“No,” I said. “I don’t want to think about it.”

She seemed to go as slowly as possible, but she led me through the oath, phrase by phrase.

I repeated every word.

As soon as I spoke the final sentence, energy surged through my body, like ice water poured on a man who’s been crawling through the desert. My eyes no longer stung; my limbs no longer ached; I felt forgiven. I felt alive again. I lay down on the linoleum and stared at the ceiling, watching the tiles slowly come back into focus, tasting relief like honey in my mouth.

From the back of the room I could hear muttering, but I was too overwhelmed to even wonder about Lydia. After a minute, I sat up and twisted my body to look at her. She was bent over the book on the counter. Her lips were moving.

I came up behind her in time to see the word at the top of the page: TOGHRAIONN.

“Lydia!” I gasped. “What are you doing?!?”

“I summoned him,” she said, arms crossed triumphantly. “Aralt. He’s coming for me.”

“Why would you—you can’t,” I said. “He’s not what you think he is.”

“You’re forgetting, Alexis. He loves me. He would never hurt me. You wouldn’t understand that kind of trust.” She shrugged. “And you know what? None of this would have happened if you’d minded your own business. I tried to summon him the very first night. But the stupid dog had to get out.…Aralt came looking for me, but Tashi got him back in the book before he could find me.”

She had no idea. She didn’t know what he really was. She was expecting some Prince Charming to come carry her off on his white horse.

The room, which a minute earlier had seemed so full of noise and chaos, now seemed like the inside of a chapel. The only sounds were our breathing and a strange sizzling sound in the air.

“Lydia,” I said. “Please. Read the other spell.”

“We’re going to be together forever,” she whispered. “I’m so happy.”

She set the book into one of the sinks and smirked at me. “And no one else is going to try to take Aralt away from me. Stay sunny, Alexis.”

She lit a match.

“Lydia, no!”

And she dropped it on the book.

Her eyes were starry, enthralled. Her lips formed a sweet smile. Her gaze fixed on a spot over my shoulder. “I’m so happ—”

Her eyes went wide. From behind me came a scraping sound.

“What is that?” she cried.

I turned just in time to see a hulking, formless black shadow slither past me.

Lydia tried to run, but the shadow was on top of her in an instant. It knocked her to the ground and wrapped itself around her like it was melting, a thin black membrane spreading across her whole body. When she tried to scream, it filled her mouth.

She struggled, but her flailing arms were enveloped by the black web.

My head was filled with sound, a watered-down version of what I’d experienced in Tashi’s garage.

Aralt didn’t love Lydia. He didn’t love anything. He was greedy, ravenous, selfish. And the chorus of smaller voices, fearful and sad, that I’d heard underneath it all—

The women who gifted themselves didn’t die painlessly.

They didn’t become a soft, glowing halo around the edges of their friends’ lives—

Their spirits existed, imprisoned by Aralt’s hunger, in a state of torment. Lonely and terrified.

“No!” I shouted, pulling at the layer that covered Lydia’s mouth. My fingers sank into its flesh, leaving oozing holes, but the thing didn’t seem to notice me.

All it cared about was Lydia.

When it had her in a tight cocoon, it began to pulse, like a beating heart.

Like it was feeding.

I kept bashing at it, but nothing I did made any difference.

“GET OFF!” I screamed, but I could barely hear my own voice above the cacophony in my mind. “GET OFF!”

Then, suddenly, the shadow was gone. The mix of voices, Aralt’s vicious roar with the cries of his prisoners…it all faded away.

I looked down at Lydia. Her body, pale and bent, lay on the floor like a broken mannequin. Her eyes were wide with terror, her mouth frozen midshriek.

I pressed my fingers to her neck, just under her ear.

No pulse. I shifted her body so she was flat on her back, then started chest compressions.

Count, press, wait, feel for a pulse. Count, press, wait, feel.

Then I was being pulled away.

“I have to save her!” I said, flailing. “Let me go! I have to save her!”

“You can’t save her, Lexi,” Kasey said, holding me tightly. “Look at her. She’s dead.”

She was right, of course. There wasn’t a whisper of life left in Lydia’s body. She was a shell. A corpse.

“Come on,” said Kasey. “Let’s get out of here.”

“No, wait,” I said, remembering the book.

“It doesn’t matter,” Kasey said. “The book is basically ashes.”

But…if the book was destroyed, where did that leave me?

Insane and dying, like the South McBride River girls?

I turned to Kasey in horror.

“I called Carter,” Kasey said. “I know you guys broke up, but…”

Outside, a pair of headlights swung into the parking lot. Carter vaulted out of the car and ran through the door of the salon. He glanced at Lydia, then grabbed my hand.

“Lex, what happened?”

“We can figure that out later,” Kasey said. “We have to get out of here.” She steered me toward the door. I stepped onto the asphalt, and the pain in my half-healed feet made my knees buckle.

Carter bent down and picked up my foot, looking at it like a blacksmith inspecting a horseshoe. The sole was a reddish-black mess of dirt, blood, and patches of sensitive pink skin.

“Put your arms around my neck,” he said.

“No, I’m too heavy.”

“Alexis,” he said. “Come on. For once, I’m asking you to trust me.”

I hesitated.

“That’s the whole problem, isn’t it?” He turned his face toward the night sky and let out a horrible laugh, like a gasp of pain. “Why are you the only person who’s allowed to be strong?”

I put my arms around his neck.

As if I weighed nothing at all, he lifted me off the ground and carried me away.

“WE’VE HANDLED THE police department, the coroner, the hospital, the EMTs, the fire department, the superintendent, the principal, and the relevant teachers.” Agent Hasan checked her notebook. “The students will have to figure out their own explanation. They always do, and it’s usually better than our story anyway.”

I nodded.

My parents stared at the kitchen counter.

“We’ve done quite a patch-up job on this, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the paint peels and a few of the nails pop out,” Agent Hasan said. “But I think it’ll blow over.”

She looked at Mom and Dad. “May I speak to the girls alone for a minute?”

They slowly got up from their seats and walked out to the front porch.

Agent Hasan glanced from me to Kasey and back again.

“Normally, I’d have a lot of questions for you girls,” she said, “but seeing as how I’ve been ‘asked’ by my superior, who was ‘asked’ by his superior, who was ‘asked’ by the Senate subcommittee that handles our budget—not to ask you anything, I get to go home early today.”

She leaned toward us conspiratorially.

“Listen. I like you guys. I’m glad you have mysterious friends in high places who can get you out of this. But the fact is, you got lucky. Luckier than you can fathom. That book was responsible for the deaths of more than a hundred and fifty innocent women, and I’m happy it’s gone. Personally, I think you did the right thing. But listen to me.”

Her eyes bored into mine. “To the people I work for, doing the right thing means nothing. You follow orders, or you vanish. I don’t know why you got messed up in this stuff for a second time. Once you were in it, you took care of your business. I respect that.” She narrowed her eyes. “But I’m telling you—there are no third chances. Keep your noses clean.”