Page 139 of Cold Curses

* * *

“Are you all right?” Connor asked when we were alone.

“I don’t know what I am. Sad. Terrified. Excited.”

“Good,” Connor said, brushing a lock of hair away from my face. “You’re planning to change a fundamental part of your life. At least one of the voices inside you will be gone.”

“Ha ha. What if I’m not me anymore?”

“You mean, like a brain-eating parasite has taken you over and subbed its personality for yours?”

“Is this aJQthing?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point. You are you, Lis. And yeah,you’ve had to adapt because you have monster. It has, too. But the core of you is still one hundred percent brat.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better. What if I’m not as strong? Or as fast?”

“You’ll adapt again if you have to. But this is nonsense talk, because you aren’t going to get weaker by having a—sorry, monster—parasite exorcised. Don’t stay in a bad situation just because you aren’t sure what comes next.”

Monster had no comment to that.

“You’re going to come out the other side. I promise you that. And then I’ll be there waiting for you when you do.”

“Thanks. But if new Elisa wants to go in a different romantic direction, I may not be able to stop her.”

“Try it,” he said. “Monster and I will team up to get you back.”

Lulu appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

“I’m ready,” she said.

And that was that.

* * *

We drove to Cadogan House in silence. Connor, Alexei, Lulu, and me in the Pack’s SUV. We’d told my parents we were coming and needed to talk, and asked that they invite Lulu’s parents.

Monster wasn’t a literal physical presence inside my body. But it felt like we were embracing the entire trip. Holding each other as we journeyed toward our crossroads.

Like me, it was nervous, excited, scared. It had spent most of its existence inside of me; I was the universe in which it lived. Now that would change. And if we didn’t work the magic correctly, or if my parents objected, it could be the end for at least one of us.

It will work,I told it, because that’s what it needed to hear, so that was what I needed to say.

* * *

When I sat down in my father’s office and they all looked at me, I decided the best way to discuss monster was to show them.

“Monster,” I said to it, but aloud this time. “Show yourself, please.”

There was no hesitation now, not as eager as it was to reunite with its other half.

I knew my eyes had gone red, and I sat up a little straighter as it stretched inside me.

Aunt Mallory was the first to react; she leaned close, eyes slightly unfocused, probably because she was seeing a change in my magic. Not just mine and the Pack’s, but monster’s, too.

I looked at my parents, saw only bafflement. But they hadn’t bolted yet, so that was something.

“This is monster,” I said. “Or that’s what I call it. It’s a little piece of the Egregore that got stuck to me during the binding spell. And it’s been living inside me ever since.”