Izzy steps in front of me. “I’m gd you agree, but now? At the very least let’s go somewhere quieter.”

  “There’s only Orn and a few drunks. Soon the music will start.”

  “Won’t the innkeeper come when he hears…your screams?” Luca inquires coldly.

  Izzy and I both chuckle darkly. “No,” we say in unison.

  The door is locked. The windows, shut. The firelight flickers, warm against my back. I begin to roll my dress off my shoulders and I remember that Luca is just a boy. He flushes red and looks away nervously. It is almost a comfort to see him flustered. Izzy chokes a grin and covers his eyes. I kneel over a chair.

  Izzy sets a vial down beside us. A familiar bottle, clear as ice water. Draught of Midnight.

  “Still had some, huh?” I ask her.

  “Yeah, well, if you start bleeding too badly, if She won’t help us…you know how I feel about options.” She crooks her head to the side to be level with my eyes. “I’ve got you. Luca will be fast. Right?”

  She says the st bit through her teeth.

  “Fast as I can. The work cannot be rushed.” He says, voice a little shakier than before.

  I dig my nails into my thighs as Luca rolls up his sleeves and douses alcohol over my shoulder and his tools. His hands are like smooth stone, steady while he fingers through his tools. He chooses a thin bde, too small to be a weapon.

  Luca rests the bde at my skin, waiting for my permission once more. I give it. The knife is through my shoulder, and the old fears rise again. My body jerks but only for a moment.

  It starts shallow, at first. A sharp glide. My body wants to react. To twist away. To stop this. But I don’t move. I don’t breathe. Luca almost seems to stop for a moment, waiting for my shrieks, but such pains are not enough to draw my voice. Not anymore.

  Deeper.

  The bde slides through muscle, slow and deliberate. I feel it shear apart, each yer peeling back, baring me open. Blood rolls down my ribs, sticky and thick, soaking into my waistband.

  She is angry. Her fingers coil around my skull and squeeze. No more drums, just immense pressure.

  "She will not let you die," Luca says, voice calm as ever. As if my flesh isn’t in ribbons beneath his hands.

  Izzy presses something to my lips. Bitter. Medicinal. The taste coats my tongue, numb and tingling. My stomach twists, my head sways, but feel it working.

  “To keep you from passing out, love. Be still, now.” She tucks my hair behind my ear and takes my hand.

  Luca murmurs something in his own tongue. The words hum through me as he starts chipping away at my bone. He switches tools fluidly. Izzy pces her belt between my teeth as Luca begins shaping the sigil’s more delicate pieces.

  The pressure inside me grows wilder, smming itself against my walls. She wants out.

  Then, something changes.

  The sigil is finished, I know it the moment it happens.

  “IZZY! Something’s wro—

  I choke on bck bile and she rushes to my side. “Catherine, speak to me, what’s happening!?”

  “Kill. Me.” Is all I can croak out as the bile spills from my mouth to the floor in a great pool of pitch. My hand twists and contorts into long, bded nails, lunging at Izzy’s throat. I grip my wrist tight with the other hand, dragging it back.

  Not. Izzy. Bitch. Never, Izzy!

  A dagger rises. It tremors wildly in Izzy’s hand. Her eyes meet mine—gssy, unsure. She knows I’m right. Her mouth opens and then closes. I turn my head to the side, to make it easy.

  You promised. Do it!

  Her grip on the dagger tightens, knuckles white. I brace for the end, knowing I take this evil with me.

  But Izzy doesn’t move.

  No, no, you promised.

  Her chest rises and falls. Her chin quivers and her lips form a word that I’ll never hear. Hot, agonized tears fall from my eyes.

  Then, she’s yanks a terrified Luca from the floor and they’re gone.

  An unwanted stillness caresses me. She giggles. A cavernous sphere splits open in my depths, making room for Her. The quiet is here—and then, hellfire is, too, bzing in my skull. I loose a guttural moan and colpse, curling in on myself. My knees crush into my chest. I reach for my pendant, a st attempt to slow Her down, but it just makes Her smile.

  And She cracks me open.

  I am not enough. I must be more. My bones splinter, brittle and dead as dry roots, forcing through muscle as they reshape. The joints go next, breaking apart with wet, hollow, pops. It is agony, necessary and absolute.

  My ribs wrench open and outward, like an ancient cage breaking a hundred year seal. The pain all but bnks me. My teeth shift, sharpen, pushing past the gums, hungry things. Their points digging into my tongue. The skin follows. Darkness bleeds through me, an inkblot unfurling beneath the surface, the pale porcein succumbing to midnight oil.

  I am Her. She is me. We—

  We are free.

  The boy has made it so! We stand, inhaling the stench of sweat-den flesh, excrement—and something…delicious. Wonderful. It all beckons us. We peel the wall apart and walk the earth once more. It pleads beneath our feet, rejecting us.

  Movement draws our attention. Warm, well-fed bodies scurry about in front of us. No manners. With a simple step, a fsh to their eyes, we rip them open. Soft things spill out, still slick and steaming in our hands before we cast them into the muck. A wet sp. We ugh, a sound this world does not know, and we are pleased.

  The screaming begins in earnest as we stride through the square.

  Shiny metals gather and point sharp toys at us. We bend them into new shapes, better shapes. Yes, it is messy work, but only we can do it. There is a sting in our hand, it burns us, but then it is gone.

  Vermin in fancy robes chant words that fill us with joy. We share our own words as we examine their bones, oh, so closely.

  We are in the homes now.

  A plump little rat-man stands in our way, so we make him one with the stone! Oh, what pretty colors. Next, we cradle three filthy little children in our teeth. They all coo for mother. But mother cannot hear them, she is in the rafters—twisted in half.

  We take our time with them, making for the river.

  They do not steal from the river. But, we take what we please. Our legs wade into the water, icy hands tug at them. We have bsphemed their master. Yes, come. Come to us drowned ones. We pull them from the deep, limbs sloshing, water-bloated and fling them into the streets. They feast as we feast. Only fair.

  Fmes roar in our honor. Blood sptters to our glory.

  And then—

  ***

  I wake in the woods.

  A silence hangs in the trees, the kind of silence craved after nightmares, the kind that should chase the hauntings away—but it doesn’t. The scent of char and iron lingers in my nostrils. My head pulses, but the drumming is gone, She is gone. I exhale, and push myself upright, my hands sticking to the earth. The half-light of the moon illuminates my shredded nails—a bckened red.

  Something is in my teeth.

  My fingers tremble as I touch my mouth. My tongue find a scrap. I rip it free and fling it away in disgust. I see her. Izzy. She’s slumped against a tree, her breath ragged, neck and ribs bleeding. She recoils as I awaken, and now she’s farther. She stares through me. Wide-eyed. Unblinking. Vacant.

  "It said—,” blood threads between her teeth. "It...fucking spoke to me."

  The words burrow into me, waking memories I don’t want and can’t handle. A taste now, I know it.

  Izzy’s.

  I wipe at my mouth with my sleeves, but they’re too soaked and crimson and they cling to my skin. My heart plummets and her glory shivers up my spine, images, faces, blood and death.

  Then, my lips curl into a wicked little smirk—Hers.

  Pleasure lingers upon my lips and I cw it off. A wretched sob bubbles from my chest as I convulse, vomiting into the dirt. I spit and spit and spit—but I can’t get the poison out, I can’t—

  “FUCK!” I shriek through a rasping breath, some of my bones still cracking into pce.

  The visions are overwhelming. I want to dig my fingers into my brain and forget. But they are too deep. I will never be rid of them—never be rid of Her.