“Or,” I said, whirling so I was facing all of them again, “is the mole the person who had access to us all? To Warren, whom I saw leaving Greta’s office right before his capture. Who risked all to bring me here, then suddenly—after one brief session—no longer trusted me. No longer trusted himself.”

“This is ridiculous. So far-fetched!” Greta said. “How can any of you listen to this? You know me…and she’s of the Shadows!”

But it was too late to effectively play that card, and I continued on as if she hadn’t spoken. No one stopped me. “Warren was disoriented. He told me you’d just hypnotized him, and when I came in after him you tried to do the same to me. But it didn’t work, did it? I awoke before you finished and there was a funny scent in the air, like metal ground into a fine powder. Something frightened you and you panicked and dropped the vial.”

“It was you. I saw the Shadow in you.”

“Saw it?” I asked coolly. “Or recognized it?”

She couldn’t hold back any longer. Her scream hit my face. “You don’t know any of this for a fact! You’re making it up! My father was an agent of Light!”

“Your father was a Gemini. Dual-sided, dual-faced, right?”

“Are you questioning his loyalty?” She spit in my face. I was guessing from the shock around me that this was a side of Greta none of the others had seen before. “He gave his life for this organization!”

I wiped the spittle from my cheek. “And I bet that really tore you up, didn’t it?”

“Excuse me,” she said, folding her arms over her chest, “but as long as we’re speaking of fathers, need I remind you who yours is, Olivia? Oh, but that’s not your real name, is it? Who’s the one keeping secrets now?”

I made sure my breathing was controlled, then said softly, “No, you don’t need to remind me. But might I remind you that neither goodness nor evil is inherited. Both must be chosen.”

She lifted her chin, her heart-shaped face hard with defiance. “If I’d chosen to betray the Zodiac troop, then the people I’ve lived with for two years—the supernatural people!—should have been able to scent the shadow in me. They specialize in detecting intent.”

“You mean they can’t?” I asked, feigning surprise. I already knew why this was, of course, but I didn’t want to explain it. It was important they discover it for themselves.

“I don’t smell anything,” Felix said, shaking his head.

“Neither do I.”

“Greta’s right,” Hunter said at last. “At least one of us would have been able to recognize something wasn’t right about her.”

The others shook their heads as I met their eyes in inquiry. When they landed on Greta, she smiled smugly. I returned the smile, causing hers to shake at the edges.

“Well, I can. It smells like the earth’s core; sulfur and heat. It smells like things buried deep; rotting flesh, gorging worms. Evil at work.” I was moving across the hallway as I said this, and I ended up in front of Hunter. I leaned into him, an almost seductive move; one knee bending into his body, the flesh of my forearm brushing his, my breath warm on his neck. I inhaled deeply. “Not like you. You smell like the smoke rising from a living campfire. Like the green wood and the grasses and the wild things that spice embers bursting in the air. Don’t you think?”

“If you say so.”

“What?” I drew back and looked in his face. “Can’t you smell yourself?”

He stared back at me, unblinking. “I can smell emotions, sure. I smell adrenaline and perspiration when I work up a sweat, but the basic compound that makes up my molecules is too familiar to me. I can’t identify it.”

“So you can’t identify it on, say…” I looked around, as if searching for a target. Found it in Greta. “…her?”

Hunter looked from me to Greta and back again, frowning.

Micah stared at me, openmouthed. “I can.”

“I can too,” Vanessa said, and furrowed her brows. “I smell Gregor as well.”

“This is ridiculous,” Greta blustered.

“Micah too.” Gregor nodded. “And Warren.”

It was my turn to smile smugly. “Scents are attached to emotion. When Greta discovers something deeply personal through hypnosis, she tags it. When you think of that particular emotion, you emit a pheromone that calls to the Shadow agents.

“But as she’s marking you she also takes a vial of your essence and injects it into herself so that her true scent becomes invisible to each of you.”

“Anosmia,” I heard Felix whisper.

“She binds herself to you the way Micah bound Warren and me. The way she was trying to mark and bind me when I woke up in her office.” I saw a movement at the end of the hallway, and motioned Rena forward. “Of course, you don’t have to take my word for it.”

They all turned, sensing the movement, except Greta, who kept her eyes hard on my face.

“There’s a reason she keeps lovebirds in her room and office…” Greta turned too, then. “And it ain’t love.”

We all watched Rena’s slow approach, and I heard Greta’s breath quicken. After that I could only sense the growing curiosity of the others as Rena drew closer.

She held a kitten. Black and white, with tufts of wild fur, it was sleeping peacefully, its breathing easy as it lay cupped in her palms. A small smile was fixed on Rena’s destroyed face as she stopped a foot in front of Greta and held out the slumbering animal.

For a moment nothing happened. Then, on the next tiny intake of breath, the kitten’s body stiffened, its eyes flipped open, flickered once, and registered Greta standing there. Its back arched immediately, every hair standing on end, then it hissed and lunged for her with tiny, unsheathed claws.

Greta smacked at the bottom of Rena’s cupped hands and sent the kitten flying.

Hunter lunged, catching the flipping body just before it touched concrete. Greta ran for her office, Gregor tripped her up, and she sprawled like a spineless scarecrow.

“The birds were an excuse to keep the cats away,” I said when the shouts in the hallway had finally quieted. “Her office and her room are the only places she can’t fully mask her true scent.”

Greta rolled, eyes dry. Wide, but with madness, not fear, they locked on me with unfettered hatred. Bilious blackened color, like smoke, pooled to surround her body. One by one she studied the others as if coming face-to-face with them for the first time. “Your precious leader will be dead by morning.”

“We should send you up the chute,” Felix said. “You deserve to fry for what you’ve done!”

Greta spit in his direction, not bothering to hide her Shadow side now. She reeked of maggots and rotted eggs, a fetid blend that literally spilled from her pores.

Vanessa advanced on her, nose wrinkled in disgust, eyes fired with fury. “Maybe we’ll just let her loose in the cat ward. Her and her little lovebirds.”

“I raised your father,” Rena said, shaking her head. “He’d be so disappointed.”

“He’d be used to it,” Greta retorted, but I don’t think anybody felt sorry for her.

“But there’s no way he’d—” A sharp pain slashed through my chest and I bent, legs buckling. My mouth opened in a soundless cry as I hit the floor, and Hunter tried to lift me, but I resisted, needing to feel the ground beneath me, anchoring me. “They’re hurting Warren again.”

Greta started to laugh. “The Tulpa knows you’ve found me out! They’ll kill him now…and it’s all her fault!” She pointed at me.

Warren screamed in my brain, agony wracking us both, but nothing came out of my mouth. Then a sickening spiral, down, down into myself, and I knew that Warren, wherever he was, had passed out. That didn’t stop Ajax. He laughed, and the sound resonated in my mind. A boot-shaped sole slammed into my kidney, I retched, and Greta’s laughter joined his when my jaw cracked with a finishing blow, even though nothing had been touched on the surface. I gave thanks that Warren was unconscious, but shuddered knowing he’d have to wake again.