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And then there’s a sharp, human scream. A librarian, a short, mousy woman in a bright pink sweater set, stands on the stairs.

I take Whittaker’s single moment of inattention and launch away, leaping from stack to stack, lithe and silent. The librarian faints away even as Whittaker roars, his cover blown.

I hit the stairs above the librarian’s body, blood in my throat as I clamber into the darkness. The cold air grabs me with icy fingers. In the distance, fire truck sirens howl.

I cannot stop. My feet sting as they shred on ice, my head a cacophony of screaming nerve endings. But I don’t care. My head is clouded green and red, my body shaking for food, food.

Hungry, hungry, hungry—

TWENTY-FOURLacie

When I wake up, it’s not to my own room. Not to my own bed. Bellatrix needles my back with her claws as she kneads, a steady purr thrumming from her throat.

I sit up, parched, my eyes raw.

“Marcella?” I call, my throat hoarse.

No answer. Panic mounting inside of me, I throw the silk sheets from my skin and scramble out of bed. A headache vibrates in my teeth, behind my eyes, but I ignore it. Because she would know if I was up—were she here. I think back to the wrenching pain she thought she hid from me as we rid ourselves of Sims’s body.

Oh, god.

The main room of her apartment appears empty. “Marcella?” I call again.

I walk around the couch only to find her body curled on the spot where Quiggley’s blood dried, still clothed in a black coat, the hood pulled over her head.

Fuck.

I drop to my knees, taking shaking fingers to her hood and pulling it back. Her lips are coated in blood, her teeth—her real teeth—bristling from behind.

“Wake up.” I shake her a little. “Marcella—”

She snarls awake, her eyes slitted like a cat’s in vivid green, her teeth bared. They snap closed as I reel away, back striking the couch.

Panting, I yell, “Wake up! Wake! Up!”

Her hands are covered in human blood, too, all the way up to her elbows, and I give a squeak of terror, my heart screaming in my chest as I force myself away from her. She digs her claws into my skin and growls, her eyes not really taking me in.

Icelandic rolls from her mouth, a grumble of darkness. “On this chest we place the iron with these needles we pierce these soles in this house we shatter a new door this beast we banish once and all—”

She clutches my face with clawed hands, her lips splitting and spilling blood down her chin, seeping between her sharpened teeth. Her breath as cold as the grave.

“We kill her we kill her we kill—”

And then she collapses, cracking against the floor. For a moment, for maybe a hundred moments, I stand there, breathing. My chest heaves, my legs wobble beneath me. For the short time I’ve known her, I have never seen her lose control. I have never known her to be anything but strong and direct and relentlessly committed to the things she cares about.

And now she’s convulsing on the floor, screeching.

Wrenching out of my panic, I grab her face and smack her hard, her skin tearing from the force of my rings biting into her cheek. Blood spatters my glasses.

Her eyes flicker, focus.

“L-Lacie?” she stammers. “What—”

“What’s happened?” I manage, my throat closing. “Where did you go?”

She looks so broken, her knees drawn up to her chest as she scoots back to lean against the wall. She’s only about three feet from me, but her gaze turns distant.

“I left you here last night,” she whispers, her voice raw. “I couldn’t bear you so sad.”