Page 104 of Molt

His hands hover beside my face. He doesn’t touch me. “What do you see?”

“You.”

“How many?”

“Three.”

“Fuck.”

“That’s comforting.”

Then the room tilts. I close my right eye and he disappears.

Not literally.

The apartment does.

For one second, I’m looking through another pair of eyes in a bathroom mirror. Red hair. Freckles.

June.

Then another.

Blonde. Eleanor.

Another.

Dark curls. The first Lenora.

Faces flicker across the glass.

Women. So many women.

Not eight.

More.

I jerk backward. “No.”

“Lenora?”

The pressure behind my eye becomes unbearable. Something wet slides down my cheek.

August’s expression turns to horror.

“What?”

He doesn’t answer.

“What?”

I wipe beneath my eye.

Blood. A lot of it.

“August...”

Something shifts. My vision goes black on the left.