and supple. Her legs were longer and her torso more filled out. She also looked taller, a suspicion confirmed by the new gap between the hem of her shirt and the waist of her trousers. It was as if she’d aged ten happy, healthy years, and yet the freezing, predatory menace rolling off her was stronger than ever. She glided across the corroded stone, and the acidic sludge shrank back, but it would not give up its position in front of the dais, not even when Nico stopped a foot away from its trembling base.
“Nico!” Eli’s voice was thin and strained, but the fact that he could speak at all was a miracle. “Don’t do it, Nico!”
The girl ignored him. With a triumphant cry, Nico plunged her bare hand deep into the acid’s center. If Miranda had named the spirit’s scream a wail before, the cry it gave now reduced its earlier sounds to whimpers. Gregorn’s spirit thrashed on the end of Nico’s arm like a speared fish, slinging acid in huge arcs. But, despite its struggles, the spirit was shrinking. It was now not more than double the height of the dais. Then it was no taller than Gin, and still it was shrinking, its cries growing smaller and smaller. When the sludge was no larger than Nico herself, a new shape began to emerge. The black tar narrowed and separated, revealing long appendages. Ribs appeared at its center, and its peaked top became a rounded head. Two legs, barely more than tar over bone, appeared at the base, and shoulders like knives led to twiglike arms. Finally, the last of the sludge disappeared altogether, and Nico stood over the kneeling, black form of an old, skeletal man.
Wisps of hair still sprouted from his head, plastered down by black tar, and his face, his face was still human. Sunken eyes grayed over with cataracts looked pleadingly up at his conqueror. His cracked, black lips moved pathetically, but no sound came out. Black tears pooled in the hollows of the ancient enslaver king’s cheeks as he looked up at her, his ruined hands rising slowly to grasp Nico’s wrist where her hand was buried deep in his hollow chest.
With a final, cruel smile, Nico yanked her hand free, and what was left of Gregorn toppled to the ground. He made no sound as he fell, the last of his human features crumbling to dust even before they struck the pitted stone. Nico shook the dust off her fingers, and Miranda knew as surely as if she’d been standing over him herself that Gregorn’s spirit was dead.
“Nico.” Eli’s soft voice made Miranda jump. She hadn’t seen him leap down from his alcove, but the thief was standing a dozen feet behind the demonseed. Cautiously, he held out his hand, the largest of Nico’s manacles, her neck piece, dangling from his fingers. “You did well,” he said. “You did as Josef asked. Now it’s time to come back to us.”
The girl turned slowly, regarding him through slitted eyes that flashed in the darkness with their own flickering light. The room was deafeningly silent. Everything seemed to be holding its breath as Nico considered him.
“Come back?”
Her voice was different. The dry dust scrape that had been just a whisper before now completely overwhelmed her natural sound. It was so alien, so strange, that if Miranda had not seen Nico’s lips moving, she would not have been able to name the speaker as human. Nico took a step forward, moving with unnatural grace toward the thief until she was only a few inches from Eli’s outstretched hand. Then, with casual cruelty, she reeled back and punched him.
Eli didn’t try to dodge. He took the blow full in the chest, and it sent him flying backward. He landed with a bone-snapping crunch on the scarred marble, the silver manacle clattering off into the dark. The second he hit the floor, Nico was on top of him again with another of her gut-wrenching, light-bending jumps. She kicked the manacle out of his hand and grabbed the thief around the neck, lifting him off the floor. “Come back?” she hissed, glaring at him with eyes that opened wider than human eyes should. “To what? I see how you treat the girl. A weapon, a
“I’m talking to Nico, not you,” Eli said coldly. “You’re just an interloper, a deadbeat tenant. We treat Nico as a partner, which is far more than I can say for you, bug.”
She roared at that, drawing her fist to hit him again, but before she could strike, there was a silver flash in the thin space between them. Nico screamed and flailed backward, dropping Eli on the ground. Breathing hard, the girl reached down and wrenched something out of her chest. She tossed it to the ground where it landed with a clatter, and Miranda recognized one of Josef’s knives. Eli grunted and rolled over, another knife ready in his hands.
But Nico’s white skin was knitting itself back together as Miranda watched, and she crept toward Eli like a hunting spider. “You treacherous thief,” she hissed. “How dare you take his blades!”
“Ah-ha,” Eli said, coughing as he sat up slowly. “So there is some Nico left in there.” He tucked the second knife back into his sleeve. “Listen to me, Nico. This isn’t the real you. You’re human, Nico. Still human, even now. Josef didn’t nearly die five times over rescuing you just to have it end like this, in this nowhere kingdom.” He held out his hand, his face kind and pleading. “Come back to us.”
Nico paused and stared at his hand, and for a moment, the inhuman light in her eyes flickered out. Then it was back brighter than before. She lifted her clenched fist, ready to bring it down on the thief’s unguarded head, but before she could swing, a tremendous crash stopped everything. Glass exploded above them, and Nico looked up just in time to see the swirling mass of gray fur and knife-sharp claws crash through the high window right before it landed on top of her.
Miranda pressed her hands to her mouth. The relief mixed with fear was almost more than she could bear. “Gin!”
Gin had Nico in his mouth. He shook her fiercely before flinging her as hard as he could against the stone wall. Her impact cracked the marble, and she slumped to the floor, her limbs bent under her at unnatural angles. Gin bounded to one side, putting himself between the crumpled girl and Miranda.
“I came as soon as I felt her,” he growled, never taking his eyes off Nico’s motionless body. “I told you, didn’t I? Demons can’t be trusted.”
Miranda jumped down from her alcove and ran to him, flinging herself face down into his swirling fur.
“The king?”
“Still hiding and safe enough,” he said quietly. “Not that any of us are ‘safe’ at this point.” He voice thickened to a snarl as Nico stirred. “Get the thief.”
Miranda nodded and looked around for Eli. The thief was still on his back where he had fallen, coughing painfully.
She ran to help him. “Can you stand?”
Eli nodded and took her offered hand, groaning as she pulled him to his feet.
Gin gave a warning growl. Nico was stirring, her cracked limbs righting themselves as they watched.
“What do we do now?” Miranda said.
“We do what we should have done when this mess started,” Gin said. “We kill her.”
“The dog might be right,” Eli whispered, his voice thin and pained. “At this point, without Josef, I don’t know anything else to do. Every moment she spends like this, our Nico goes further away. But whatever we do, let’s do it quickly, otherwise”-he tapped his foot on the acid damaged stone-“the castle will do it for us.”
Miranda froze. Now that he’d pointed it out, she didn’t know how she’d missed it. Now that Gin had injured the demon and broken the spell of fear, every spirit in earshot was awake and calling for blood. Every piece of the throne room, from the broken glass to the stones under their feet, rumbled with desperate anger. Showers of dust cascaded from the ceiling as the marble strained against its mortar. Even the support pillars were edging closer, preparing to break free and let gravity do the rest, even if it cost them their lives, if that’s what it took to kill the demon.
With a sickening series of cracks, Nico sat up. She stretched out her arms, and the joints snapped back into place. As she moved, the terrified dust flung itself off her, creating a low cloud that obscured her movements. Even so, Miranda could feel when Nico turned, feel the girl’s regard sliding over her skin. Then Nico opened her eyes, and Miranda’s blood turned to lead. The girl’s eyes, which were too large to be human anymore, glowed with a steady, otherworldly light. They shone bright as candles through the terrified dust, brilliant but illuminating nothing. The rest of her face was lost in shadow, but Miranda could see clawlike hands scraping as the girl edged to the rim of her crater, and that was enough.
Nico moved along the wall, gathering herself for another leap, but Gin didn’t give her the chance. He charged with a howl, barreling toward the demonseed. She snarled in answer and sprang to meet him, winking through the darkness faster than Miranda could follow. But Gin’s sight was better than Nico’s, and the ghosthound’s teeth
