Charlie planned to chew up a couple of aspirin, take a weed gummy, and see how badly she hurt in the morning and how swollen her eye became. It wasn’t a good sign that she felt stiff enough that going for underwear and a fresh t-shirt felt like something she had to talk herself into, though.

  For a moment, the air felt static, a familiar enough sensation that she knew what it meant. She turned to see Red staring at her with burning eyes.

  She pushed wet hair back from her face, refusing to let him see how much he rattled her. “Throw me a shirt to sleep in.”

  He couldn’t hurt her. She was in control. Wasn’t that what he was always telling her—that she had power over him? She had no reason to be afraid.

  Red walked to her dresser, opened it, and took out a tee with the logo of a club from a vampire TV show on it. He handed it to her carefully, as though she might bite, and his gaze lingered a moment too long on her collarbone.

  He turned away, but her fear had already mutated into something else. Desire, sharp as a kick to the teeth.

  Most of the time he seemed to despise her, but not always. Tonight, she’d made him laugh. And now he was staring at her.

  Charlie took a deep breath.

  “Want to come to bed?” she whispered, letting the towel fall. At least no one could call her fainthearted.

  For a moment, he went entirely silent. Then a muscle moved in his jaw. She could see his body respond to her. Seemed he was human enough for that, still full of blood. When he spoke, his voice was rough. “Remy could never have loved someone like you.”

  His words felt like a slap. For a moment, as with physical pain, she had to remain still until the feeling settled. Then she put on her most vicious smile. “Maybe you don’t love me either. But you want me—you’ve always wanted me.”

  He took a step back, which she considered a triumph. That’s right, terrifying Blight. I’m a loose cannon. I can hurt you with words.

  “Too bad you’re not getting me tonight,” she went on, leaning into the pettiness. She grabbed the t-shirt he’d given her and pulled it over her head. “Offer of sex rescinded.” Then she had to go through the indignity of getting up and finding a pair of underwear. Once they were on, though, Charlie flopped onto the mattress, turning her back to him.

  “You could make me, you know,” Red said, from where he still stood, close to the door. “You don’t have to ask.”

  Charlie turned over in surprise, pain making her regret the swiftness of her movement. “What?”

  He didn’t repeat himself, but if he wanted a fight, she was ready. It would be a relief to turn her shame and confusion into anger. “You want me to order you around? Is that it? You like being told what to do?”

  “Stop pretending,” he snapped, biting off each word at the end. “You’re going to send me to do ugly things eventually. Why act like you won’t? Why play this game?”

  “If you don’t want to be tethered to me, then give me one of the onyx knives in the bedside table and I’ll cut you free right now. The Cabal might hunt you down, but that won’t be my problem.”

  His lip curled. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Hand one to me and find out,” she said. “Unless you’re worried that if you get too close, I’ll stab you through the heart.”

  “Maybe we’ll play that game another night,” he said. And then he was gone, dissolved into darkness.

  “Only a coward ends a fight like that,” Charlie shouted, throwing a pillow at the space where he used to be standing.

  He didn’t return.

  9

  [DRAFT] Transcription via AI from recording by Madurai Malhar Iyer

  Context: I was asked to talk to the shadow in these recordings, who refers to himself as “Red,” with the hope I might remedy memory loss caused by Red’s transformation from a self-sustaining shadow (sometimes also called a wild shadow or Blight, although the negative implications of the latter designation are obvious) to a parasitic, bound shadow.

  Personal bias: I have a friendship with Charlotte Hall, the person to whom Red is bound and a closer friendship [note to self: situationship? something else that sounds more scientific? tk] with her sister, Posey Hall. I didn’t know Red before he lost his memories, although I am aware that he went by “Vincent” and was able to pass for human.

  Further personal bias [remove? tk]: I have wanted to talk with a Blight for a long time.

  Also note: He is terrifying.

  Malhar: You can tell me to stop asking questions at any time and the interview will end.

  Red: Good. Stop asking me questions.

  Malhar: Don’t you want to remember?

  Red: Remember what? Naming myself Vincent? Pretending to be a person and living among them? I don’t know. Should I want that?

  Malhar: What do you want?

  Red: To be …

  Malhar: Human?

  Red: To be or not to be. That is the question. Or what is it—I think therefore I am? And I am. Or at least I think I am. I am. Sam. Green eggs and ham.

  Malhar: What does it mean when you talk that way?

  Red: Maybe just that I don’t know what’s appropriate to say out loud. Some of my thoughts should probably be in chains.

  Malhar: That’s a dramatic way of putting it.

  Red: That’s what you think, though, isn’t it? That it would be easier if I was in chains.

  Malhar: Why would you say that?

  Red: I can tell you’re afraid.

  Malhar: Of course I am. I’m aware that I don’t know you very well and that you could hurt me. You’ve hurt other people. You admitted that much. But I’ve decided to trust you.

  Red: Is that smart?

  Malhar: You tell me.

  Red: I have wanted to be human.

  Malhar: I’m surprised. A minute or so ago, I thought you felt otherwise. In fact, I thought you were mocking me for suggesting it.

  Red: Who wants to be a thing full of holes? A half-woven tapestry? Something poised to unravel? Something that maybe shouldn’t be at all. I’m just the pieces someone else didn’t want. Why would I want to be as I am?

  Malhar: Do you believe that? That that’s all a shadow is?

  Red: Now you’re the one who must tell me. You’re the scientist.

  Malhar: I’m an ethnographer.

  Red: And I am a creature made of holes. I don’t know what an ethnographer is.

  Malhar: We’re supposed to be talking about you. About how you see the world. And don’t worry about not knowing what an ethnographer is—my cousins give me endless crap about it not being a real job. Even my mother keeps forgetting what it means.

  Red: I don’t know how to describe how I see the world. I don’t have anything to compare it with. I could say that I see it how it is, but I know too much for that. Like—what’s it called, the thing with the shadows on the wall of the cave? Plato?

  Malhar: You are a disturbing combination of erudition and instability.

  Red: Oh yes. I disturb even myself.

  10

  Bad Advice

  Charlie woke in the dark, dragged out of dreams of Blights and birthday cakes and crowds of sticky children holding hands with shadows as they spun in circles, singing Ring around the gloom, pockets full of moons. Shadows! Shadows! We all fall into doom.

  She sat upright, alert but not sure why, until she heard a too-heavy tread on the floor. Enough to make the floorboards creak.

  Rolling on her side, Charlie felt around for the iron bar she’d shoved underneath her mattress after the events of this past autumn.

  “Is someone there?” she heard Posey call sleepily. Posey didn’t sound scared, which scared the hell out of Charlie.

  She shoved open her bedroom door, iron bar held high.

  Two men stepped into the hall, their shadows looming around them. One had a gun, the other held a net threaded with onyx beads. Both of them wore dark clothes, boots, and coats. For a moment, they just stared.

  Not at Charlie or Posey. At Red, who was forming in front of them.

  “What do you want?” Posey demanded, a quaver in her voice.

  The combination of the looming shadow; Charlie in her t-shirt, underwear, crowbar, and black eye; and Posey in Demon Slayer pajamas, laptop tucked casually under one arm, had to be disorienting.

  Oddly, though, they looked as though they’d come expecting something much worse.

  “You,” a man with a thin goatee said to Charlie. “One of the Cabal leaders wants to see you.”

  “In the middle of the night?” When Balthazar gave her the message from Vicereine, it hadn’t sounded this imperative.

  “When one of them jerks on your leash, you come immediately,” said the other guy, a much younger redhead.

  Charlie rubbed her face with the back of her free hand. “This is ridiculous. You don’t need to do all this.”

  “If you need a stronger reminder that the Hierophant serves at the pleasure of the Cabals, we can supply it,” said the goateed goon.

  “Can you?” Red asked, soft and menacing.

  It came to her that when she didn’t respond to messages, Vicereine might have thought something happened. Maybe that Red happened. Perhaps these guys had come here to see if a dangerous Blight was on the loose.

  “You’re seriously telling me that Vicereine wants me to come see her now? I did her goddamn job, and I’m alive. Just go back and tell her that.”

  “Put on some clothes,” the guy with the goatee said. “We’re in a hurry.”

  Red faded a little, becoming obviously and unnervingly inhuman. Shadow streamed off his body like smoke. “Come a little closer and I’ll kill you fast. Since you’re in such a hurry.”

  The men glanced at one another. The redhead took a step back.

  “You better leave,” Posey said, appearing pleased with Red for once.

  Charlie had witnessed Red murder before. Though the thought of how easily these guys forced their way into her house made her sick, she didn’t want to watch them die.

  “No, I’ll come,” Charlie said, forcing herself to roll her eyes, to behave casually even though her heart thundered in her chest. “I’m up now anyway.”

  “Charlie—” Posey cautioned.

  “It’s fine,” Charlie said.

  Red took another step toward the goons and for a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to stop. But he did, staring at them as if daring them to make him change his mind.

  Hoping Red stayed stopped, Charlie headed back in the direction of her room, heart not slowing a bit. She’d been in too many fights over the last twenty-four hours. Her cortisol was on a whole other level.

  She forced herself to pull on jeans and a sweatshirt. When she went for her coat, she realized how badly the back of it was scratched up, the foam lining fully spilling out. She grabbed her leather jacket and a scarf instead.

  Red stood in the doorway. Charlie startled, not having heard him come in.

  “You could give it to me,” he told her.

  She frowned in confusion. He couldn’t mean the coat. “Give you what? I didn’t think you wanted anything from me. Wasn’t that what you indicated last night?”

  “I mean whatever you’re feeling. All the bad bits. You can give them to me.”

  “Won’t you feel bad then?” Charlie cut him a look.

  He shrugged.

  “Do you want to feel the way I do right now?” Her voice cracked and she was abruptly worried she might cry. “Like I’m about to jump out of my skin or throw up or throw things? Like I can’t keep my sister safe? Like everyone believes you want me dead and I’m a fool for letting myself think otherwise?”

  “I don’t want you dead,” he said.

  “Good to know,” she told him. “And for your information, whether or not you want to feel all the trash I am feeling right now, you’re not going to get to because it’s my trash and you can’t have it.”

  He gave a huff of breath that might have been a laugh. “You are a very strange person, Charlie Hall.”

  “Yeah? Well, you’re kind of a weirdo yourself,” she said, and slammed out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom where she put on deodorant, brushed her teeth, and cried a little without being entirely sure why.

  Posey came in as she was staring at herself in the mirror, looking at the bruise coming up violet and black at the corner of her very puffy left eye.

  “Did he hit you?” Posey demanded.

  “No.” Charlie grabbed some concealer and dabbed it on uselessly.

  “The Cabals are dangerous,” Posey said. “You should let me come with you.”

  “I won’t be alone,” Charlie reminded her.

  Posey gave her a skeptical look. “I heard you two arguing—I mean, I couldn’t hear what you were saying, but I could hear your tone of voice. Vince used to be kind—maybe a little bit of a pushover, but kind. He’s not that way now.”

  “You didn’t like him back then.”

  “Well, now I miss him,” Posey admitted. “And I don’t trust Red.”

  Vince had lied, but Charlie didn’t mind lying. Lying was the better story. Unlikely tales were very often true ones, but lies—lies were the world as we wanted it to be or most deeply believed it was. Lies were art, wishful thinking, and deepest dread. Charlie had felt the closest to people when she was lying to them, but the closeness usually only went one way. “I miss him too.”

  “So can I come?” Posey asked.

  “Absolutely not,” Charlie told her sister. “If I’m not back by midday, call Raven. I’ll give you her number.”

  Posey laughed without any mirth. “What’s she going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlie said. “But she knows the Cabals. Promise her I’ll do whatever favor she wants and she can use her contacts to find out what happened. If I’m in trouble, I’ll need you on the outside.”

  “Fine.” With a glare, Posey slammed out of the bathroom. However pissed she was, that was still better than her putting herself in danger. The last thing Charlie’s current terrible situation needed was another person caught up in it.

  Once she left the bathroom, the Cabal goons were waiting for her.

  “Come on.” The goatee guy led her by the arm.

  Outside, the air had gotten even icier. Dawn was still at least an hour off. Charlie’s breath clouded in front of her face as the Cabal enforcers brought her to a black Jeep with a pair of fuzzy white dice hanging from the rearview mirror.

  She got in the back, receiving a smirk in the mirror from the redhead. The guy with the goatee fussed with his phone and started playing a podcast through the car speakers as they pulled out of the driveway. Some motivational bro was giving a lecture:

  Women are attracted to success, but look closer, everyone is attracted to success. If you weren’t attracted to success, you wouldn’t be listening to me. You wouldn’t care what I had to say if you didn’t want what I have—money, respect, and, sure, ladies, but let’s be real, if you get the money and the respect, the bitches are going to show up. And to get that, you’re going to have to have discipline. You’re going to have to work hard, and smart. You’re going to have to see yourself as the kind of man who is welcome in any room.

  “Why do we always have to listen to this bullshit?” the redhead asked.

  “Shut up,” the goatee guy said. “You might actually learn something.”

  Charlie tried to tune out the podcast voice, but the kind of man who is welcome in any room reminded her of Rand. He’d told her something similar about con artists: You’ve got to be able to fit in anywhere, Charlie. Dive bar. Michelin-starred restaurant. The con artist must be a chameleon. Succeed and no door is shut to you.

  He’d tried to teach her to be like that. To be able to slip in and out of anywhere. To seem to belong with anyone, even the powerful.

  And hey, look at Charlie Hall now.

  11

  Mr. Punch

  Twenty-five minutes later they pulled into the driveway of a house in the woods of Leverett. Light spilled out of a wall of glass windows, illuminating a sloping yard. The edge of a cliff was visible along one side, with the carpet of trees below. A FOR SALE sign was prominently displayed on the lawn.

  “This belongs to a Cabal member?” Charlie asked. She wasn’t sure what she’d been picturing, but Bellamy’s masks operated out of an abandoned tower in the woods, complete with spray paint and crumbling cement. This place had a two-car garage.

  “No,” the ginger-haired man told her. “Mr. Punch is borrowing it.”

  “Mr. Punch?” Charlie echoed.

  “New head of the puppeteers,” said the guy with the goatee.

  “What happened to Malik?” Charlie hadn’t particularly liked him—being able to control the bodies of others was an appalling use of shadow magic and Charlie was highly suspicious of anyone who wanted to specialize in it, much less lead that Cabal—but he’d never done anything to give her a specific grudge against him.

  “Salt made Malik look weak. Someone inside the organization was eventually going to make a move.”

  A coup then, and a recent one. She wondered if Bellamy and Vicereine had supported it or been caught unawares.

  The ginger-haired man led her to the door, opened it, and went inside. She followed. In a cathedral-ceilinged living room with huge windows, an older man in a robe and pajamas sat alone on a green velvet couch. His eyes were closed.

  “Charlie Hall,” the man said, without opening his eyes. “We meet at last.”

  A shiver shook her like she was a pair of pants on a clothesline. This had to be the new puppeteer leader, except, not quite. Was it the homeowner he was puppeteering? She tried to push down her horror and think rationally. Mr. Punch had a way to hide his identity and show off at the same time. It was meant to freak her out.

  And it was working.

  “Where’s Vicereine?” Charlie asked, dread in the pit of her stomach.

  “Does it matter?” Mr. Punch said with the other man’s throat.

  Charlie had assumed that Vicereine had been behind this. That she’d been the one to bring Charlie in for a scolding, no matter who else was in attendance. Now she wasn’t so sure. “I just don’t know why I’m here.”