When Mae answered the phone, Sin said, “You have to help me.”
“Anything,” Mae said. She’d obviously been crying; she was no good at modulating her voice to conceal it, but a stuffed nose didn’t impair Mae’s determination at all. “I’m so sorry, Sin. I’m so—Alan was one of my best friends. Anything I can do, I will.”
“He has a plan,” Sin whispered, and wiped her brimming eyes with the back of her hand. “Anzu’s the one possessing Alan. And he’s here, he’s gloating to Nick, he can talk. Alan gave him his voice, he’s not fighting him at all.”
Mae’s voice was choking up even more. “Oh God, Sin. God.”
“But you know why he’s doing it,” Sin said. “You see.”
Her manipulative liar, her endless schemer, did not do things without a reason. He was managing his own possession.
“He’s buying himself time,” Sin said. “The body will last longer if he doesn’t fight. He’s buying us time, to save him. He’s got a plan.”
Even saying the words, mentioning the possibility of saving him, made her feel dizzy. It was a fairy tale, it was ridiculous; everyone knew possession was a death sentence. Everyone knew it was worse than that.
“Sin,” Mae said, her voice gentle, “if he’s got a plan, Anzu knows it by now. Alan’s plans won’t work anymore. He can’t scheme his way out of this one.”
She had known that, really, all along. The blinding realization of what Alan was doing had dazzled her for a moment, that was all. The thought that he was still somewhere in there hoping had made her hope too.
But there was no hope.
Sin leaned her head back against the bathroom door. “I know,” she said. “I know.”
Mae said, “We have to think of a plan ourselves.”
15
Brothers in Arms
THE KNOCK ON THE FRONT DOOR CAME ALMOST IMMEDIATELY after Mae spoke. “Mae,” Sin said, low. “Are you at the door?”
Just as low, though the demons were not there to hear her, as if Sin’s fear was infecting her, Mae whispered, “No.”
Sin cut off the call, leaned her forehead against the phone, and boosted herself to her feet. She shoved her phone into her pocket, unlocked the door, and threw it open so hard it hit the wall, because otherwise she would have stayed cowering in the bathroom.
A moment later, she wished she had.
She’d stepped out between the possessed bodies of the people she loved. Anzu and Liannan were standing in the hall. They had been looking at each other, but now they were both looking at her.
Liannan stood there with the red hair streaming down her shoulders snarled with ash, a bright, sharp smile on her face.
“Merris?” Sin whispered, because it was not night yet. It was daytime even if it was daytime in hell, and that was who should be in this body.
And Merris answered, black starting to bleed from the ash in her hair, staining the red and spreading.
“Thea,” she said, using the Goblin Market nickname for her instead of the severe “Cynthia” she usually preferred.
Sin felt a great bound of hope in her chest, as if she could fling herself into Merris’s arms like a child and expect to be saved, just like that. As if it could be that simple.
But Merris’s hands had nails that glimmered strangely sharp, and there was still red in her hair and a wild strangeness to her face.
“Liannan?” Anzu asked, and he sounded uncertain.
“I’m here,” said Liannan, her voice changing again, lifeless and flat, all the humanity leached out. “But it is technically her turn.”
“Technically?” Sin whispered.
Liannan smiled. “Our boundaries are more fluid these days.”
“It’s disgusting that you have to sully yourself like this,” Anzu said.
“I don’t know,” said Liannan. “All that screaming gets tiresome after a while, don’t you find?”
Sin wouldn’t have thought she could look away from Liannan lest she miss a moment when she might turn into Merris, but she found her head turning helplessly to look at Alan’s face.
“No. I enjoy it,” said Anzu, and used Alan’s mouth to smile. “Especially now.”
Liannan moved past Sin, her hair brushing whisper-soft against Sin’s shoulder, and stood beside Anzu. She reached up and drew her fingernails down his cheek, deliberately drawing four bleeding lines.
“I do not think this was a particularly good idea,” she said. “The city’s on fire. So I see he’s taking it well.”
The trails of blood moved across Alan’s face, drawing a pattern as if the demon was going to play noughts and crosses in blood across Alan’s skin. Then a shadow fell across the blood.
Nick stood in the kitchen doorway, his hands on the door frame as if he was blocking the way.
There were three demons standing close enough to reach out and kill her, and the kids were only a door
