Its hand floated up, fingertips burning. The heat brushed the air before her, and the fear finally caught up. She tried so hard to pull away, to fight the hold of the red light wrapped around her skin. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she didn’t close her eyes.

“I’m not afraid of death,” she whispered, meeting the creature’s gaze as it reached for her. She didn’t know if August was still inside, if he could hear her, if he would care. “I’m not afraid,” she said, bracing herself for the Sunai’s touch.

But it never came.

The Sunai took another step, but its hand swept toward Leo, its shadow fingers closing around his throat. Leo gasped in surprise, but couldn’t pull away. He fought, clawing at the monster’s grip, but its hold was unbreakable, its strength absolute.

“What are you d—?” demanded Leo, but then the creature’s grip tightened, cutting him off. It leaned in, and whispered something in Leo’s ear, and Leo’s face went from shocked and angry to blank. Not still, or calm, just . . . empty.

Something began to rise to the surface of Leo’s skin, not black like the Malchai’s life or red, like a sinner’s. What came to the surface of the Sunai’s skin, Kate couldn’t process. It was light and darkness, glow and shadow, starlight and midnight, and something else entirely. It was an explosion in slow motion, tragedy and monstrosity and resolve, and it swept over Leo’s skin, and wove through the monster’s smoke, tracing the outlines of a boy-like shape inside the shadow like lightning in a storm.

And then, like lightning, it was gone.

Leo’s legs folded, and the Sunai sank with him, its hand still wrapped around its brother’s throat. The Sunai knelt over the body as it turned to stone, and then ash, and then nothing. Kate stood, the red glow of her soul still hovering above her bruised and bloody skin, but its light was fading as it began to retreat back into the safety of her self.

The Sunai straightened, the last of Leo’s body crumbling away in its hands. A single beat of burning wings, and the ash was gone, and the Sunai lifted its horned head and turned its gaze again on Kate.

It came toward her, crossing the space in two elegant strides. It raised its hand, and Kate closed her eyes at last, and felt the heat of the creature’s fingers, not on her skin, but on the cuffs around her wrists. She blinked and saw the metal blacken and crumble under the creature’s touch.

The Sunai looked down at her, its hand hovering in the air between them, edges wavering like smoke. And then, it shuddered. A single, animalistic shiver that rolled from horns to wing and down, through its body and into its feet, the darkness retreating like a tide, revealing black hair, and smooth skin, and gray eyes.

August stood there, barefoot and shirtless, chest rising and falling. His wounds and bruises were gone. So were the black tallies that had counted out days, months, years across his skin. And for a long second, his face remained empty, his features too smooth, his expression as blank as his brother’s. He looked at her as if they’d never met. As if they hadn’t fled together, hadn’t fought together, hadn’t nearly died together.

Then a small crease appeared between his eyes. The faintest edge of a frown.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

His voice was still distant, but there was something in it. A sliver of concern. Kate let out a ragged breath. She looked down at herself, her torn sweater and bloodied hands. “I’m alive.”

A tired smile flickered across his face. “Well,” he said, “that’s a start.”

Nothing was different.

Everything was different.

They crossed the field in silence as the first signs of day seeped into the edges of the sky, Kate’s eyes on the distant house, and August’s on Kate. Her shadow danced behind her, restless, reaching for the world and pulling at his senses, a gentle, persistent tug.

He wanted to comfort her. And couldn’t. There was this gap, where something had been, some part of him he couldn’t reach. He wanted to believe it was fatigue, loss, confusion. Wanted to believe it would pass.

The house was as they’d left it. The cars on the gravel drive. The front door hanging open. The body in the hall. Kate fetched her lighter from the grass and stepped around the corpse, went into the kitchen. August padded toward the bathroom, where his violin lay splintered on the tiled floor, its neck broken, strings snapped. He forced himself to step around it, the way Kate had with the corpse.

He recovered his shoes and watched his fingers tie the laces. His skin was smooth, no black marks running up his arm. He ran a finger thoughtfully over his wrist.

Four hundred and twenty-four tallies gone.

Erased.

He straightened, his eyes drifting up the mirror. He searched his face, tried to remember the version of himself from hours before, the boy clutching the sink, desperate not to lose control, eyes wild and feverish, face contorted with terror and pain, every feeling sharp and terrible and real. He tried, but the memory was more like a dream, the details already fading.

“August?”

He turned to see Kate standing in the doorway, staring down at the wreckage of the violin.

“It’s all right,” he said quietly. “It’s only wood and string.” He’d meant the words to sound comforting, but his voice sounded wrong in his ears. Too steady. Like Leo’s.

Something rose in him—a ghost of panic, an echo of fear—but then it settled.

Kate was holding out a black T-shirt. When he reached to take it, their fingers brushed, and he drew back sharply, afraid of hurting her. But of course nothing happened. His violin was strewn across the tile floor, and her soul was safe beneath the surface.

The shirt smelled of lavender, he noticed as he slid it on, the fabric soft against his cool skin.

“August,” said Kate, her voice brittle. “Are you . . . okay?”

“I’m alive,” he said, echoing her answer.

She wrapped her arms around herself, but her gaze was level. “But are you still . . . you?”

August looked at her. “I’ve been tortured, turned, and I just killed my brother. I don’t know what I am right now.”

Kate chewed her lip, but nodded. “Fair enough.” She looked lost.

August ran a hand through his hair. “I have to go back to V-City, Kate. I have to see Henry. I have to help my family—what’s left of it. Leo said the fighting has already broken out and—”