I wanted to be sick. The hand released Milady at last, and she staggered back, clutching her injured wrist to herself and keening.
As I watched in horror, muscle braided around the bone. The hand felt around beside the book until it touched the stone of the sarcophagus on which the book sat, and then pusheddown with its newfound strength, using the leverage to pull out first a shoulder, then a head of dripping hair.
I almost cried out, but Patrick clapped his hand over my mouth, silencing me. I could hear his rapid breathing in my ear.
A tooth tumbled out of the book, landing on the stone floor with a sharp clink. Then another. And another. Red threads of muscle twisted around them, lacing the teeth into a delicate formation, the beginnings of a jaw.
My stomach churned as more emerged. Nails, smooth as pearl. A stream of blood spiraling upwards like a candle flame, slender as a strand of hair, then ribbons of sinew, veins, and skin; a grotesque and sinuous dance.
The book began to crack and split as even larger pieces emerged. A femur slid free, followed by ribs and vertebrae, assembling themselves midair. A spine formed and uncoiled, serpentlike. The threads of muscle and skin wrapped around the skeleton, binding it together. The teeth slotted into place, and nails settled at the tips of fingers that hadn’t existed moments before.
Finally, a figure stood half in, half out of the book, shining and damp, long hair hanging about its face.
“Hello, Sybil,” it said in quite a normal voice.
Without meaning to, I bit down on Patrick’s hand, drawing blood. It was Mother.
It was Mother.
“Don’t make a sound,” he murmured, withdrawing his hand. I nodded, not trusting myself even to whisper. I felt that if I opened my mouth at all, the scream that was building inside me would burst out and fill every inch of the catacombs.
Mother was in the book. She had been in there all along. More than that—she waspartof it. I remembered the Book Man’s talk of anthropodermic bibliopegy, human skin made into binding. All those grisly materials used by Tamara’s predecessor. Had Mother planned this all along?
She looked quite like herself, now—except, of course, thatshe was buried in the book up to the knees, her torso streaked with something clear and viscous. Her hair lay flat and slick against her skull, darker than I remembered it. And her eyes—they were her own gray eyes with their colorless lashes and flecks of gold, but there was something different in her gaze.
And then she looked at me.
I don’t know how, but she saw right into the shadows Patrick had maintained so far, and they dispersed like mist in the sun, leaving us crouching foolishly, fully visible from where Ban Morin and Milady stood. It took them a moment to notice us, but when they did, Ban Morin’s lip curled in a snarl. I froze. The scar on my finger seemed to throb as I looked at him.
“Netta,” Mother said again, and smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Lock and Key
‘A complex stitch formed by the looping together of two threads, one on each side of the fabric being sewn.’
—An Exhaustive Compendium of Stitches
Both Holy and Base, 4th Edition
Mother, Milady, Ban Morin, and the Pontiff all stared at us—Mother with a faint smile, the others in visible confusion.
“Netta,” said Milady blankly. And then, “Patrick,” said with such disgust that she could have been talking about a slug she found on her dinner plate.
“At your service,” he said politely.
“What in Plague’s name are you doing down here?” sputtered the Pontiff. Ban Morin made as if to start towards me, but Milady splayed her wounded hand against his chest, holding him back. Her blood bloomed across his fine doublet.
“Stay away from my daughter,” said Mother. “All of you.”
“Margotte,” said Milady. “We need her. To free you, we—”
“We do not need her,” said Mother. “But I do need something she has.”
I stared at her blankly.
“The hairs, Netta,” Mother said.
