“Blood in, blood out, kitten,” she purrs.
I take a step toward the tray and Arla lowers the sword. She reaches around me and grabs the brass bowl, placing it just so beneath Cadence’s throat on the floor. Nausea overcomes me and I swoon.
Blood in, blood out.If I do this, I will be tied to the Fathom in a way I may never be free of. Bindings require blood, Arla told me. This will be my binding; the price I pay to tie myself to the Fathom forever is tying myself to the group forever. I will well and truly become my grandmother.
I look at Cadence’s swollen face. I tried to tell her to leave, that it wasn’t safe. But I never meantthis. Whatever Cadence did or didn’t do, whoever she is, this isn’t whoIam.
This power we have—Arla, the Fathom, all of it—it can’t be for this. Whatever happened in my past, whatever role I played in Solidago’s burning, it wasn’t my choice. And neither is killing Cadence.
Slowly, I take the knife from the tray. The barkeep’s arms have begun to shake. Our eyes meet briefly, but his are vacant. He’s just another of Arla’s pawns.
Inside me, the voice speaks.Steady.
I inhale sharply and wrap my fingers around the hilt of the dagger, its cold bearings biting into my flesh. Outside, I am as solid as a stone. But inside, I am a riot of emotions. My only hope is that the voice has a plan to get me out of this.
Arla takes the vial and the barkeep leaves. She uses the dabber from the vial and swipes something oily and pungent across my forehead. It glides on so thickly it drips down one of my templesand between my eyes. But she doesn’t reach to wipe it away. Her fingers grip the flame-like stopper, eyes like shimmering planets. “Hyssop,” she whispers into my ear. “So you are clean for the bloodletting.”
I hold my breath and turn, Cadence whimpering as I approach. She sweats profusely, eyes pleading for mercy as her head bobs up and down. Twig and Rock hold her ties fast, practically pulling her arms out of their sockets, her skin pale from low circulation. They’re getting a thrill out of this, playing their parts well. Twig’s eyes are mocking: She wants to see me humbled. But Rock’s are fixed on Arla, who hovers at my back, watching over my shoulder to be sure I don’t miss a step.
The spicy aroma of the twins’ scented bodies envelopes me, thicker than the incense from this close. It is the same thing I smell rolling down my temples.Hyssop.They must have rubbed it all over themselves beneath their revealing shrouds.
I glance to the side and see Arla’s fingers clutching the vial, her grip tight on the stopper, and something strikes like a match in my heart.Anointing oil.
My arms quiver with the effort to hold them forward against every instinct as my fingers tighten around the dagger, preparing to run it under Cadence’s chin, like parting fabric. Arla breathes down my neck, eager to see it done.
I step closer, lower the blade to her throat, every muscle in my body tensing.
And then I feel a shift in the air, Arla stepping away. She turns to the crowd, urging them in their ritual cries. Their voices swell to give me strength, courage.
It’s now or never.
Sorry, Cadence,I think.
Flames burst from the ties along her arms, racing toward Twig and Rock, whose shiny torsos light like torches. I spin and fling the dagger at Arla as she twirls away. It grazes her forehead, knocking the hood of her capelet back to reveal shock and fury. There is chaos as Rock flails and Twig screams, their hold on Cadence’sbinds loosed. I dive headlong into the psychic’s beleaguered body, knocking her back through the curtains behind the stage and down the steps beyond, where we tumble and roll before scrambling to our feet. And then we are racing through a darkened corridor behind the stage, Cadence’s burned arm clutched in my hand, as we pray I haven’t just steered us toward a dead end.
25A DEEPER MADNESS
I can still hear the crowd chanting through the wall—Yida, khatam, shamar, la’olam—as we crash through a door at the end of the corridor into an open, dingy dressing room. Despite the commotion, the utter collapse onstage, they are committed to seeing this night’s plan through. Their zombie droning strikes fear through me, the belief that if Arla only says the word, they will flood this room and drag us back to do her bidding. I can still feel their hands and bodies pressing me, pushing me onto the stage when I didn’t want to go. But the guest star has escaped with the blood offering, and Arla can neither complete her pigment nor paint her seal without us.
I swallow back the urge to vomit and press on, Cadence in tow. As we run, I do the best I can to reel the fire back in, but with so much oil smeared over their bodies, I don’t know if it’s already too late for Twig and Rock. Sequins and feathers and shiny embroidered satins have been cast over folding tables and wire-backed chairs, simple black vanities and clothing racks made from industrial pipes. A glamorous skin to cover the osseous truth. To the left, a service elevator is the dressed-down counterpart to its golden twin on the other side. I never realized the building hadtwoelevators, never bothered to peek behind the gilded curtain. I imagine this room would normally be full of performers changing and prepping, each evening’s lineup readying themselves for theirset on the stage. But tonight, ours was the sole performance, and everyone else—fire-breathers, waitstaff, bartenders—is already out on the floor.
I rush toward the elevator, grateful for any exit, any distance I can put between myself and that stage. Its dull black doors hold little promise, but the only way out of Medusa always seems to be deeper in.
I throw off the wreath of goldenrod, the gauzy fabric draped over me and pound at the buttons. Doors slide open and I dart inside with Cadence, pressing the first number I see—second floor—and stabbing at theCLOSEbutton until we’re safely out of sight. In the seconds we have between stories, I unbuckle her gag.
The ball drops from her mouth tethered to a long string of drool, and she sucks in air, working her jaw up and down. “Fucking hell,” she manages to grate out, voice hoarse and hairy, throat raw from muffled screaming and breathing around the gag.
“What happened back there?” I ask her as the elevator dings and the doors slide open at the second floor.
Her eyes find mine as we dart into the space, which looks to be a lot of open storage. “She’s been planning this for a long time,” she says now. “But she was hiding it from me. Brennan suspected but he could never quite put it together.”
“Planning what?”
“The ritual,” she says calmly. “The blood.”
“And you had no idea?” Cadence seems honest enough, but it’s hard to imagine she never got a whiff of Arla’s intentions, even living one floor below her.
She shakes her head. “I swear, Jude. She used my abilities against me, shoring upherpsychic defenses withmypower. She intentionally overwhelmed my system with constant input—psychic and sensory. And she was always pointing me in the wrong direction, getting me to focus my abilities on what amounted to nothing more than one distraction after another. I could barely focus long enough to brush my teeth, much less to see through her manipulation. She misdirected me for so long.”
