“Worthless,” Lilith said. “You aren’t listening. We reflect the gods. What happens with them, happens with us. The gods are corrupt, petty, despotic—so are their followers. The worst, though—”

“Let me guess,” Sylvie said. She gritted her teeth, pushed a last spurt of paint through the tube, stained the cement in a crimson swirl and shuddered as the entire diagram rang like a crystal goblet being struck. The tortured-machine hum smoothed out as reality bent and accepted its restructuring. Her bones vibrated to the new tune. “The whitebeard who booted you from Eden. Or should I call him Bluebeard.”

“You saw my work?” Lilith said. “You are dogged. Can you say I’m wrong? The similarities are striking. Bluebeard gave each successive wife a key and demanded that she not use it. And He put the Tree in the midst of our garden. They both demanded implicit trust but were not worthy of it. Neither of them ever considered that trust was a two-way street.”

Sylvie lifted her dizzy head and stared at Lilith. She panted, shivered, fought for breath. She felt cold and hot at once, as if the oubliette was a roaring fire in an arctic room. Everything she had learned only confirmed it for her: She loathed magic. All those sorcerers who did this kind of thing on purpose were morons.

When her breath had stabilized enough, when the buzzing in her limbs had faded, she said, “Does this really work for you? Talking people into submission? Did you just expect me to crumble and say of course you’re right?”

“No,” Lilith said. “I told you. I don’t want worshippers, or witless obedience. I want—”

“Anarchy,” Sylvie said. “Free will, free world, and you step in only if the whole shebang starts to go to hell. Lose your precious equilibrium.”

“You do understand. Maybe even agree.”

“Too general not to,” Sylvie said. She stood, her legs shaking, and backed away from the spell circle. It hummed in her head, alive, but not open. “If, on reflection, I say you’re full of shit?”

“I don’t care,” Lilith said. Abruptly the edge was back in her voice, the danger vibrant in the underground room. “Just be a good woodsman and bring me the little lover’s heart to eat. Open the door, Sylvie. Where’s your key?”

Sylvie hesitated, the moment upon her. There weren’t a lot of options; she had brought a key, or something she hoped would pass for one. But she didn’t want to use it with Lilith waiting. She had no intention of freeing Brandon just to have Lilith pounce on him; Sylvie’s entire body still shook with the effort of rebuilding the oubliette, and the gun was useless. What was left? Her mind raced, searching possibilities. A door has two sides, her dark voice pointed out.

Sylvie licked dry lips. Not an option she really wanted to consider, but the alternative? She imagined Brandon Wolf dead at Lilith’s feet, at Dunne so grief-stricken that he fell to Lilith’s attack, or turned the world inside out, trying to recover what was lost by time. In every scenario Sylvie could imagine, innocents died, Alex died, suffering for Sylvie’s mistakes. Unless—

Sylvie picked up the remaining item in the satchel, unwrapped it from the silk scarf she’d carried it in to protect it. Behind her, Lilith hissed something under her breath.

Sylvie didn’t pay attention, her eyes riveted on the painting, the small, violent self-portrait of Brandon Wolf. The flayed heart seemed to pulse. The oubliette throbbed in sympathy.

Dunne had set off the oubliette. Some of him in him, Alekta had said. The painting, crimson in spots, dull brown and flaking in others—Sylvie thought it, too, had some of Bran in it. She flaked a tiny little rusty chip off and watched it stream toward the oubliette, a tiny object caught in an eddy.

Disturbing, Sylvie had thought the first time she saw the painting. A second viewing had clarified her visceral response. It looked painted in blood, and it seemed that looks weren’t deceiving.

“What is that?” Lilith said.

“Can’t you tell?” Sylvie said. “You were fast enough to point out my errors in spell copying. You think this’ll work?”

“Yes,” Lilith said, her voice husky, a little excited. “Do it. Bring him up. Do it now.” Her eyes were almost pure silver now, gleaming and milky in the low light. Her gaze was avid, was fierce, was . . . off. Something had changed.

Sylvie cradled the painting to her chest and shivered as the oubliette seemed to yearn toward it. One choice left. Sylvie shivered again. She didn’t want to—God, she didn’t want—

She clutched the painting close, the image facing outward, as if the heart shown were her own, her rib cage split asunder, and stepped back, one step, two, keeping an eye on Lilith, whose face grew distantly puzzled, pallid eyes going narrow under frowning brows. “What are you doing, Sylvie? Open it, at once.”

A third step, and Sylvie could feel the tug of the spell, like a magnet aligning, reaching out for its complement. Lilith stood, moving with the awkward, lanky haste of a marionette, and Sylvie laughed. “Jesus,” she said, seeing it suddenly. “You’re blind! Dunne’s spell. You were there when he blinded Demalion and his team. You got caught in it. You were half-blind when I came in carrying supplies from Dunne’s house, but the key’s wrapped in silk. Inert, magically, until I unwrapped it. You can’t see me at all.”

“Don’t need to,” Lilith said. “I can feel the spell. I can—”

“Pity,” Sylvie said, on an adrenaline high. “I would love to see your expression when you realize what I’m doing.” She took that last step back, her heels clearing the sticky-wet, painted lines. Beneath her feet, the cement trembled like quicksand. “When I lock the door from the inside.” Then the oubliette tasted her, tasted the painting in her hands, and found it a match, tugged it to itself. The world bent, and she plummeted into the spell.

21

Love Divine

WHEN SYLVIE WAS IN FOURTH GRADE AT PINECREST, THE READING curriculum had included Alice in Wonderland. Sylvie was one of the few who hadn’t enjoyed the assignment. Even then, her core of practicality was set; she found Alice and her casual curiosity to be the acts of a dangerously careless girl. Now, at the mercy of the oubliette’s undertow, Sylvie felt the first glimmer of sympathy for the girl, as she plunged on her own long fall.

She was surrounded by a colorless haze of motion that pulled and pried and tried to take her apart. The tough leather jacket creaked; seams popped like the breaking of tiny bones. Bran’s self-portrait warped and wavered, trying to escape her hands. The gun fluttered feebly at her spine like a stunned bird. “No,” she said, her voice swallowed by nothingness. “No.” She would not loose her grip. She had no intention of coming out on the other side naked and defenseless, assuming she would finish the journey at all if the painting, the key, left her grasp.

The idea of spending eternity locked in nothingness—Sylvie reassessed her ideas of hell and growled under her breath. “I’m coming through, and I’m taking it all with me. My gun, my key, my clothes.”

As if it had been a test, the oubliette spat her out, abruptly and painfully, into absolute darkness. Her knees ached from the impact; her free hand stung where she had flung it down to protect her face. Her breath sobbed in her throat. She dropped the painting, and dug her fingers into the surface, trying to guess what it was. Softer than concrete, harder than earth, all one piece, melting slightly away from her hand but warmer than ice. It reminded her of nothing so much as molten glass, drifting, stretching, minus the scalding heat.

She held her breath, listening, trying to hear someone else’s presence, trying to guess how big the enclosure was. He’s dead, Val had said. But the room didn’t smell of decay. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears with the effort of not breathing, deafening to her and defeating the purpose. She sucked in a grateful gulp of air and froze. God, the air—how did it . . . ? Would it last?