“Hey,” Sylvie said, grabbing Lupe’s arm. “Are you all right?”
“Fine, why?”
Sylvie gestured up and down, meaning You’re half snake, a little reluctant to just come out and say it if Erinya was feeling that touchy.
“Oh. We’re trying out monster shapes,” Lupe said. “I keep changing. Eri says she can at least make it into a monster I like. At least in this shape, I keep control of my mind, if not my body. That’s something, isn’t it?”
Sylvie nodded. “That’s a lot. How’s Alex?”
“Sleeping, last I checked. I’ll go tell her you’re back.” She moved off, surprisingly graceful as she swayed and slithered through the cavernous hallways.
“Jeez,” Zoe said. She hadn’t moved from the doorway, her arms wrapped tight around herself.
“You doing all right?” Sylvie said.
Zoe stared at her shoes, at the splatter pattern Merrow’s blood had made. “These were brand-new. And expensive. An entire month’s allowance worth. And look what she’s done to Val’s house! She could at least clean up after herself. Val’s going to be peeved.”
Zoe was fine. Displacing her anxiety every which way, but coping.
“Syl,” Zoe said, catching her as Sylvie started after Erinya and Lupe. “Wait.”
“We’re kind of on a deadline,” Sylvie said. “Yvette has Demalion. I’d like to get him back before he goes all Stockholm Syndrome and remembers he used to date her. Or hell, until she makes him forget they’re on different sides.”
“She’ll be too busy keeping the Corrective running smoothly to do much with him.”
“With the what?”
Zoe shrugged, took a step farther into the house. “You seem to forget I’ve spent the last two months in witch central. I get to study spells, not do them. Val’s idea of teaching is setting the kid down with the Encyclopedia Britannica. So take that, and then stuff me in with a bastard like Merrow who likes to hear himself talk.” She shuddered, and her gaze went opaque, distant.
“Your point,” Sylvie prodded.
Zoe jerked back to the now with a sigh of relief. “So I know what spell Yvette and the Society’s using—”
“The Corrective? Sounds like white-out.”
“Same effect. It’s a seriously complicated spell. First done in the late 1800s. The Society pioneered it. I couldn’t believe it when Merrow started bragging about it—saying he could keep me for a pet, that you’d never remember that I was missing. Crazy complicated spell with really exotic ingredients.”
“How exotic? Can we track them through the ingredients?”
Zoe shook her head. “Not the kind of ingredients you can buy. I still can’t believe they resurrected it … it’s such a tricky spell. It requires so much manpower to really be effective.”
Sylvie leaned against the wall—damp, rough-cut stone instead of white wallpaper—and considered her sister. “All right. I want to hear all about this spell. First, though. You know how to break it?”
Zoe raised her palm, made a maybe–maybe not seesaw, and noticed a smear of blood on her skin. “I want a wash. You think the bathrooms are still in existence?”
“Zo!”
“I don’t know! I mean, my books were all about how to make it work, not how to take it apart. Seriously, Syl. I’ve got blood all over me, and it’s getting gummy. I really really really want a bath. If you don’t let me go, I think I might cry. Or scream. Or have the breakdown I deserve. Tell me the bathrooms are still here. And not all … jungly.”
“Lupe wouldn’t let Erinya remove all the modern conveniences. Hopefully.”
“Lupe. That’s the… Zoe checked herself, shot nervous glances around the foyer. “She’s the person who answered the door?”
“Yup. Under a curse,” Sylvie said.
“Your client?”
“Go shower, Zoe. And be quick about it. Miami’s falling apart around our ears.”
“It’ll be a little bit more stable now that Merrow’s dead,” Zoe said. “He was the dispersal focus for the memory spell. People in Miami won’t remember what they’ve forgotten, but they won’t forget any more. Not until she gets another disperser here.”
“He was part of the spell?”
“Why do you think he kept me in Miami? He wanted to take me to Yvette, one more witch for her spellwork, but he couldn’t leave.”
“Definitely need to talk,” Sylvie said.
“Definitely need to bathe!”
Lupe came back into the foyer, wrinkled her nose at the mess. Sylvie wished she thought it was distaste distorting her features, but it looked more like a cat scenting something interesting.
Sylvie shuddered, wondering if she’d roll in it.
“Alex is awake,” Lupe said.
“How is she?” Sylvie hesitated. This past week had been nothing but one horror after another. Still, nothing compared to sitting beside a frantic and crying Alex, unable to help her. She wasn’t eager to revisit that sensation.
“Awake. Calm. Confused. Erinya’s going to see what she can do.”
“Don’t do anything!” Zoe said, jerking to a halt.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t think Furies are good at delicate wetwork. She could probably yank out the spell, but then what? The memories go with it,” Zoe said. “Because if you break the memory spell—which is what you’re planning to do, right?—You want Alex’s memories to come back. You have the Fury fuck around in her head, try to fix things, then the restore won’t work as well. Because it won’t be a spell releasing things back to normal. It’ll be a spell beneath another spell. Her memories might not come back. If you wait, if you break the spell, you win them all back.”
“Lupe, tell Eri to hold off. Zoe, with me.”
“But … but … bath!”
“It can wait. I need spell info. Now.”
Zoe started to protest, and Sylvie grabbed her arm and dragged her toward what had been Val’s kitchen. It was still a kitchen. Sort of. In some vague Erinya concept of a kitchen. There was a fire pit, nestled close to Val’s slickly modern fridge. Vines carpeted the floor, as treacherous underfoot as slick cables, but sweet-smelling. There was a waterfall sliding down one wall, clear and cold and disappearing at both ends. A misty rainbow shimmered beneath the fluorescent lighting.
Zoe and Sylvie stared at the room, and said, “Freaky,” at the same moment.
Sylvie poked at the table and chairs—rough-cut wood, carved with flowers. They seemed real and sturdy and most importantly, not inclined to kill them. She pushed Zoe into the closest seat, leaned back against the table, and said, “Talk.”
Zoe pushed her hair out of her face, remembered she had Merrow bits on her, and grimaced. “Ebbinghaus’s Corrective.”
“Sounds like patent medicine.”
“Eh. The Good Sisters were trying to keep a low profile. I mean, it sounds innocuous, right? Like their name? All their spells are like that. The Helpful Cat. Serena’s Trained Crow—both of those are spying spells, by the way. The Helpful Cat can also be used to start fires, remotely.”
“That what Merrow hit us with?”
Zoe shook her head. “That was just Pyrokinesis 101. Blow shit up. Coax all the heat in the air to coalesce in one spot. It’s why he had to do one wall at a time. Burns really hot, but it burns out really fast. A little like balefire.”
Sylvie said, “Zo. Trust me. That was nothing like balefire. I’ve seen balefire.”
Zoe blanched. “You should be dead. How the hell did you—”
“Erinya,” Sylvie said. “Long story. The Corrective.”
Zoe stared at her, looking worried, looking impressed and Sylvie tapped her nails against the table. “Zoe, sooner you talk, sooner you get your bath.”
“Okay, okay. Yeah. The Good Sisters, which you know, isn’t all women, right?”
“Merrow being one of them tipped me off. Continue.”
“So it’s kind of chicken and egg. Whether the Society decided to keep
the Magicus Mundi their secret first, or whether they gained the ability to do so first. Doesn’t really matter—”
“Then stop telling me about it!”
“Whatever. You’re being a total bitch, Syl. I’ve had a terrible day and I want a bath and I saved you from Merrow and he’s dead and I should be glad but I’m just grossed out. And I want a bath!” Zoe’s breathing was harsh; her hands clawed at the table.
Sylvie closed her eyes and reminded herself that she’d pushed enough for the moment. Now she had to be patient. Let Zoe regain her composure, her pride—those were what kept her running, as essential to her as rage was to Sylvie. She got up and rummaged through the refrigerator, still thankfully holding human-style food. She made roast beef sandwiches, heavy on the horseradish and mustard, and tried not to think about Demalion’s sitting in her apartment kitchen, tasting foods to see if Wright’s taste buds made a difference.
He’d be all right. He’d used his precognition to ensure it. He had a plan. He was just waiting for her to do her part.
“So at first it was like, conceptual? They weren’t sure the spell would work? But it did. Honestly, from everything I hear from Val, what I heard from Merrow—I didn’t think they could do it again. I think it was like a desperate experiment that went right. That kind of lightning striking twice? The Society has to have been throwing witches at it for ages trying to make it work again. Val said it was a one-time spell when I asked about it. She said there wasn’t a coven alive that could get it running again.”
“Val’s wrong this time.” Sylvie slid a sandwich Zoe’s way, settled down at the table with her own.
Zoe peeled back the bread, wrinkled her nose at it. “I’m not sure it’s healthy to eat when I’ve got blood—”
“Don’t eat brain bits, don’t get kuru,” Sylvie said. “You’ll be fine.”
Zoe gave her that same startled expression, appalled and awed at once. “You eat a lot of meals with blood on you?”
“Some,” Sylvie said. “Eat when you can. So, they got this uber-difficult spell up and running again. How does it work?” She took a bite of her sandwich, found herself taking a second and third bite even as the horseradish brought tears to her eyes. “Like some type of pyramid scheme? People passing it down as needed?”
“More like feed the bits they don’t want people to remember into it. Tells the spell what to reach out and erase.”
“And the dispersal agents?”
Zoe squirmed in her seat, something she’d always done when she wanted to know the answer and didn’t.
“Best guess?”
“I think they carry something away? And it helps focus the Corrective better? Makes it work faster. Stronger.” She sounded more certain by the end of it.
Sylvie groaned. “Does that mean we have to hunt down each of the … dispersal witches after we break the main spell, which I still don’t know how to do.”
“I don’t think so,” Zoe said. Her admission dragged out of her. Like Sylvie, she hated to admit when she was in over her head.
“Any ideas on breaking the spell? I mean, if it’s that hard to create, maybe it’s fragile? If I yank out the ingredients?”
“If you yank out the ingredients,” Zoe said, “you’ll be subject to spell backlash. You might just erase your entire mind.”
“So that’s a do-not-recommend approach,” Sylvie said. She hung her head. “Of course, first things first. We have to find them.”
“Well, you know one thing that should help,” Zoe said.
Sylvie thought back, realized, yeah, that Zoe was right. “Wherever they are, there are a hell of a lot of witches present. Enough that they might get noticed.”
“It’s not much, but that kind of word does get around. I could ask Val.”
“It’s something. I’ll take it,” Sylvie said. “Go get your bath.”
“Thank God,” Zoe said, leaped away from the table.
Left alone, Sylvie pushed her sandwich around on her plate under the watchful, swaying blossoms dangling from the ceiling, and wondered what Demalion’s plan was, exactly. He let himself get captured. Maybe. Or maybe the capture was the only way to extend his life. Maybe all the other possibilities led to death. Maybe his only plan was survival, and he’s waiting for me to rescue him. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
Sylvie gritted her teeth. She might grow to hate precognition as much as magic. Life had enough variables as it was. Her hands clenched on her plate.
“Syl?” Alex wandered into the kitchen, frowned at the changes, and sat heavily in the seat Zoe had vacated.
“How’re you feeling?”
“Better,” Alex said, managed a half smile. “Lupe had some Valium. I think she’s grinding it into my coffee. Is there even a coffeepot left here?”
Sylvie sighed. “Yeah. I fucked up there. I should have kicked Erinya back to her realm when Dunne asked. I bet he would have helped. Have you seen the outside world? I could see the changes as soon as I crossed over the water. I don’t know what the worst scenario is. That she’s not trying to control herself, or she is and failing.”
“She saved your life. You were … shot,” Alex said. That newly familiar furrow carved its way down between her brows. Her hands shook. A mug of coffee—smelling strongly of caramel and chocolate, steaming around the edges of the whipped cream—appeared between them, and the tremors in her fingers calmed.
Sylvie blinked. Erinya was, it seemed, committed to keeping Alex happy.
“She saved your life,” Alex repeated, more confidently.
“Yeah, but she marked Demalion’s soul in exchange—oh, fuck, I’m really stupid.”
Alex grimaced. “No. That’s me.”
“Hey!” Sylvie said. She reached across the table, laid her hand over Alex’s thin wrist. “I’ll fix this. I promise. You’ll be as good as new.”
“And Lupe? You going to fix her, too?” Alex wouldn’t meet her eyes, just fiddled with the coffee cup until it slopped over her fingers.
“No,” Sylvie said. “She’s beyond my help.”
Alex looked up. Relief etched her features. “She’s beyond you. But I’m not.”
“Not you,” Sylvie said. “You going to drink that?”
Alex shook her head. “It’s a vicious cycle. I drink coffee, I get caffeinated, I get bored. I try to work. My brain collapses. I panic. Lupe gives me drugs. I get exhausted. I nap. I drink coffee to push away the drugs.”
“You want a research project?” Sylvie suggested it tentatively. It might make things worse. Might give her something to hang on to.
Alex bit her lip, bit hard. The skin immediately around her teeth paled until it matched the enamel. “I don’t know.”
“Shouldn’t interfere with any of the blocks—”
Alex winced.
“We need a new office space.”
“What happened to ours? Did I forget that, too?”
“Nope. Just happened. Burned down.” Her throat felt oddly tight as she remembered it. Her office hadn’t been much—overexpensive to rent, and outdated within—but it had been hers.
“Fuck,” Alex said. “I don’t remember where the insurance papers are. Syl. We had insurance, right? I’m not…
“Yeah,” Sylvie said. “It’s okay. Try not to think about the past, huh? Think about the future. That’s safe.”
“For how long?”
“Should be okay for a while,” Sylvie said. “Apparently the magic works by dispersal, and that agent’s been splattered—”
Alex shook her head fiercely. “Stop. Stop. Stop it!”
Sylvie shut up, watched Alex fight her own mind.
Lupe arrived, two-legged, mostly human, barefoot, and comfortable wandering around on a jungle carpet; the vines parted for her, caressed her legs as she walked. “Eri says you’re upsetting Alex. Stop it.”
“I got the memo,” Sylvie said. She pushed away from the table, smelled blood and char and sweat on her skin as movement stirred the air around her. Zoe had the right idea. B
ath. And then?
Yvette.
“Alex,” Sylvie said. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“You reminded me of something very important.”
“Okay,” Alex said. She sounded like a little girl interacting uncertainly with an adult. It made Sylvie brittle with anger. Sylvie left Lupe caring for her with the sort of dispassionate efficiency that med students seemed to learn early on.
Erinya owned Demalion’s soul. Even the best spell in the world couldn’t hide him from her. Where Demalion was … Yvette and the Ebbinghaus Corrective.
Sylvie couldn’t wait.
14
Sisterhood
SYLVIE GOT HALFWAY DOWN THE HALL—NOW, A WINDING STONE tube that looked like it had been bored by a giant serpent—and paused, her first exhilaration fading. Erinya was a double-edged sword. She could find Demalion, but finding Demalion also meant finding the Good Sisters. Sylvie didn’t want Erinya anywhere near them. Erinya hated witches enough that nothing else mattered to her once she was hunting. The airport was proof of that.
Tackling the world’s most malevolent and largest coven might be a lot to handle, but Sylvie thought she was capable of it. With Zoe at her side, with Demalion scouting the way. Even with Marah, should she be inclined to lend her bloody talents. Erinya … she might take out Sylvie’s allies while going after the witches, leaving Sylvie attempting to stop the witches and minimizing Erinya’s massive wave of death and destruction.
Sylvie U-turned, went back toward the sound of running water, and stepped inside the changed bathroom. Zoe, sitting in a small pond beneath another waterfall, jerked, and said, “What? You can’t tell me I’m using all the hot water, because I don’t think there is any. Or, apparently, any privacy.” She sank lower in the water.
“Sorry,” Sylvie said. She crouched down near the pool, said, “Look. I need your help. I need you to do something for me.”
“Right now?”
Sylvie had to grin. “No. When you’ve cleaned up to your satisfaction, found fresh clothing, maybe had a latte.”
“There was no coffeepot—”
“Just ask Alex for one,” Sylvie said. “The thing is I need Erinya distracted. You’re a witch. You’re about the biggest distraction I’ve got. Sure as hell the only one I trust.”