Val licked her lips as if they’d gone suddenly dry. The cobweb spell wavered; a place at the entrance showed the air rippling like a curtain stroked from behind. Sound increased; the previously silenced noise from the streets slipped downward, complaints that the station was out of order, passing vehicles, sirens in the distance. Then, two distinct voices came clear, not caught by the spell, but pushing through it. Sylvie stiffened.

Never deny the gut instinct, she thought.

“He didn’t say to wait—”

“He didn’t say not to—”

“Stop arguing.”

The first two voices were regrettably familiar, the rasping, hungry contralto and the poison-sweet tones: the leather-clad Alekta and the punk one. The third voice, sounding surprisingly normal, if weary, had to be Magdala.

Alekta’s heels clicked on the concrete, distinct bursts of sound that made Sylvie want to find a hiding place and disappear. Beside her, Val muttered frantically, trying to reinforce the spell or trying to dismantle it before it blew apart—Sylvie couldn’t tell.

The Furies took the choice from her, pushing through the wavering shield as if it were nothing more than the cobweb it had come from. Val yelped, her hands flying to her head.

“Sylvie,” the punk sister said, and skipped down the stairs toward her, pleated skirt flaring. “Were you hiding?”

“I’m working,” Sylvie said. “And, hey! Don’t step on the evidence, okay?” To her surprise, the Fury stopped in her approach, blinking down at the spell circle.

“What’s that?” Alekta said. She slunk alongside her sister to split her glare evenly between Sylvie and the circle.

“Oubliette,” Sylvie said. “Swallowed Bran. I was—”

“Kevin,” Magdala said, “come here.” She never raised her voice. “Your PI found something.” Sylvie bristled at the surprise in the girl’s voice.

“Sylvie,” Val whispered, face pale, hands trembling where they clutched her bag. “What are they?”

“Client’s pets,” Sylvie said. Magdala shot her a disgusted glare that had real menace in it. Sylvie put a hand to her back, touching the gun, but their attention had turned again, their gazes all shifting to a point about mid-stairs.

Beside her, Val shuddered; Sylvie heard the faint jangle of her jewelry complain with her movement, but kept her eyes on the man who had appeared without any fanfare.

Since she’d seen Dunne that morning, she had accepted that he was a god, that he had power to spare, that his whims were physical laws the world wanted to obey; she’d forgotten how much like an ordinary man he looked. How tired. How scared.

He came down the stairs, hope flickering in his worried eyes. “You found something?” His voice was rough and quiet.

“Spell circle,” Sylvie said, her own voice uneven, thinking of Val’s conviction that Bran was dead, of the sisters waiting to see this scene play out.

Dunne reached the intersection of spell edge and stair and paused. “This it?”

“Yeah,” Sylvie said. He stepped into the curve of spell, and it went wild.

The swirling greens and blues rose as if they were the water they resembled, winding around him like a whirlpool. Cold winds blew through the station; Sylvie’s ears popped and ached under the pressure.

Over the roar of the not-water, she could hear the Furies shouting. Through wind-stung eyes, she saw Dunne at the heart of a cyclone, and had time for a frantic thought that she was going to lose her client, and was that good or bad, when the spell collapsed in a rush of heat and a sound like tearing metal.

In the lingering silence, Val’s whimpers became gasping breaths. The spell circle gleamed and cracked, its paint flaking and drifting upward into brightly hued mist and dispersing, leaving only faint hints of its presence behind.

Dead spell, Sylvie thought. Very dead. If the Maudits intended to trap Dunne with it, they’d failed. But if they hadn’t—why had it opened at his feet?

“Oh God,” Val gasped, and surged to her feet. “Oh—God—” Her eyes wide with shock and horror, she darted for the entrance.

It took two steps before the Furies were on her, slamming her up against the stained concrete walls. “Witch, why do you run?”

“Stop it!” Sylvie yelled. She grabbed the nearest sister, trying hard not to think about what she was doing, just reached out and grabbed, getting a handful of warmed leather, and yanking her away. Alekta hissed, tongue narrow, black, and pointed, her teeth going sharp.

“Get away from her,” Sylvie said, putting herself between Val and Alekta.

The preppie sister growled, and Sylvie’s gun was out before she had thought about it, out and unwavering in Magdala’s face, Sylvie’s arm braced on Val’s trembling shoulder. Sylvie got a wild-eyed view of the punk sister leaning back against the wall—laughing?

“Dunne, call them off.”

“A trap,” Dunne said, and now Sylvie had no problems seeing him as inhuman. There was an utter blankness to his eyes, warning that no humanity was at home.

“Val didn’t do it,” Sylvie said, talking fast, hoping to break past that alien barrier to the man beneath. “Val’s my research witch. You know, like an informant? She identified the spell. Hell, she was going to tell me more about it, maybe how to undo it, except someone had to lose his almighty temper and blow up the only piece of evidence we had. Guess being a god doesn’t rule out being an idiot.”

Something touched the barrel of her gun, and Sylvie’s gaze flickered back to Magdala, who was, eww, licking her gun, with an avidity out of place with her prim and proper wardrobe.

“Won’t kill me,” she said.

“Maybe not, but I bet there’d be splatter. Get your button-down all splotchy,” Sylvie warned. “Dunne?”

“Magdala,” he said, “Alekta. Erinya. Stop.” The words seemed to be dragged out of his throat, as if it were an effort to remember how to talk. An effort to act human.

Sylvie shivered, remembering him saying that it was hard to be less than he was.

Val ducked beneath Sylvie’s arm the minute Magdala relaxed, and headed for the street, yanking herself to a walk after a first rapid step that brought the sisters’ attention right back to her. Running was definitely a no-no around those three.

“Excuse me for a moment,” Sylvie said, holstering her gun and setting out after Val. She collected Val’s bag on the way.

She caught up with Val halfway down the block, her pale clothes a beacon in the evening light. “Val—”

Val swung round on her, and Sylvie ducked, waiting for the glimmer of spell casting, that telltale flicker between Val’s fingers. Instead, Val dropped her hand to her side.

“We’re through,” Val said, voice quivering. “I owe you nothing after this. A fucking god, Sylvie. You exposed me to a god.” She snatched her bag from Sylvie’s fingers, hurled it into the street, watched one car swerve around it, and a second drive over it with a soft thud-crunch.

Still the drama queen.

“You done? ’Cause I still have some questions, including why the hell that oubliette tried to eat Dunne. I thought you said it was keyed to Bran?” Sylvie asked. She didn’t have time for Val’s histrionics. Her only lead was gone, and Dunne—she rather thought he was on the ragged edge. Val’s dramatic fits could find a better time to come out and play. Luckily, they were usually short in duration.

Val’s breath rasped in her throat. “Get another witch.”

Usually. Sylvie wondered if this time Val was covering fear with temper. She softened her tone.

“Val, I know you’re scared, but I need you, need your talents,” Sylvie said. “Please.”

Val closed her eyes, her face a pallid, shocky oval in the dark. Her lips trembled. “You don’t have a clue. Do you know what happens to a witch when a god goes off? It’s like being hurled headfirst into a nuclear reactor. I’m burned, Sylvie. Burned to bits. Find another witch. I’m not one anymore.” She wrapped her arms tightly about herself, shuddering.