I take a step back, letting the mist come between this girl and me. “Who the hell are you?” Because something is wrong with her, I can feel it. “Whereare you? How are you even talking to me? Why are you here?”
Again, she looks to the side, listening. And this is when I figure out what she’s doing. Someone is talking to her, telling her what to say.
I back off even further.
“Syrsee! Wait! You need to listen to me!”
But I shake my head and retreat another step. The mist is thick now, and a few moments later, she disappears.
What the fuck was that?
Stasis? Keep this baby inside me forever? I fight the gag reflex again, forcing myself to calm down.
The dreamwalk to the Guild—if that’s what it was—was enough for me to forget about the demon cooking up inside me. I was distracted. I didn’t look pregnant, didn’t feel pregnant, and all those Guild tests came back fine.
Which, I realize now, was just part of the illusion. But the illusion worked. That’s the important part here.
It has now officially worn off.
I am pregnant with some kind of demon.
But there’s more to it than that. Ryet is a demon. A full-fledged—literallyfledged—demon. With wings, and blue-black skin, and claws, and fangs, and blood lust and all of it.
But this is somethingelse.
“Paul!” I scream this into the mist. I need to find him. Not only so I can feed him, but I want answers and he’s the only one who has them. “Paul!”
I start running through the mist, passing mirror after mirror after mirror. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. There is no limit to the number of mirrors in this place and every time I look into one, I see the pink-haired girl.
She sees me too, because she’s yelling things. “Stop! I have a plan! I can help you! We can help each other!” It goes on and on like that as I run.
Clearly, there is no escape from this place. Not while I’m here.
I stop, close my eyes, forcing them shut as the girl screams at me from the nearest mirror.
It’s a dream, Syrsee. All you have to do is wake up. Wake up! Wake up!
But when I open my eyes, nothing has changed. So I keep running.
“Syrsee!” the pink-haired girl yells. “Please! Listen! We don’t have a lot of time. I’m in Josep’s cave. He sacrificed me to the Darkness under the compound. Then he fed me, filled my body up with his blood, and made the halfbreeds drink me until they all died. They ripped me to pieces, Syrsee.”
I stop, close my eyes again, and look at my feet.This is not real. This is not real. This is not real.
But it is. So I open them back up and just let her talk.
“I was nothing but tattered skin and broken bones, Syrsee. Then he took me back down here to the cave, put me in this water”—she points at her mirror, which really is some kind of spring—“and brought me back as something…” She shakes her head. “Well, much worse off than you, that’s for sure. Because I’m not magical, Syrsee. And if I want to win, I need magic.”
I repeat all these words over in my head, trying to force it all to make sense. “You wantmymagic?”
She nods. “It comes from Paul, and he gave it to you, and Ineedit. But we can trade. I have something to offer.”
“What do you have to offer? To put me into a perpetual state of pregnancy? Keep the evil inside me for all eternity?”
“Isn’t that better than letting it out?”
“Well…” I scoff. “From this girl’s POV,no. Not really.”
She laughs here. A tiny chuckle, but it helps. Because I let out a breath and so does she. “Trust me. I get it. I was given to the Darkness and torn to pieces. But I’m still here.” She points to the ground.
