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Vivienne was dreaming of the house again. The boarded windows. The river-thin hall. The open cellar door, its shadows writhing down and down

Vivienne , said the dark. You stand so very close.

Usually, when she dreamed of the house, she was alone. She’d claw at the door and cover her ears—do whatever she could to drown out that black, beckoning voice. This time was different. This time, a boy stood at the mouth of the cellar. He was sopping wet and as white as a corpse, impetigo mottling the corners of his smile.

“It’s quiet down here,” he told her. “You stop minding, after a while.”

Slowly, water began to thread along the floorboards. First in a trickle, then a stream. It burbled noisily, gathering at her ankles.

“Death always comes in threes,” said the boy.

Only—he wasn’t the boy anymore. Now he was Mikhail. Strong, stoic Mikhail, who’d loved her like a father. His eyes were gone, two empty orbitals left in their place. His lips peeled back from his teeth in a skeleton grin. She teetered back, heartbroken and horrified, and fell with a hard thump of her tailbone against wood. Water lapped wetly at her waist.

“It is the way of things,” said Mikhail, slowly advancing. “It’s what was offered. He doesn’t want to frighten you, Sparrow. He only wishes to collect his due.”

In the nearby window, a linnet bird alighted upon the sill.

Chirrup , it called, and hopped nervously to the side. Chirrrrrup.

···

Vivienne sat bolt upright, her heart hammering.

She was in bed. It was morning, the sun a flat yellow coin in the sky. A little brown sparrow sat on the wrought iron ledge of her balcony, peering warily in at her each time the curtains lifted on a breeze. The dogs were gone. The air inside the room felt stale. She was bone-tired and sore all over, the ribbing of her gown pressed tight into her sides.

Strange. It wasn’t like her to sleep fully dressed.

Climbing out of bed, she shook out the rumpled tulle of her skirt. Her fingers froze over the stiff creases. The folds had gone russet colored, bits of netting slowly flaking. With a horrible dawning comprehension, she realized it was blood.

She shut her eyes and tried to remember coming home—tried to summon the memory of climbing up the stairs and collapsing into bed. It was futile. Her head was full of shadows. They darted from her reach like little fish, too quick to catch. She was about to give up and crawl back into bed when she heard it: a moan, coming directly from her bathroom.

Through the gap at the bottom, she could just make out the pendulum sweep of a shadow. Whoever was inside was rocking themselves like a child. Back and forth. Forth and back.

On unsteady feet, she wobbled her way to the bathroom. The door swung wide and thudded hard into a body. There, on the floor, sat Thomas.

“I heard you,” he said. His forearms had been scraped raw, skin just beginning to break, and she knew without hesitation that he’d been in here clawing at himself in a panic.

“I heard you counting,” he gibbered, rocking faster. “ I heard you , and now you’re in my head. There’s these bugs crawling in my skin. I feel them . I can’t get them out. I can’t—”

She dropped to her knees, desperate to find some way to console him. The moment she reached for him, his hand flew out like a scythe and caught her wrist. His eyes were hard and cold. There was no warmth in them. Only disgust. Slowly, she followed his gaze down to her forearm. A single filament curled out from her skin, fiber thin and ribbon pink.

She watched, aghast, as Thomas reached for the thread and began to tug. She unraveled in skeins, coming all apart in sickening garlands of tulle and glistening tendon trimmings. He tugged and tugged, laying her bare, until all that was left was the bald white of her ribs, the hideous red throb of her heart. And there, woven around her sternum, was the glossy black carapace of something poisonous.

“I knew it,” said Thomas, and let her go without warning.

She toppled backward onto the tile, the gruesome exoskeleton clicking horribly as she began gathering herself up in ribbons.

Don’t look at me , she wanted to screech at him. Don’t look.

She staggered to her feet, intending to flee, and stumbled directly into Mikhail. He stood in the open door, silently contemplating Thomas.

“Who is this?”

His voice came out several registers too low. Not Mikhail at all, but that insidious whisper from her dreams. On the balcony, the sparrow fluttered nervously.

“Stop thrashing,” it said, in an all-too-human voice. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“This boy reeks of hellfire,” said Mikhail, speaking over the bird. “You shouldn’t have brought him here.”

“Vivienne,” said the bird. “Open your eyes.”

She did.

The nightmare fell away, and there in front of her was Reed. Truly Reed, and not some horrendous amalgamation. Like her, he was still dressed for the gala, though his shirt was untucked and horribly crinkled, the buttons stained with wine.

“Viv,” said Reed, looking pale, “is it— I mean, how did you—Holy shit .”

They stood in an unfamiliar basement, mildewed and cold, the overhead piping exposed like a nerve. The poured concrete had been painted a bright, blinding white, but everything else was all primary colors, from the scattering of blocks atop an alphabet rug to the bookshelf stacked with piles of board books. A large wooden cross hung on the northernmost wall, pitted in rot.

Her panic was a palpable thing. It pulsed in her grasp, as though she’d tugged her heart clear out of her chest and now held it in the cradle of her palm.

“Vivienne,” repeated Reed, this time with urgency. “Is it dying?”

Baffled, she followed his gaze. There, in her hands, she cupped something brittle and quivering and very much alive, although only just. Not her heart at all, but the sparrow from her nightmare. Her pulse gave a violent kick, and she nearly dropped the impossible creature outright. Its wing jutted out at an odd angle, as though it had smashed itself into a window.

“How did you do that?” asked Reed. “One minute you were thrashing around the room and the next—”

They peered down at the bird, watching it struggle to breathe, both of them pondering the impossibility of what she’d done. She’d been locked away inside herself, and she’d drawn something out.

“We should get a box,” Reed finally said. “Something to put it in.”

She held still as he searched the clutter for something serviceable, doing what she could to string together the scattered beads of her memory. The last thing she recalled with any amount of clarity was Thomas, etched in white and swinging blind. She remembered sounds, too—the smack of a blow landing. The sickening crunch of a fist meeting bone. Reed’s voice over it all: That’s enough, Sadowski. She said make it look realistic; she didn’t tell you to kill him.

“Here.” Reed was in front of her again, and this time he held a wooden puzzle box. He’d stuffed the inside with tissue, making a sorry sort of bed. “Put it in.”

She did, lowering the bird as gingerly as she could. They watched it lie on its side, its chest rising and falling in wretched heaves.

“You almost killed one of the pledges last night,” said Reed. His tone was matter-of-fact, without accusation. Shame sawed through her regardless. “His name is Adrian Faber. He’s a freshman at the technical institute. Or he was, before you broke him. Not that you care.”

Another memory surfaced—Thomas staggering into a nymphean sculpture, a crimson bloom widening at his temple. A boy in a black balaclava dropping to his knees, his hands clasped over his ears. The ruined tatters of her scream clinging to the silence.

Had she broken Thomas, too?

Had she left his mind torn, his belly full of worms?

She couldn’t remember.

In its box, the little bird continued to gasp for air.

“It doesn’t matter who gets hurt, right,” said Reed, “as long as you get what you want in the end?”

She blinked and saw Thomas struggling to rise, one eye pinched shut in the electric dark.

When she didn’t answer, Reed sighed. “We should go upstairs and see Grayson. He’ll want to know you’re lucid.”

He tucked the box under one arm, herding her toward the door with the other. She allowed herself to be led, feeling oddly unsteady as they made their way down a hall painted in faded murals and up a concrete flight of stairs, emerging at last into the carpeted hush of a sanctuary.

“Welcome to headquarters,” he said. “This is where the pledges meet.”

Sunlight bled through the soaring ambulatory windows, illuminating the saints in shades of martyr red and apostolic blue. The air in the transept hung lifeless, thick with dust that glimmered gold wherever light managed to breach the broad wooden buttresses.

The stark contrast in shadows made it difficult to parse out the people in the pews. There was a half dozen of them, at least. They lounged idly about, murmuring among themselves, their features nondescript in the haze. In the front row, a thickset boy with a choppy mullet and visibly bruised jaw was being fawned over by a girl all in fishnets—fishnet leggings, fishnet top, a pair of garish fishnet gloves. At the sight of Vivienne hovering, both of them lurched to their feet.

“I wondered when you’d get the guts to show your face,” snarled the boy. “Your boyfriend almost broke my jaw.”

“Relax, Sadowski,” said Reed. “It was four on one. He didn’t stand a chance.”

Another blink, and there was Thomas again, blood running down his chin in a crimson trickle.

He’d been lucid. He’d been lucid .

Hadn’t he?

She couldn’t remember.

“She looks like a Barbie,” said the girl, peering around Sadowski. She sounded disappointed. “I thought you said she was a demon .”

Reed rolled his eyes. “I told you she was harboring a demon.”

“Well, where is it?”

“Jesus, Lydia,” snapped Sadowski. “She’s possessed. She’s not carrying it around with her in her purse.”

Lydia rose up onto her booted toes. “What’s in the box, then?”

“All of you, shut up.”

Jesse Grayson stood in the nearest aisle, flanked by a slender teen with a gunmetal array of facial piercings. Between them sagged the limp body of a boy. He was scratched all to bits, deep fingernail gouges scoring the skin around his eyes as though he’d done everything in his power to claw them out. Vivienne’s stomach turned over at the sight.

She’d recognize her handiwork anywhere.

“We loaded him up with benzodiazepine,” said Jesse. “Hopefully that mellows him out long enough for me to do a closer examination.”

This is A-d-r-i-a-n? Vivienne signed. F-a-b-e-r?

“Yeah,” said Jesse. “Adrian. That’s right. Are you happy, Vivienne? You got what you wanted.”

I didn’t want this.

“Vivienne?” Between Jesse and the teen, the boy picked up his head. It lolled heavily to the side as he fixed Vivienne in a glassy, faraway stare. “He told me you’re special,” he said, his speech softened by the quelling effect of the drug. “That if I wanted to rise in the ranks, I should do whatever you ask. Give you whatever you want. Make you happy, so you’ll come home.”

Reed stiffened. “What the hell is he talking about?”

“Look at you,” leered the boy, before anyone could answer. “You’re not special. I can see you clearly now that I’ve heard you. It’s like—it’s like a curtain has been pulled back. There’s death spilling out of you. You’re all maggots and mealworms.”

Vivienne thought of the way she’d come all apart in her dream. She knew that inside her was rot, but to hear it said aloud was like being flayed alive.

“Sadowski,” barked Jesse. “Help Diaz with Faber. Take him upstairs. I’ll be up a in bit.”

Jesse waited until everyone had filed out before rounding on Vivienne. “Did you bring it?”

“ I did,” said Reed. “Got it from Hudson last night, just before everything went south.”

He reached into his jacket and procured a little glass vial filled with a clear liquid. Jesse took it and turned it over, contemplating the label. It felt the tiniest bit ironic, how she’d gone to such great lengths for something so small. Ironic, how after weeks of plotting to rid herself of Thomas Walsh, he was all she could think about.

The last she’d seen of him, he’d been struggling to stand.

Had that been her fault? Had she done that to him?

“That’s that, then,” said Jesse, pocketing the vial. He sounded resigned. “Given your height and weight, it should take about two milliliters of ketamine to put you out and keep you out.”

“If he can find a vein,” muttered Reed.

Jesse shot him a look. “Don’t start. What’s in the box?”

“Glad you asked.” Reed shoved the box between them. Inside, the little brown bird continued to gasp for air. Jesse frowned down at it.

“What is that, a sparrow?”

“Seems to be.”

“What happened to it?”

Reed cut a glance toward Vivienne. She didn’t return it. “That’s the thing,” he said. “We’re not exactly sure. One second, Vivienne was standing there without a bird, the next—bird.”

“I don’t love that,” said Jesse. “It’s an uncontrolled variable. Has anything like this ever happened before?”

Vivienne shook her head.

“What do you think it means?” asked Reed.

“I don’t know.” Jesse peered back down at the bird, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “I want to try and do a full workup of Vivienne in her altered state ahead of the procedure.”

Reed whistled. “Sounds like a great way to end up like Faber.”

“We’ll muzzle her if we have to. I’m not going into this blind.”

What about the bird? asked Vivienne, a little desperately.

“The bird is dying, Vivienne,” said Jesse coldly. “You killed it.”

What about Tommy? churned the thoughts in her head. What about Tommy? She couldn’t bring herself to ask. Had she killed him, too? Had she left him there on the pool house floor to claw at his eyes and tear at his flesh? Had his heart given out? Had he died all alone?

She hadn’t meant to scream.

“I can’t do anything to help the bird,” added Jesse, “but I’ll do my best to help you.”

Thank you , she signed, touching the trembling tips of her fingers to her chin.

“I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart. You’ve got my back against the wall, and you know it.”

When he was gone, only she and Reed remained. The rest of the sanctuary had slowly emptied, as though none of the pledges could bring themselves to stay too close. She couldn’t blame them. She was going to extraordinary lengths to get as far from herself as possible.

“You seem quiet,” said Reed. She shot him a look, and he amended, “Well, for you.”

I tried to find you , she signed. At the party.

“Yeah?” Reed arched a brow. “How come?”

I was having second thoughts.

He examined her sideways. “Are you still?”

She didn’t answer. Gingerly, she took the box from him, peering down at the bird within. Its eyes had clouded over, its breathing slowed. Her heart gave a bitter pang. She couldn’t shake the horrible feeling that she’d gone about everything wrong. She was usually more cautious. She was, as a person, extraordinarily calculated. She planned out every move in advance, controlled every last variable.

Thomas’s arrival earlier that summer had knocked her off-center. He’d made her reactive. Rash. Reckless. In just a few short weeks, she’d grown into someone impulsive, all heart and humiliation.

It was too late for second thoughts.

It didn’t matter how she’d made her decisions, only that they’d been made. There was no other choice now but to see them through to the end.

Exhausted, she sank down into a pew. Reed sat next to her. For some time, they sat side by side and watched the sun spark through the bloodred robes of a martyred saint. She held the box tight in her lap, watching the sparrow struggle for air. It seemed like the kindest thing she could do—bear witness to its suffering.

Or maybe it was the cruelest. Maybe it was kinder to put it out of its misery. She was too much of a coward to do anything but watch, a silent witness unto death. It’s all she ever was, in the end.

“What you’re doing is selfish,” said Reed, startling her. She’d nearly forgotten he was there at all. He hooked his elbows over the cap rail and added, “What do you think it’s going to do to the people who love you when you don’t survive?”

She wanted to tell him there was no one in all the world who loved her, but it was an unbearable thing to admit.

Instead, she signed, I’m not planning to die.

“But you don’t care if you do.” When she didn’t deny it, he let out a quiet laugh. “I’m not staying, Viv. For the surgery, I mean. I’m forfeiting my membership.”

Surprised, she turned to face him. Why?

He tipped his head back, peering up at the vaulted ceiling. “The House asks for too much. That’s how it works. All new members are required to tithe. It’s small at first. A portion of your earnings. A few drops of blood.”

Disgusted, she trickled her hand over her stomach. Blood?

“Just a little,” he said. “No more or less than you’d donate at a blood drive.”

The thought horrified her beyond measure. What do they do with it? The blood?

“I don’t know. I don’t ask. All I know is, the higher you rise in the ranks, the bigger your offerings become. The bigger the offering, the greater the reward. I used to think I didn’t care. I didn’t have anything I wouldn’t give up to get ahead.”

And now?

“I don’t know.” He turned to face her, his expression wistful. “Maybe I’m having second thoughts.”

Rising to go, he rocked back on his heels, his hands in his pockets. Deliberating, she knew, how best to say goodbye. In the end, he settled for saying nothing at all, but then Vivienne supposed he’d already said all he needed to say.

It wasn’t like they were friends.

Their relationship, like all her relationships, had been transactional.

And now it was at an end.

He left her there alone in the dusky hush of the empty cathedral, a dying sparrow in her lap, the lifeless eyes of the saints staring down upon her without remorse.