"It was Dave that we thought was missing. He's gone. Someone's pretending to be you."
"So you came here looking for Dave?"
"We came here looking for evidence. I think Mabry's behind all the faerie deaths."
Luis scowled. "Wait, so where's my brother? Is he in trouble?"
Val shook her head. "I don't think so. Whatever's pretending to be you seems to be spending all its time screwing Lolli. I don't think that's exactly on the supernatural agenda, but it's definitely on Dave's."
Luis winced, but he said nothing.
"We should hurry," Ruth said, patting Val's head, her fingers threading through the stubble. "Just because this bitch can't tie you up with your own hair doesn't mean we should hang around."
"Right." Val leaned over Luis, looking at the braids that bound him to the floor. She tried to snap them or pull them loose, but they were as hard as if they were made of steel.
"Mabry cut them with scissors," Luis said. "She fucking scalped me, too."
"Do you think scissors would cut the braids?" Ruth asked.
Val nodded. "She has to have a way to cut through her own spells. Where do you think they would be?"
"I don't know," Luis said. "They might not even look like scissors."
Val stood up and walked out into the parlor, stopping at the fountain where the flour had dissolved, then walked over to the display cabinet.
"Do you see anything?" Val called.
Ruth pulled out a drawer and dumped the contents onto the floor. "Nothing."
Val looked in the cabinet, noticing the ballerina again, noticing the loops her arms made and the bloody color of the toe shoes. Reaching in, Val picked her up, sticking her fingers through the arm gaps and pushing. The figurine's legs closed and opened, just like scissors.
"Get the harp," Val said. "I'll get Luis."
It wasn't quite dawn when they picked their way back through the Ramble, up through the branching trails to where they'd left Lolli and what had appeared to be Luis. The chords of the harp jangled as they moved, but Ruth muffled it by hugging it tighter to her chest. As Val, Ruth, and Luis approached, they saw that the other Luis was awake.
Lolli's voice was high and trembling. "It's so cold and you're burning up with fever."
The disguised Luis looked at them. His eyes were blackened around the edges and his mouth was dark. His skin was pale as paper and had a sheen of sweat over it that made it appear like plastic. With trembling fingers, he brought a cigarette to his lips. The smoke didn't leave his body.
"Dave," the real Luis said. His voice was even, calm, just like Val's had been after she'd seen her mother with Tom. It was a voice so full of emotion that it sounded like no emotion at all.
Lolli looked at Luis, and then at his twin. "Wha—what's happening?"
"You couldn't tell the difference, could you?" the disguised Luis said to Lolli. His face changed, features subtly shifting to become Dave's. The blackened mouth and eyes remained, as did the sheen on his skin.
Lolli gasped.
He laughed like a maniac, his voice raspy. "You couldn't even tell the difference, but you would never give me a chance."
"You fucking shit." Lolli slapped Dave. She hit him again, blows raining against the hands he threw up to ward her off.
Luis grabbed her arms, but Dave laughed again. "You think you know me? I'm Sketchy Dave? Dave the Coward? Dave the Idiot? Dave who needs his brother's protection? I don't need nothing." He looked Luis in the face. "You're so smart, right? So smart you didn't see any of this coming. Who's the moron, huh? You got some fancy fucking word for how stupid you are?"
"What have you done?" Luis asked.
"He made a deal with Mabry," Val said. "Didn't you?"
Dave smiled, but it looked like a rictus grin, the skin of his mouth too tight. When he spoke, Val saw only blackness beyond his teeth, as though she were looking into a dark tunnel. "Yeah, I did a deal. I don't need the Sight to know when I have something somebody wants." He wiped his forehead, eyes increasingly wide. "I wanted—"
He collapsed, his body shaking. Luis sank to his knees next to Dave and reached out to smooth his dreads back from his face, then abruptly pulled his hand back. "He's way too hot. It's like his skin is on fire."
"Never," Val said. "He's been using Never much more than once a day. He had to take it this whole time to keep that shape."
"In the movies they put people with crazy fevers in a bathtub with ice," Ruth said.
"What, when they O.D. on faerie drugs?" Lolli snapped.
"Grab him," Val said. "The lake should be cold enough."
Luis slid his hands under his brother's shoulders. "Be careful. His body is really warm."
"Take my gloves." Ruth pulled a pair out of her coat pocket and handed them to Val.
Pulling them on quickly, she grabbed Dave's ankles. Touching his skin was like grabbing the handle of a pot of boiling water. She lifted. He was so light, he might have been hollow.
Together she and Luis hurried down the steps, down the paths of the Ramble to the edge of the water. The heat of Dave's body scorched her skin through the gloves and he twitched and writhed as if he were fighting some unseen force. Val gritted her teeth and held on.
Luis waded into the water and Val followed, the frigid cold at her calves a terrible contrast to the burn of her hands.