Like some perverse statue, hands resting on knees, horns alight, cock erect and glowing.

“I’m a demon, not a dullard, Stern. But my dignity has long since been left in tatters. And you didn’t dress for the occasion either.”

Alex clutched the sheet tighter. “Which books do you want?”

“You choose.”

“Is that why you dragged me up here?”

“I didn’t drag you anywhere.”

“I didn’t walk barefoot across New Haven in the dead of night for kicks.

I was compelled.” But that wasn’t quite right. It hadn’t felt like the coin of compulsion or Astrumsalinas or any of the other strange magic she’d encountered. It had felt deeper.

“Interesting,” he said in a voice that didn’t sound interested at all.

Alex backed away, wondering at every moment if her feet would simply stop obeying and she’d be forced to stay. Once she was in the hallway, she took a moment to catch her breath.

It’s him. He’s alive.

And he wasn’t angry. Unless this was some kind of con. He hadn’t come back bent on revenge or ready to punish Alex for failing him. But what was this? What had brought her here?

She considered making a run for it. Dawes would be here soon. She might be turning onto this street right now. But what was Alex going to say when she came running out of the house? The monster demanded that I do his bidding! He bade me select reading material for him!

If she was honest, she didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to leave him.

She wanted to know what came next.

She took the stairs up to the third floor and Darlington’s tiny, round tower room. She hadn’t been here since the night of the new moon ritual, when she’d been searching for information on the Bridegroom’s death.

She peered out the window. The driveway curved into the trees, the road invisible from here. No sign of Dawes. She wasn’t sure if she was worried or glad.

But choosing reading material for Darlington was its own nightmare assignment. What might entertain a demon with a taste for the finer things?

She finally opted for a book on modernism in urban planning, a spiralbound biography of Bertram Goodhue, and a paperback copy of Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones.

“Aren’t these just going to catch fire?” she asked when she returned to the ballroom.

“Try one.”

Alex put the paperback on the floor and gave it a hard shove. It slid through the barrier, seemingly unharmed.

Darlington’s hand shot out and captured the book. The collar at his neck glinted, the garnets like red eyes, watching.

“That’s quite a piece of jewelry,” she said. It was really too big to be called a collar. It stretched from his throat out to his shoulders, like something a pharaoh might wear.

“The yoke. Thinking of pawning it?”

“It’s not doing you much good.”

He ran a fond hand over the paperback. The letters seemed to shimmer and change to unfamiliar symbols. “Would that I might make thee love books more than thy mother,” he murmured.

His fingers were tipped in golden claws, and a memory came to her, the feeling of his body wrapped around hers. I will serve you ’til the end of days.

She shivered despite the heat of the room.

“Why did that work?” she asked. “Why didn’t it burn?”

“Stories exist in all worlds. They are immutable. Like gold.”

She wasn’t sure what to make of that. She slid the rest of the books across the boundary of the circle.

“Okay?” she asked. Her whole body was humming, trapped between the desire to run and the hunger to remain. It felt dangerous to stand in this room, alone with him, this person who wasn’t quite a person, this creature she knew and didn’t know.

Darlington perused the titles. “These will do for now. Though Fire and Hemlock seems more apropos than Dogsbody. Here,” he said. “Catch.”

He tossed the paperback in the air. Without thinking, Alex reached for it, realizing too late that she was going to breach the circle. She hissed as her outstretched arm struck the boundary.

But nothing happened. The book landed in her palm with a loud smack.

Alex stared at it, at her arm on the other side of that golden veil.

Why hadn’t she burned the way Dawes had?

Her tattoos had changed. They glowed golden and they seemed to be alive: the Wheel spinning; the lion atop it prowling over her forearm; the peonies blossoming, then losing their petals, then blooming once more. She drew her hand back, dropping the book.

“What the fuck?”

The demon was staring at her, and Alex rocked back on her heels, the reality of what had happened sinking in. If she could get in, then could he …

“I can’t get out,” he said.

“Prove it.”

“I don’t think that would be wise.”

“Why not?”

A small furrow formed between his brows, and she felt a pinch in her heart. Despite the horns, the markings, that was Darlington.

“Because every time I try to breach the circle, I feel a little less human.”

“What are you, Darlington?”

“What are you, Wheelwalker?”

The word hit Alex like a hard slap. How did he know? What did he know?