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Today was going to be a very bad day. Vivienne Farrow could feel it in her bones.

She’d awoken that morning on the bathroom’s tiled floor, the hexagonal pattern mosaicked into her left cheek and a headache blossoming behind her eyes. Her nightdress had been torn, her arms scraped raw, as though she’d done her level best to claw clean out of herself in the dead of night.

And maybe she had.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

She dressed slowly, feeling strangely fractured as she slipped into a clean pink leotard and petal skirt. The sky outside her bedroom window was milky white, humidity thick as soup. She pulled on a knitted warm-up anyway, tugging it into place until the sleeves swallowed up the angry lattice of her arms. By the time she twisted her hair into a bun and shoved out into the hall, she was already sweating. The vision in her right eye had begun to tunnel.

She’d sat awake through much of the previous night, her thoughts a glittering pinwheel of panic—hyperaware of their newest houseguest settling into the guest room beneath her. He didn’t know it yet, but Thomas had the power to bring everything she’d worked for crashing down around her ears. It was inevitable. She couldn’t possibly keep her secrets with him tailing after her all summer. All it would take was a single word to Philip, and she’d be ruined.

She needed him gone, that much was clear.

The trouble was how . She’d lain awake all night worrying. Wondering. The air in her room had been too hot. The house, too still. Everything fit in exactly the wrong way—her covers scratched, her pajamas itched, her skin crawled.

And then—as it so often did on nights when the moon was sharp as a sickle—a cold, unwelcome something had wriggled its way to the surface. Like an earthworm, writhing out of the mud in the rain. She hadn’t been able to keep it at bay, even with the lights on and the mirrors covered, a protective circle drawn in chalk around her bed. Even with the dogs snarling at her side, their hackles raised.

She’d spent the next several hours trying to expel the feel of maggots in her belly. Knees pressed into the bathroom floor, she’d braced herself against the toilet bowl and breathed in the smell of bleached porcelain water. Doing whatever she could to make the wriggling stop.

That was how most nights went—long bouts of sleeplessness followed by a great, clawing struggle. Life had been that way for years. It was practically rote.

Though she didn’t normally unravel quite so thoroughly.

Which meant it was getting worse.

···

Her very bad day became immediately worse the moment she stepped outside. She drew up short beneath the steepled portico, shielding her eyes from the late-morning sun. Thomas Walsh stood at the bend of the horseshoe drive, dressed in a suit her stepfather had no doubt provided him and inspecting the garish fountain her mother had recently had installed. He didn’t appear to notice her at all, and yet she was certain he was waiting there specifically to ambush her.

Finding Thomas in the receiving room the previous day had been a shock to the system, although maybe it shouldn’t have been. She’d known this was coming. Mikhail’s accident the preceding winter had snapped something vital within her, but the loss had been little more than an inconvenience for Philip. Just another problem to fix. Another vacancy to fill. She’d made the mistake of assuming Mikhail’s successor would be a carbon copy of her former handler: middle-aged, menacing, and—though he’d always vehemently denied it—suspected former Bratva.

Thomas Walsh was none of those things. He was scarcely older than her, with a friendly face and a short crop of sandy blond hair and a left cheek that dimpled atrociously when he smiled.

Pretty was the word that came to mind, which was the worst possible thing she could think of. It would be humiliating, having a boy like that hanging around all summer. The idea of him following her, handling her—seeing her at her ugliest, her meanest, her most utterly depraved—was undignified beyond imagination.

A bead of resentment lit in her chest and she kicked reflexively at the ground. Her outburst sent a loose pebble skittering horrifyingly across the gravel, where it collided into the scuffed heel of Thomas Walsh’s shoe. He glanced mildly down at it before turning his gaze toward hers.

“Good morning.”

His eyes were some indefinable sort of hue. Blue. Or maybe green. She didn’t plan on getting close enough to determine which. He had a slightly hunted look on his face, though he tried his best to conceal it with a smile.

“Your father asked me to drive you today,” he said when the silence between them stretched into something uneasy.

P-h-i-l-i-p is not my father , she signed, and then cursed herself inwardly. She’d meant to say nothing at all. Her plan was to ice him out until she could decide how best to dispose of him, the way one put a dead hamster in the freezer until spring came along and softened the ground enough to dig a little grave.

“Oh.” He pawed at the back of his neck. “Okay. Your, uh, stepfather, then.”

Philip was clearly paying him an exorbitant fee to play nice. It wouldn’t be enough. She’d learned, in her eighteen years on this earth, that everyone had a limit. She’d find his soon enough.

I’m going to the studio , she signed. I’ll be alone. I won’t need an interpreter.

He didn’t seem to know what to say to this. Not without admitting he was nothing more than a glorified minion. Finally, and with some hesitation, he landed on, “I was told you don’t have a license.”

She shook her fist open in provocation. So?

“So, everyone else is out of the house,” he shot back, vehement.

Immediate regret swam into his features, and he took a steadying breath through his nose. She could practically hear him counting down from ten inside his head. She bit into the beginnings of a smile.

So, he had a short fuse. She could use that to her advantage—bend him until he snapped. Edge him on, just a little, until he grew angry enough to quit.

She’d sat up all night worrying for nothing.

Getting rid of Thomas Walsh would be child’s play.

Across the yard, several sprinklers kicked on, scattering droplets across the driveway in a chilly rainbow mist. She slipped her phone out of her dance bag and checked the time.

“If you want a ride,” said Thomas, “I’m all you’ve got.”

In her first stroke of luck all morning, he was answered by the rumble of an approaching motorbike. Exhaust popping, Frances Lefevre’s glossy red sport bike rounded the corner into view. Her former schoolmate veered to a stop a few feet away, leaving a black rubber skid across the driveway that was sure to send Vivienne’s mother into apoplexy.

The helmet came loose, and they were met with a matted blonde shag and a peach-pale complexion, complete with Frankie’s signature scowl.

“It’s too early to be awake,” she griped when Vivienne waved. “Don’t ever tell me I don’t do you any favors.”

Thomas didn’t wait for an introduction. “Who are you?”

“I’m her ride.” Frankie pulled one eye shut and sized him up. “Where did you come from, Planet Krypton?”

“Close,” said Thomas. “Worcester. And I’m her ride, actually.”

“Oh?” Frankie peered around at Vivienne. “Viv?”

New babysitter , she signed.

“Interpreter,” corrected Thomas, twisting his hands flat in the corresponding sign.

Vivienne shot Frankie a wordless look and swung her leg over the back of the bike. Buckling the extra helmet under her chin, she met Thomas’s gaze head-on. His eyes were flinty, his jaw wired tight. It didn’t take a mind reader to know that he wasn’t sure what to do—how hard he was expected to push. How much authority he had.

None , she wanted to tell him. Give up. Go home.

The engine kicked over. She wriggled her fingers in a jeering goodbye.

“See you later, Superman,” called Frankie.

And they left him in the dust.

···

Saylor Academy was a landmark of Greenwich’s quaint downtown, the lofty brick edifice wedged between a glittering wedding boutique and a high-end consignment shop. Inside, the front hallway was adorned with shelf after shelf of gleaming trophies—testaments to the academy’s sterling reputation and competitive spirit.

Once upon a time, when Vivienne was still small and perfectionistic, she’d dreamed of becoming the company’s prima ballerina. She’d assumed if she put in the work—if she pretended she was a normal girl, with normal dreams—she’d eventually claw her way to the coveted role of principal dancer.

But then things took a turn.

She got older. Her body changed, the way bodies did. Only, where her friends were contending with raging hormones and stress acne, she was going through a reckoning. It seemed to happen overnight. One morning, she looked in the mirror and saw a girl staring back. Dark hair. Dark eyes. A small, dark mouth. The next, something unrecognizable stood where she’d been.

Something long dormant, slowly waking.

The nights got hard after that. And then so did the days. When the role of the Sugarplum Fairy was cast in The Nutcracker , it wasn’t Vivienne. When the company went on tour, she stayed behind. Kept close, the way Philip liked her. Kept collared, so the wretchedness in her bones couldn’t bleed free.

These days, she trained alone.

Usually, the academy was her chapel. Her oasis. There was no wriggling here. Nothing squirmed or itched or scratched. No long, chilly fingers clawed at her insides. It wasn’t accidental—it was discipline. It was years of rigorous drilling, hours of daily training. It was the kill-switch pain of broken toes and taped feet and endless, grueling footwork. It kept her soul in line. It quieted her spirit.

Usually, but not today.

Today her reflection was standing just a touch too still. The Vivienne in the glass didn’t fidget the way she fidgeted. Didn’t blink when she blinked. She didn’t trust it. It made her uneasy when she couldn’t tell whether or not the creature was watching.

She was particularly wary today. She was about to set something monumental in motion. Something that would finally, finally change her life for the better. She didn’t want the creature to see.

In her hands, she gripped a sleek spiral-bound file. It was one of two copies. The other, she’d sent via bicycle courier, along with a concise list of demands. If her estimation was correct, it would arrive at its destination any minute.

The cover page was crisp and white, the lettering a neat serif font:

A Biomechanical Comparison of Surgical Excision Versus Orthopedic Exorcism

By Jesse C. Grayson

Beneath was the abstract, marked in pencil notations.

Objective: to establish the biochemical similarities between malignant growth and demonic possession.

Method: a qualitative analysis of historical textbooks detailing religious exorcisms performed in a manner analogous to contemporary surgical procedures.

To most, the dissertation looked like the ravings of a madman. To Vivienne, it looked like hope. The first glimmer of possibility in years of near dark. A precipice, off which she was just desperate enough to leap. Her hand holding the paper shook. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the face in the glass lift toward hers. Terror zippered up her spine. Slowly, she set the paper face down upon the floor and lifted her eyes toward the mirror.

It was staring right at her.

The creature in the glass.

The very worst thing about her infernal haunt was that it looked almost exactly like her. The resemblance was uncanny. Unsettling—as though some divine hand had drawn the real Vivienne Farrow from memory, and had fudged a few of the finer details.

Its lips were just a touch too thin, its smile wider than anything human ought to be. Its eyes sat far apart on its face, polychoric pupils like ink splatters against yellowed sclera. Its fingers were overlong and double-jointed, the tips darkening to a gangrene-colored point.

When it smiled, its teeth were razor sharp.

“What have you got there?” it asked in a voice like gravel. “Written on your little paper?”

“Nothing,” she whispered. At her reticence, its smile grew.

“You know I can’t hear you when you mutter.”

She shut her eyes. It was a ridiculous thing to do. She couldn’t will the malfeasance away. It was inside her. She’d been four years old when it happened—when she’d toppled headlong into a gorge like Alice down the rabbit hole and come face-to-face with something sinister waiting at the bottom.

When it gave her comfort, she’d taken it. When it offered to help, she’d accepted. She hadn’t known there’d be a cost. How could she have? She’d been a child, lost and afraid, the night closing in. She would have trusted a wolf had it promised her deliverance.

She didn’t know she’d carried it home. Didn’t know that it spent the next several years quietly seeding itself along her veins. Putting down roots. She didn’t suspect a thing until, one day—shortly after her twelfth birthday—it bloomed.

It started with her voice, turning even the faintest whisper to a poison. The first time she killed someone, she’d still been in braces. Philip came upon her in the entryway, standing in horror over their driver, her hands around her own throat. The nightmare hadn’t stopped there. Insatiable as a weed, it continued to consume her. Year after year. Little by little. It bound itself to her bones, the way green bittersweet could swallow a tree entire.

This morning, she’d woken on a tile floor.

One day, she might not wake up at all.

“I am making us better,” said the creature, as though she’d spoken all this aloud. Its voice was a percussion. It beat inside her skull. “Stronger. That is what you asked of me.”

Her right leg began to throb, the way old injuries did in the cold. Instinctively, she rubbed at her thigh, massaging away the pain. She hadn’t taken the time to properly stretch. If it got any worse, she’d be limping all afternoon.

“You’re keeping secrets from me,” sang the creature. “I don’t like that. We shouldn’t have secrets, you and I.”

Its horrible voice was punctuated by the chime of an incoming text. Still gripping her thigh, she made her way to her dance bag and tugged out her cell. A single message greeted her when she unlocked the screen.

Jesse

Are you out of your mind? I’m at work.

So, the courier had made it, after all. Right on schedule. Her heart thudded dully against her ribs as she composed a response.

Vivienne

Did you look through what I sent?

Jesse

Unfortunately, yes.

Vivienne

And?

It was a long time before he replied. In the mirror, the creature began to pace, dragging one long nail against the glass. When the phone chimed in her hand, it was a relief.

Jesse

What you’re asking me to do is impossible.

Vivienne

Where’s your sense of adventure?

She thought it over, and then added:

Vivienne

If you pull this off, you’ll be a god.

This time, no reply came at all. She waited, growing increasingly agitated. Disappointment ate away at her like rust. It didn’t matter. If he refused, she’d find a way to make him submit.

Everyone had a breaking point.

Out in the vestibule, the front door swung open and then shut.

“Miss Farrow.” Thomas Walsh’s voice had an echo. It reverberated clean through her, like a plucked string. “You in here?”

She cast a horrified glance at the mirror, where the creature’s spine had snapped predator straight. Scenting prey, its lips peeled back from its canines. She shoved her phone and the file into her dance bag and skidded out into the hall, tugging the studio door shut in her wake.

“Oh,” said Thomas, drawing up short at the sight of her. “There you are.”

What are you doing here?

“I told you earlier,” he said, undeterred by her outrage. “I’m your ride.”

F-r-a-n-k-i-e is my ride , she corrected him. She’ll be back to pick me up any minute.

“Actually, she won’t.” He had the decency, at least, to look sheepish. “I ran into her outside on my way in. I sent her home.”

You did what? A white-hot anger blistered beneath her skin. Don’t talk to my friends.

He’d shed his jacket in the heat, and without it he seemed to loom even larger, as though he’d been containing himself in a box much too small. His shirtsleeves were cuffed and the thin lettering of a tattoo curled out from beneath. She could only make out the one word, inked into his forearm: moriar.

She recognized the Latin, which on its own meant I would die.

“I’m just trying to do my job, Miss Farrow,” he said softly.

She wanted to ask him about his tattoo, but it behooved her to stay angry. She veered around him instead, her shoulder clipping his arm as she passed. Undiscouraged, he fell into step alongside her.

“I feel like you and I got off on the wrong foot,” he said, keeping pace. “Can we start again?”

She ignored him, sinking onto a nearby bench and toeing out of her slippers. Mercifully, he didn’t press. He fell to studying the trophies, his hands in his pockets, glancing periodically at her out of the corner of his eye. She was midway through lacing up her sneakers before he spoke again.

“Your name is on a lot of these. You must be pretty good, huh?”

She didn’t want to talk about dance. Not with him. She didn’t want to tell him how she used to dream of dancing as the principal in the New York City Ballet. Odette. Coppélia. Giselle. It was ridiculous of her to have ever entertained the idea. Ridiculous to spend years harboring secret hopes of playing women cursed, only to become one herself. Only, in her tale of woe, there was no breathtaking pas de deux. No roses at her feet. No thunderous applause.

Only silence, unbearable and unending.

She sprang to her feet, ignoring the ache in her thigh as she headed for the door. Thomas followed suit, maddeningly unruffled, taking one long stride for every two of hers.

“Do you like pizza?” he asked, seamlessly transferring the strap of her bag from her shoulder to his. “I drove by a pretty promising place on the way over here. It looked like one of those hole-in-the-wall kind of spots, and those always have the best—”

She turned in a pivot, and he was forced to careen to a stop to keep from colliding into her.

What are you doing?

“I’m considering ordering a pizza?”

Wrong. She twisted her hand across her chin. You’re being nice. You’re looking at my trophies. You’re asking questions. You’re carrying my bag.

He readjusted the strap. “Do you not want me to carry your bag?”

I don’t want you to be nice. It feels like a t-a-c-t-i-c.

“It is a tactic.” Thomas swung his palms over his chest, his corresponding sign correct, where she’d resorted to finger spelling. It irked her that he knew more than she did. He irked her. The way he walked. The way he smiled. The way his dimple deepened to a crater as he said, “My mom always tells me you catch more flies with honey.”

And I’m a fly?

He fell back a step and sized her up. “No, I don’t think so, actually. I think if you were a bug, you’d be a praying mantis.”

She blinked.

“Hear me out,” he said, holding up a finger. “It’s a badass bug. The female praying mantis kills and eats the male after mating.”

The words rang between them like a struck bell. She watched him play them back and then wince. “Now that I’ve heard myself say it out loud, I’ll admit I could have picked something better.”

Stifling a sudden urge to scream right in his face, she tore out into the parking lot, wrenching the door shut behind her as she went. Thomas was forced to wrestle it back open, which he did with just as much aplomb as he’d done everything else.

Outside, a broad yellow sun had burned off much of the morning’s haze. The blocky SUV Philip reserved for staff usage sat parallel parked out front. As she stood there waiting for Thomas to unlock the doors, her phone went off inside her bag.

She tugged it free, glancing down at the screen.

This time, the text from Jesse was long.

Jesse

I’m a surgical resident. A student.

You do understand that, right? I wrote

that thesis as a joke. It’s all hypothetical.

I’ve only ever scrubbed in on surgeries

to observe. I’ve never done anything solo.

The lock clicked and Thomas appeared, already sweating in the heat.

“Your chariot,” he intoned, pulling the door wide.

She ignored him as she slipped into the passenger seat, too busy composing a response.

Vivienne

Don’t be so defeatist.

I believe in you.

Jesse

Well, you shouldn’t. Because if we go through with this, you won’t survive.

The engine turned over. The air-conditioning clicked on. In the synthetic chill, Vivienne’s skin felt strangely clammy. Like she’d caught a sudden fever. She could feel her reflection sneering in the side mirror. She didn’t look.

“You okay?” Thomas was staring over at her, his expression impassive. “Looks like that last text upset you.”

He was being paid to pry. He didn’t really care. Not about her trophies. Not about pizza. Certainly not about how she was feeling.

Fine , she signed, though nothing felt fine at all.

She was losing Jesse. If she wanted to convince him to go along with her plan, she’d need to do something considerably more drastic. And quickly.

In the driver’s seat, Thomas was still peering over at her. This close, she saw that his eyes were gray. Clear and still as a lake on a summer day. She hadn’t meant to notice.

Stop staring , she signed, jabbing two fingers between them. Just do your job and take me home.