The large man steps forward. "Soren."
"No." The redhead—Soren’s—voice breaks around the word, and his fingers clamp harder around mine. "No, that's not possible."
I look over my shoulder to see the woman's near the threshold, translucent and silvered at the edges, her form unsteady but clearer than the hungry dead outside the glass. She's got Soren's sharp features softened by age and sadness, the same fine bones, the same intensity around the eyes. She's woven through the room. I can feel her in every ward and every warm board beneath my knees, even though I don't know her name.
Soren does.
"She's here," he says, his voice raw with hurt. "She's here. Ira, she's right there."
"Soren, let go."
The large man's voice is low, but there's command in it. Soren doesn't let go. His eyes are fixed on the spirit behind me, like he might hate her for being there as much as he loves her for it. "She never left."
"I can't—" I start, but the sentence breaks when another wave of Soren's grief rolls through my hand and into my chest. It's too much. Too warm. Too crowded. I can feel the spirits outside scraping at the wards, Soren's magic rushing toward the woman, and the shop answering, my body becoming the open door none of them should be using.
The large man moves fast. For someone his size, he shouldn't be able to cross the space that quickly, but he's suddenly beside us, one hand closing around Soren's shoulder hard enough to make him flinch. The other hovers near me without touching.
"Soren." This time the name's sharper. "Look at him."
Soren blinks, but his gaze doesn't leave the spirit.
"He's shaking," the man says. "He's bleeding on your floor. Let go before you pull him apart."
Soren's face twists. "I can feel her."
"I know."
"Ira, you don't know. You don't know what it—"
"I know enough." The man's voice drops lower. "Let go."
Soren looks at me then, and some of the grief clears enough for horror to get through. I must look worse than I feel, which is a difficult achievement because I feel like the city dragged me here by my ankles and then left the rest to the witch shop. His fingers loosen by a fraction.
The bond warmth doesn't vanish. It thins into something bearable, a line of heat between our palms instead of a flood. I drag in a breath that smells like lavender, iron, and my own blood.
"Thank you," I whisper, though I'm not sure which one of them I'm thanking. Soren for letting go enough that I can breathe. The large man for noticing. The dead woman for not screaming.
Soren swallows hard. "What are you?"
I laugh, because apparently that reflex survived the barefoot apocalypse. It's not a good laugh. "A question people keep asking before ruining my night."
The large man crouches slightly, bringing himself closer to my eye level without pretending he's less dangerous. His focus lands on my face, then flicks once to the spirits outside, then back to me. The third pull stirs under my ribs.
It's not Cain's silence. It's not Soren's warmth.
It's weight.
A terrifying, protective gravity that makes some feral part of me want to crawl behind him and another part want to run before he decides protection and imprisonment are the same shape.
"The exorcist," I whisper, because Cain gave me the information and my mouth remembers it before my mind can stop it.
His eyes narrow.
Soren looks sharply at me. "Who told you that?"
Before I can answer, the bell above the door rings. Every piece of magic in the shop shifts at once as Cain steps through the door.
The room changes around him.
