Alex forced herself to open her eyes, saw Turner and Dawes emptying cartons of milk into the crucible. Turner’s head moved back and forth like a searchlight, a slow scan, taking in the strangeness of the upper floors. Alex felt proud of Il Bastone, the armory with its cabinet of curiosities, the bizarre golden bathtub at its center.

She meant to be brave, to grit her teeth through the pain, but she screamed when Turner lifted her. A moment later, she was sinking beneath the cool surface, the sheet unwrapping, blood staining the goat’s milk in veins of pink. It looked like a strawberry sundae cup, the kind with the wooden spoon.

“Don’t touch the milk!” Dawes was shouting.

“I’m trying to keep her from drowning!” Turner barked back. He had his hands cradled around her head.

“I’m all right,” said Alex. “Let me go.”

“You’re both nuts,” said Turner, but she felt his grip ease.

Alex let herself sink beneath the surface. The cool of the milk seemed to seep straight through her skin, coating the pain. She held her breath as long as she could. She wanted to stay below, feel the milk cocoon around her. But eventually she let her toes find the bottom of the crucible and pushed back to the surface.

When she emerged, Dawes and Turner were both shouting at her. She must have stayed beneath the surface a little too long.

“I’m not drowning,” she said. “I’m fine.”

And she was. There was still pain but it had receded, her thoughts felt sharper—and the milk was changing too, becoming clearer and more watery.

Turner looked like he might be sick, and Alex thought she understood why. Magic created a kind of vertigo. Maybe the sight of a girl on the brink of death descending into a bathtub and then emerging whole and healthy seconds later was just one spin too many on this ride.

“I need to get to the station,” he said. “I—”

He turned and strode out the door.

“I don’t think he likes us, Dawes.”

“It’s okay,” Dawes said, picking up the heap of Alex’s bloodied clothes. “We had too many friends already.”

Dawes left to make Alex something to eat, claiming she’d be famished once the reversion was complete. “Do not drown while I’m gone,” she said, and left the door to the armory open behind her.

Alex lay back in the crucible, feeling her body change, the pain leaching out of her, and something—the milk or whatever it had become in Dawes’s enchantment—filling her up. She heard music coming from the tinny sound system, the sound so staticky it was hard to pick out a tune.

She dunked her head beneath the surface again. It was quiet here, and when she opened her eyes it was like looking through mist, watching the last traces of milk and magic fade. A pale shape loomed before her, came into focus. A face.

Alex sucked in a breath, choking down water. She burst through the surface, coughing and sputtering, arms crossed over her breasts. The Bridegroom’s reflection stared up at her from the water.

“You can’t be here,” she said. “The wards—”

“I told you,” his reflection said, “wherever water pools or gathers, we can speak now. Water is the element of translation. It is the mediary.”

“So you’re going to be showering with me?”

North’s cold face didn’t change. She could see the dark shore behind him in the reflection. It looked different than it had the first time, and she remembered what Dawes had said about the different borderlands. She must not be looking into Egypt this time—or whatever version of Egypt she had traveled to when she’d crossed the Nile. But Alex could see the same dark shapes on the shore, human and inhuman. She was glad they couldn’t reach her here.

“What did you do to me at Tara’s apartment?” North said. He sounded haughtier than ever, his accent more clipped.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” said Alex, because it felt truer than most things. “There wasn’t really time to ask for permission.”

“But what did you do? How did you do it?”

Stay with me.

“I don’t really know.” She didn’t understand any of it. Where the ability had come from. Why she could see things no one else could. Was it buried somewhere in her bloodline? In the genes of the father she’d never met? Was it in her grandmother’s bones? The Grays had never dared approach in Estrea Stern’s house, the candles lit at the windows. If she’d lived longer, would she have found a way to protect Alex?

“I gave you my strength,” said North.

No, thought Alex. I took it. But she doubted North would appreciate the distinction.

“I know what you did to those men,” said North. “I saw when you let me inside.”

Alex shivered. All the warmth and well-being that had poured into her as she’d soaked in the milk bath was no match for the thought of a Gray rattling around in her head. What else had the Bridegroom seen? It doesn’t matter. Unlike Darlington, North couldn’t share her secrets with the world. No matter how many layers of the Veil he pierced, he was still trapped in death.

“You have enemies on this side of the Veil, Galaxy Stern,” he continued. “Leonard Beacon. Mitchell Betts. Ariel Harel. A whole host of men you sent to the darker shore.”

Daniel Arlington.

Except he’d said Darlington wasn’t on the other side. A murmur rose from the shapes behind the Bridegroom, the same sound she’d heard when she waded into the Nile. Jean Du Monde. Jonathan Mont. It might not even be a name. The syllables sounded strange and wrong, as if spoken by mouths not made to form human language.

And what about Hellie? Was she happy where she was? Was she safe from Len? Or would they find each other behind the Veil and make their own misery there?

“Yeah, well, I have enemies on this side too. Instead of looking up my old buddies, how about you find Tara?”

“Why don’t you seek out Darlington’s notebooks?”

“I’ve been busy. And it’s not like you’re going anywhere.”

“How glib you are. How sure of yourself. There was a time when I had the same confidence. Time took it. Time takes everything, Miss Stern. But I didn’t have to go looking for your friends. After what you did to me at Tara Hutchins’s residence, they came looking for me. They could smell your power on me like stale smoke. You’ve deepened the bond between us.”

Perfect. Exactly what she needed. “Just find Tara.”

“I have hope that repellent object will draw her to me. But her death was brutal. She may be recovering somewhere. The other side can be a dismaying place for the new dead.”

Alex hadn’t thought of that. She had just assumed people crossed over into some kind of understanding. Painlessness. Tranquility. She looked again at the surface of the water, that wobbling reflection of the Bridegroom, at those monstrous shapes somewhere behind him, and shivered.

How had Hellie passed into the next world? Her death had been … well, in some ways, compared to Tara, compared to Len and Betcha and Ariel, she had passed in relative peace.

It was still death. It was still death too soon.

“Find her,” said Alex. “Find Tara so I can figure out who hurt her and Turner can put him away before he hurts me.”

North frowned. “I don’t know that the detective is a good partner in this endeavor.”

Alex leaned back against the curve of the crucible. She wanted to get out of the water but she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to. “Not used to seeing a black man with a badge?”

“I haven’t been holed up in my tomb for the last hundred years, Miss Stern. I know the world has changed.”

His tomb. “Where are you buried?”

“My bones are in Evergreen.” His lip curled. “It’s quite the tourist attraction.”

“And Daisy?”

“Her family had her interred in their mausoleum on Grove Street.”

“That’s why you’re always lurking around there.”

“I’m not lurking. I go to pay my respects.”

“You go because you’re hoping she’ll see you doing your penance and forgive you.”

When North was mad, his face changed. It looked less human. “I did not hurt Daisy.”

“Temper temper,” crooned Alex. But she didn’t want to provoke him further. She needed him and she could make a gesture toward peace. “I’m sorry about what I did at the apartment.”

“No, you’re not.”

So much for peace. “No, I’m not.”

North turned his head away. His profile looked like it had been cut for a coin. “It wasn’t an entirely unenjoyable experience.”

Now, that surprised her. “No?”

“It was … I had forgotten what it felt like to be in a body.”

Alex considered. She shouldn’t deepen the bond. But if he could look inside her head when he entered her, maybe his thoughts would be open to her too. She’d gotten little sense of him in the panic of the fight. “You can come back in if you like.”

He hesitated. Why? Because there was intimacy in the act? Or because he had something to hide?

Dawes bustled through the door, a tray heaped with dishes in her hands. She set it down on the map cabinet. “I kept it simple. Mashed potatoes. Macaroni and cheese. Tomato soup. Green salad.”

As soon as the smell hit, Alex’s stomach began to rumble and saliva filled her mouth. “Bless you, Dawes. Can I get out of this thing?”

Dawes glanced at the tub. “It looks clear.”