Well, he’d badly miscalculated what it took to drug Charlie Hall, who’d been drinking for years and had the tolerance of a small elephant. And he’d badly miscalculated how petty Charlie could be when she was crossed. He was going to be very sorry he fucked with her.

  Wrapping one of the sleeping bags around her shoulders in lieu of a coat, Charlie opened the back door of the van and slid out. She didn’t recognize the street.

  Something metallic slid off her body as she moved, hitting the road with the tinkle of metal on icy asphalt. She reached down and picked up a familiar ring of keys. He’d left the keys to the van?

  A growing fear punched a hole in her fury. He’d obviously left her the keys in case he didn’t return. Which meant he thought that was a possibility. Charlie still wanted to scream at him, to snarl in his face, to make him pay. But she needed to find him and make sure he was all right before she could do any of that.

  That was when she recognized the dizzy emptiness swirling inside her, the lack of a warmth she hadn’t realized was present. The tether was gone.

  And without being bound to him, there was no thin line of shadow to follow. He must have gone on foot, so she suspected he couldn’t be far, but that didn’t help her know which direction. And while Charlie had followed him into the gas station bathroom and seen the address, she’d only taken a photo, assuming she’d have access to her phone. She only sort of remembered—the street started with an M and was something found in nature. Mulberry? Maple?

  Fumbling through her pockets, she was relieved to find her phone where she left it. Another sign that he had intended her to get away easily when she woke. She looked up the photo of the address, then plugged it into a map app.

  Less than a ten-minute walk, her phone informed her.

  She exchanged the sleeping bag she was using as a coat for three onyx knives from her emergency Blight-hunting kit.

  Three turns down three streets later, she came to a nondescript house. It was small, with a scrubby lawn and no lights on behind the closed blinds. Down the street, she could see garbage cans set out at all the houses but this one.

  Charlie went around the back, listening intently.

  From a few doors over, music was playing, too faint at this distance for her to be able to pick out anything more than a pounding bass. The swipe of tires through slush came occasionally from the road where Charlie had left the van.

  The house was silent.

  A back door gaped open, though the screen door had shut, as though someone had left in a hurry. Behind it was only darkness. She pulled open the screen door, wincing at the creak of rusty hinges.

  The smell hit her first. Spoiled meat, left to rot for days. It made the air feel thick in her throat.

  She couldn’t go farther without some kind of light. After hesitating, she flicked on the flashlight of her phone. Then she sucked in a sharp breath.

  The kitchen floor was smeared with wet blood, looking as though someone had tried to mop it, then gave up. Charlie stepped to one side, levering herself over with her palms on the messy, food-covered countertop, sleeves pulled down over her fingers so she wouldn’t leave prints. Then she slipped into the living room.

  Two bodies rested on the couch. A dead couple. Middle-aged, and purpled with rot. Shallow slashes covered their arms and chests. The cushions beneath them were black with blood and covered in flies.

  Nausea turned Charlie’s stomach.

  She forced herself to look around the room. Dark spatter decorated the walls, bringing her viscerally back to months ago when she’d walked into her house to find a dead man and walls streaked with blood. Dizziness hit her hard, the memory of that terror overlaying the terror she felt now. Despite it, she forced herself to get closer to the bodies. A series of what looked like human bites ran along the woman’s lower arms. Indentations braceleted both the victims’ wrists, as though from restraints.

  She moved into the next room, where the splintered wood of a dining room table littered the floor. A fine black powder coated everything, suggesting that more than one Blight had died there. Slivered shards of wood had hit the walls with such force that they were buried in them.

  Moving around her flashlight, Charlie saw a shadow on the ground, lit at the wrong angle. Holding an onyx knife in front of her, she squatted down and pushed back debris to see the shadow better.

  Nearly insubstantial, Red appeared little more than smoke.

  “Char,” he whispered, the words sounding like something caught by the wind. “They’re looking for you. Go, you’ve got to go.”

  Her gaze went to the stairs, to the hall, but she saw nothing and no one.

  “Not without you, you monstrous idiot,” she told him.

  “He—” Red started. “They—” But he didn’t seem able to say any more.

  Charlie bent down, and pressed the blade of the onyx knife to the side of her hand. It hurt more than a razor blade, requiring her to stab her own skin. She gritted her teeth. Blood beaded up and began to drip.

  She didn’t have to worry about her DNA being discovered at the crime scene, though. Not a single drop hit the floor—it ran over her wrist to her elbow, then disappeared into his shadow.

  Leaving him barely more substantial than before.

  She shifted closer.

  “Don’t,” he rasped. “I will drink you dry.”

  She ignored him and stabbed her hand again. At least she could give him something.

  The darkness rose up and fastened itself around her hand. She could feel the laving of his tongue against her wound. The press of his open mouth, drinking. And as he drew her blood, she felt something else being pulled out of her, parts of herself that she wasn’t sure she could get back.

  Drowning people often killed their rescuers by pushing them under water, scrambling up their bodies for a breath. Even untethered from him as she was, she could sense the vastness of his hunger.

  She recalled Vince whispering to the gloamist who’d come looking for her in Rapture. You’ve let your shadow feed for too long tonight, Vince had told the man right before he snapped his neck. There’s not much of you left. Can’t you feel the strain, like something spooling out of you?

  “Enough,” Charlie snapped, trying to pull her arm free.

  “I need you,” he said tightening his grip. “Please. I need—”

  She yanked away, stumbling to her feet, then took three steps from him. “You’re lucky I’m helping you at all.”

  Though he had a disturbing translucence, she could make out his features. He had never before so resembled a ghost.

  “Can you get up?”

  “There’s not much of me left,” he said.

  For a moment, despair closed over Charlie. “You’ll be okay.” It wasn’t fair to lose him before she got to yell at him and make him grovel.

  He couldn’t die. And with her trickster’s habit of looking for a way out, her con artist’s belief that everything, even death itself, could be swindled, she thought of a possible angle. Looking at the fine black powder on the floor, she swept a handful into her pocket.

  “Not enough of you?” she asked. “Fine. Then I’ll steal some more.”

  “Char,” he said in warning.

  She leaned down to help him up, afraid her fingers would pass right through his skin. He was solid enough for her to pull him to his feet. He leaned against her and she was reassured by his weight though the draining of her energy left her lightheaded.

  “You need more blood,” she said as they made their way to the door. “Just not mine.”

  Charlie tried not to look into the living room, at the macabre sight of the corpses, sitting on the couch of their gore-covered living room like abandoned toys. They made her think of Mr. Punch and the homeowners he’d puppeted, standing on stairs with their eyes closed. For the first time, she noticed how tidy the living room was if she ignored the bloodbath, in contrast to the kitchen, where dirty dishes stuffed the sink, pots covered the stove, garbage spilled out over the tops of trash cans, and cigarette butts filled cups and plates.

  Whoever had murdered those people had stayed here with their corpses, cooking food. Eating takeout. Smoking. Not just Blights, then.

  Charlie led Red through the house. “Remember when I promised I’d never order you to do anything? When this is over, I am going to make you do everything. I am going to make you pick up trash by the side of the road.”

  He was stumbling like a drunk. “Whatever you want.”

  “I’ve got you,” she said, pushing open the screen with her shoulder. “You asshole.” Her eyes snagged on one of the cigarette butts in the sink, gold lines on the filter.

  “I didn’t kill them,” he told her.

  “No shit.” They stepped onto the street, cold air making her shiver now that she had less blood to keep herself warm.

  They managed the three blocks to the van. She opened the back and helped him inside where she settled him on the sleeping bags.

  “I didn’t want anyone to hurt you,” he said, sounding as though he was speaking from very far away.

  She knew that shadows could burn up if a gloamist forced them to use more energy than they possessed, but she’d never seen it happen. She wasn’t sure how much energy Red had left. She hoped he had enough time to get where they were going. Hoped there was enough time to save him. “No one but you, right?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I can’t wait to hear your excuse for tonight.”

  He still said nothing in return.

  “If it boils down to you hating yourself, please hate yourself a little more, on my behalf.” Then she slammed the doors closed, hands shaking.

  In the driver’s seat, still not sure how much of the drug remained in her system, Charlie contemplated the steps of her plan.

  “I’m taking you to the masks,” Charlie called into the back.

  “You really do hate me,” Red groaned, reassuring her that he was still alive.

  Charlie smiled as she turned the key. In the dim light, she could see her own teeth reflected in the mirror.

  * * *

  Charlie’s first phone call was to Balthazar, asking him to get Bellamy away from his tower.

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve, I’ll say that for you.” In the background, she could hear the bustling of the shadow parlor underneath Rapture. Balthazar sounded annoyed. “You only just paid up and you want to go into debt with me again?”

  Panic made her patience next to nil. “Please,” she ground out. “Do this and you can call in any favor. I’ll do whatever job you want. I’ll trade in the Blight I got for you for any better one that comes across my path.”

  “She can hear you, you know, and that’s not very nice. She and I are getting along swimmingly.”

  “What about you and Bellamy?” Charlie asked.

  “I’d never fuck over my new friend for a man, Charlie Hall. But that doesn’t mean that I would fuck over my man for someone I am not at all sure is a friend.” She’d known Balthazar for years, but their relationship had always been transactional. She’d never considered that he might want it to be otherwise.

  “Do this and you’re my best friend,” she said. “Seriously. I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t life or death.”

  “Is it going to come back on me?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “Bellamy will never have any reason to suspect you were part of this.”

  “He better not,” Balthazar said and hung up.

  Her second call, to someone she swore she would never ask for help, was even worse.

  * * *

  The old watchtower in Holyoke was the place where the masks had held Vince after the death of Salt. That was where he’d been chained, where she’d bargained for his life, and where he’d forgotten her. She absolutely hated that she was bringing him back here, hoping for his salvation.

  The whole drive over, Red’s pain was evident. He made soft, agonized sounds. He shifted, like someone who couldn’t get comfortable. She wondered why he didn’t return to shadow and was afraid that he couldn’t afford the energy for even that. And as much as she hated hearing him in pain, so long as he could make sounds, there was still hope.

  Charlie had planned to come back to the watchtower on her own, to slither in and tell enough lies that she could make it to the basement vault, to steal from it the part of Red that had been held hostage, the part she had hoped would contain his memories of her, and of being Vince. Now, she needed to steal it if he was going to survive.

  She thought of Red, sitting beside her, hand on the wheel of the Porsche, truth spilling from his lips. The pain in his voice when he told her that he couldn’t have her, nothing hidden in his face. Red was Vince, but he was also Vince’s biggest secret. Crack Vince open and Red had always been inside. She even remembered moments, looking back, that she’d glimpsed Red. She just hadn’t known who she was looking at.

  If Vince’s memories returned, would she lose Red? Would he hide himself—his truest self—away again? The thought made her stomach hurt.

  And made Charlie wonder if there was a secret self inside of her too, waiting to be let out.

  * * *

  As soon as she parked the van, Charlie jumped out and opened the doors to the back. Red appeared unconscious, beyond pain, but still present. She reached under him, into her Blight-hunting go-bag, where she pulled out the onyx box she never used, then deposited the black silt from her pockets inside.

  Once that was done, she reached over to wake Red, but at least twice, her hand passed right through his skin. The third time, she wound her onyx necklace around her palm. With that, her fingers closed on his elbow and she shook him hard.

  He woke enough to help her sling one of his arms over her shoulder. He leaned less than his full weight against her as they limped toward the door.

  The same girl with the shaved head and heavy makeup who’d opened it the last time Charlie had come to the watchtower looked at them with a skeptical expression. The piercing on her cheek had healed. It looked good.

  “Sally,” Charlie said. Remembering names was an important skill for a grifter. “Let us in.”

  Sally narrowed her eyes, unimpressed. “You’re no mask. This place isn’t for you.”

  Charlie blew out a frustrated breath. “Tell Bellamy that the Hierophant is here to see him. It’s an emergency.”

  Sally frowned at Charlie, then frowned even more at the man leaning heavily on her shoulder, light streaming through him. Finally, she stepped out of the way. “He’s not here, but I guess you can come in and wait in the parlor.

  “Milo,” Sally shouted as Charlie half-dragged Red inside. “Call Bellamy. Now!”

  That meant the timer had started. Charlie had fifteen minutes to pull this thing off, maybe. Perhaps only ten.

  At least five agonizing minutes were spent getting Red into the parlor on the second floor, the one hung with scarlet curtains. She settled him on velvet cushions.

  “Hang on,” she told him, firmly, wishing she could speak inside his mind. “You’re going to be okay.”

  “He doesn’t look good,” said Milo, who’d come into the room. “I’ve seen a shadow like that before and—”

  “I need you to take me to your vault.” Charlie interrupted him before he could tell them something dire. She held up the onyx box and made her voice tremble. “I caught a Blight. A terrible one. Really bad. I need to lock it away.”

  The kind of con she had learned from Rand, the kind she had specialized in, unfolded slowly. It took time to get a mark to trust, to misdirect them, to get them to go along for the ride. But there was another kind—the street con. That burned fast and hot, putting marks into a highly vulnerable state, where doing felt important, even if the thing being done was a mistake.

  “I’m scared,” she said, turning to them in wide-eyed panic that was pure bullshit. “There were three of them, more powerful than anything I’ve ever seen. He killed one and almost died doing it. The second one is trapped in here. The third—the third is still out there.”

  “You’re safe,” Sally said, but she glanced toward the door.

  Charlie needed them to be as upset as she was. “I know you have a vault.” She held up the onyx box from the van. “I need to get this inside so it can’t get loose in the world again. It’s killed a lot of people.”

  “What people?” Milo sounded nervous. There might not be anyone but these two in the tower right now.

  “They were slaughtered like animals!” Charlie shouted, loud enough to startle them. When someone started melting down, there was a natural instinct to try to do whatever it would take to fix things, and also to panic a bit.

  “Slow your roll,” Sally told her, entirely too reasonably. “What are you saying?”

  Charlie let all the anger she’d felt toward the Cabals come out in her voice. “I am saying that I want to keep this thing locked away in your vault,” she told them, speaking fast. “What is it for if not to keep a Blight secure? What is the use of any of you?”

  “I can—” Milo started.

  “Take me now!” Charlie pressed the box to her chest, hoping he’d see that volunteering to take it off her hands, even if it meant bringing it where she wanted it to go, wasn’t going to fly.

  “I’ll secure it,” Sally tried anyway, although she didn’t look hopeful that Charlie would go for her offer.

  “Oh, you don’t want me to know where your vault is?” Charlie snapped. “I am a master thief! Do you think I don’t already know?” Thanks to the map Balthazar had gotten her, she was able to describe the way precisely—which she did, in detail, to their growing consternation. “Now, want me to tell you how I’d break in?”

  “Okay,” Sally said, finally sounding rattled. “But once that Blight is locked up, it belongs to Bellamy and the masks.”

  Charlie let the moment draw out, as though she was confronting a hard truth. It had to make them feel good to think they were taking something off her for their boss. “You mean I won’t be able to claim the bounty.”