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“Stop right there,” Grandad says.
Anton shakes his head. “I’m glad Philip doesn’t have to watch. He wouldn’t understand, but I think you do, old man. A leader’s got to be careful who gets to tell stories about him.”
I try to turn over, but my legs are hooves and they clatter against the tiles. I don’t know how to work them. I try to shout, but my voice isn’t my own—there’s a birdlike whistle in it, probably from the beak hardening on my face.
“Good-bye,” Anton says to my grandfather. “I’m about to become a legend.”
Someone bangs on the door. The knife stops, hovering in front of Grandad’s throat.
“It’s me,” Barron says from the other side. “Open up.”
“Let me open the door,” says Grandad. “Put away the knife. If I’m loyal to anyone, it’s this boy here. And if you want him loyal to you, you’ll be careful.”
“Anton,” I say from the floor. It’s hard to form the words with my curling tongue. “Door!”
Anton looks at me, slings the knife back into its sheath, and opens the door.
I concentrate on moving my transformed hand into the pocket of my pants.
Barron takes a few stiff steps into the room, then staggers forward, like he was pushed from behind.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” a girl’s voice calls. Lila is wearing a red dress as tight as it is short. Her only accessory is the huge silver gun gleaming in the fluorescent lights. The door swings shut behind her. The gun sure looks real. And she’s pointing it straight at Anton.
Anton’s lips part, like he’s going to say her name, but no words come out.
“You heard me,” she says.
“He killed your father,” Anton says, pointing the closed knife at me. “It wasn’t me. It was him.”
Her gaze shifts to where Zacharov’s body is resting, and the barrel of the gun wavers.
I reach under my jacket, hoping that my fingers stay fingerlike long enough to be usable. My tongue is working again. “You don’t understand. I never meant—”
“I’m tired of your excuses,” she says, leveling the gun at me. Her hand is shaking. “You didn’t know what you were doing. You don’t remember. You didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
She doesn’t sound like she’s pretending.
I try to stand. “Lila—”
“Shut up, Cassel,” she says, and shoots me.
Blood spatters cover my shirt.
I gasp like a fish.
As my eyes close, I hear Grandad choke out my name.
There’s nothing like a gunshot to make you the life of the party.
18
IT HURTS. I EXPECTED THAT, but it still knocks the breath out of me. Wetness seeps through my shirt, making it stick to my skin.
I try to still my breathing as much as possible. My body’s shifting has slowed; the blowback’s wearing off. I want to keep my eyes open, but I need Anton to really believe I was shot, so I listen instead of looking.
“Both of you, against the sinks,” Lila says. “Put your hands where I can see them.”
People are moving around me. I hear a grunt from my grandfather’s direction, but I can’t afford to look.
