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I worked my mouth open and spoke, my voice creaking but audible. Human. “I’ve been getting sick. Roman is in the forest. He’s doing something.” She looked over her shoulder. The pinprick of Roman’s flashlight was still just visible.

“Come on,” she said. We loped along unevenly. As we approached, we dropped our speed, and as I focused on the need tomake no sound, my steps grew softer, my feet ghosting over the earth. I could feel every twig and leaf as I set my weight on them.

Roman’s flashlight roved through the darkness, but he didn’t seem to see the shadows that flickered around him. They hadn’t hurt me yet. I wasn’t sure they could. But maybe the rules had changed as I changed.

“Roman,” I croaked.

He spun. The flashlight pinned us in place. “You shouldn’t be out here,” he said. I could make out the lump of the duffel over his shoulder, and my eyes fixed on it.

“Neither should you,” I reminded him. I pushed myself free of Bryony’s support and took a wobbling step. “What are you doing to me?” There was something in that bag, and I needed it.

He sneered. “Do you really think Leopold wanted you to have this place? It’s the other way around, Helen.”

“What have you done to me?” I demanded. I held out my wrists to him, showing him the bracelets of blood. He flinched back.

“I’m only stripping away the lies. All this pretending is getting us nowhere. It’s obscene. It’s time to get it over with.”

“I didn’t ask for this! I’m notpretendinganything.”

“I won’t let you hurt her anymore,” Bryony said, and started forward. I didn’t know what she intended to do against Roman—six inches taller than her, at least eighty pounds heavier. He raised his fist—I screamed a warning—

The shadows descended.

22

AT FIRST THEREwas nothing but darkness—a darkness of many parts, moving in a chaotic choreography of limbs and jaws and malformed bodies, occluding the light of the stars, and smothering the flashlight’s glow. Something struck me from behind, and I fell to the ground, the breath going out of me.

Bryony screamed. Through flickering scraps of shadow, moving like a flock of starlings startled into the sky, I could see her crouching, arms raised above her head protectively.

“Leave her alone!” I shouted, clawing my way upright. “STOP!”

The scraps of shadows froze into solid shapes. Drifts of darkness fell from them like mist. They looked like stretched-out people—like a shadow cast against a wall, elongated but recognizable. Their darkness made them seem flat, and as I stepped carefully toward Bryony, I realized it wasn’t just an illusion. No matter what direction I looked at them from, their silhouette stayed the same, as if I was looking head-on at a shadow cast against a solid surface.

I caught Bryony’s hand, pulling her up and toward me, away from the shadows. We scrambled up next to Roman, who braced himself against a tree clutching his flashlight like a weapon, eyes wide and scalp lacerated.

The shadows twitched. An arm rippled. A head jerked at the end of a stretched-out neck. Whatever hold my words had on them, it was failing.

Still holding Bryony’s hand, I spun and fled. She ran with me. So did Roman. He shoved past me, his longer legs making up the distance between us, but as the rushing sound of the shadows swelled, his foot caught a root and he toppled.

Bryony leaped over him gracefully and landed on the other side, pulling me along in an awkward lurch beside her. The duffel bag had landed right in front of Roman’s outstretched hand. “Get it!” I yelled, because I was certain that whatever was in that bag, I needed it.

Bryony darted forward to grab the bag. Roman snarled and clawed at it, but she danced nimbly back, and then we were running again, darting between the trees. At some point, I realized Roman wasn’t following us anymore, but I couldn’t summon the will to care.

Bryony yelped. The darkness before us split apart into three shadows. We skidded to a halt. They stalked around us, their long arms nearly touching the ground, huge fingers curled like claws.

“Blood,” one whispered.

“Blood and name,” another answered.

“But something strange,” a third replied, and they buzzed and rustled in reply.

“Not that one,” said the first again, and I could feel their attention fix on Bryony.

Bryony lifted one hand, palm out. She bent her ring finger inan odd gesture. “I know you,” she said. “I know your names.” Her voice shook. I could feel her fear in the air around us.

“Then ssspeak them,” the shadows spat, moving toward us.

For an instant, I thought that they would descend on her. That I was about to watch Bryony torn apart in front of me. She thought it, too—I could see the tremor in her hands, the tension that said she was steeling herself against her own end.