more than a year, a job that had never been immensely profitable. And since Posey became a gloamist, she’d been going out, when previously she’d been unwilling to leave the house for months at a time. Posey’s socioemotional health was on the rise, which was a relief to Charlie, but her wallet had taken the hit. These days, Posey barely seemed to work at all.