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  Ben’s will bolstered hers. Together, they shaped a haven, a small patch of green grass beneath them. The boy stopped shaking. He stopped crying. He went still and silent.

  “Don’t let her make you think you have to do this,” Tovah said.

  The boy said nothing. The woman spoke but nothing came from her mouth. The dog barked, soundless.

  “She is—”

  “No!” The boy’s cry silenced Tovah.

  “Tovah, you have to go. Get out of here.” Ben’s fingers tightened.

  “I can’t leave you here,” Tovah said.

  “Go,” Ben gasped. “Before you don’t have a choice!”

  “But what about you?”

  In front of them the boy had gone straight and still, flanked by the woman and the dogman. They made a triangle.

  “He doesn’t know,” Ben said, “that they’re him. He doesn’t know.”

  “I’m not going to leave you.”

  Ben shook his head. “You have to. Before this tears you apart. Wake up, Tovah!”

  “Promise me you will too,” she begged. “Promise you won’t let this—”

  Ben kissed her. It wasn’t like the first time, when his mouth had been tender and full of joy. This kiss was hard, full of longing, tinged with despair that didn’t come from what the boy was doing. This kiss was almost brutal, but she gave in to it.

  He pushed her away.

  The boy cried out.

  Tovah woke to darkness, acid burning her throat. She lurched from her bed. For one endless moment she hovered before realizing only one foot had hit the floor. She pitched forward, hands held out, and landed on the floor with a solid thud. Her stump rammed the floor. Pain, exquisite and also endless, shot through her.

  She couldn’t even scream, breathless with agony. Sickness again filled her throat as she writhed on the ground. She was afraid even to touch the stump, certain she’d broken open the scars and afraid to feel for blood.

  She rocked herself, touching her mouth at the memory of Ben’s kiss. The remnants of despair surrounded her and slowly fell away. She hadn’t felt like that in a long time. She never wanted to feel like that again.

  The boy was the one shaking up the Ephemeros. The boy who was also the woman, and the dogman, but who didn’t know he was hurting the world to save himself from himself.

  Moaning, Tovah rolled onto her rear and ran her hands over her stump. Her stomach settled slowly as the despair and fear subsided. She had figured out who was causing all the turmoil, but not why. Not how to stop it.

  She needed to talk to Spider.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  In the morning, her stump had swollen too much for her to even consider fitting it into the socket of her prosthetic. Black bruises painted her thigh, and the skin had split along the length of her suture scar. Blood crusted the edges of the cut, which still seeped. She’d wrapped the stump in several layers of gauze bandage and covered it with a cotton stocking, but it ached so fiercely she thought about taking a painkiller. Her prosthetist would probably scold her for her carelessness, but she didn’t want to visit her doctor for treatment.

  By the time she got to the Sisters of Mercy, the phantom pains had set in. Fire consumed her missing leg, her toes relentlessly cramping, and needles and pins stabbing the sole of her foot. She parked crookedly in the lot and pushed her seat back to stretch out, biting her lip against the pain and wishing desperately for the pill that would take it away.

  Later.

  Now she had to get inside and drive herself home afterward. She couldn’t afford to be under the influence. Still, by the time she got her car door open and hauled herself out onto the aluminum crutches she hated, chill sweat had begun its conquest of her forehead and down the line of her spine. The foam crutch handles tucked beneath her armpits exacerbated the dampness all over her skin. Her clothes bunched unpleasantly under the handles, but she ignored it and managed to hobble across the parking lot and into the lobby.

  She’d been proficient on her crutches, though never graceful. Today, each hop-step shot stabbing pain all the way up her phantom limb and into the bruised and bleeding stump. She managed to navigate the elevator buttons but, once inside, slumped against the wall and swallowed hard against the slow-rolling waves of nausea.

  The elevator door started to close on her as she tried to get off on Spider’s floor. She was too sluggish. The door banged against her crutch and lumbered open again, giving her enough time to gather her energy and move. She had to stop and rest again as soon as she made it to the hall.

  It wasn’t a Sunday, and that made all the difference. Things were louder today, with more staff bustling about and more patients walking the halls. Tovah didn’t even earn a curious glance as she made her way down the hall to the nurses’ station to sign in. Someone on crutches and missing a limb didn’t seem to garner the same sort of attention here as it did outside.

  She didn’t know the nurse behind the desk, which was something of a relief. She didn’t need to explain herself, or chat, like she’d have had to do with Ava. She signed her name and turned herself toward Henry’s room.

  “He’s not in his room,” said the nurse, who looked like she’d just graduated from nursing school. Yesterday.

  Tovah stopped. “He’s not?”

  The nurse shook her head and pointed toward the lounge. “No. He’s in there today.”

  “He’s not in bed?”

  The nurse shook her head. “Nope.”

  “Is Dr. Goodfellow here today?”

  “Dr. Goodfellow?” The nurse frowned a little. “Not that I know of.”

  Tovah turned herself toward the lounge, calling a thanks over her shoulder as she made her way toward the room. Henry wasn’t in bed. He was up. Which might explain why he wasn’t in the Ephemeros. And though she knew they needed him there, Tovah couldn’t stop herself from grinning as she went to find him.

  Today the lounge was cacophony and chaos. Several of the residents circled the room repetitively, one of them making distinctive chicken-wing flapping motions with her arms. The television, set to an inane soap opera, blared in Spanish. Puzzle pieces were scattered on the games table, but nobody sat to piece them together into a whole.

  She didn’t see Henry at first but when she did, Tovah’s smile faded immediately. He stood rigid against one of the room’s pillars, his face contorted into a grimace. He didn’t blink as the flapping woman passed him, but after a second he, too, flapped his arms just as she had.

  “Henry.” Tovah put herself in front of him. “It’s me. Tovahleh. Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  Relieved that he’d answered, even though he didn’t appear to be paying attention, Tovah couldn’t stop herself from hugging him. The crutches made it awkward, as did the fact Henry didn’t hug her back. She let go after a moment, her throat tight with emotion, and looked up at him.

  “Hey. Henry.”

  “Hey.”

  Hugging him was like hugging a statue. His body had no give to it. The flapping ceased, he’d gone back to his stiff stance. Her back hurt in sympathy just looking at him.

  “Talk to me,” she said quietly, aware they weren’t alone even if nobody seemed to be paying attention to them.

  “Talk to me,” Henry repeated.

  “Oh, Spider,” Tovah whispered, but that didn’t reach him, either. She really needed to sit and take the weight off her sound leg. Her arms had begun to ache, and exhaustion threatened to topple her.

  Henry didn’t move. When she reached to tug his sleeve, his body tightened at once, resisting even the slightest pull. She didn’t have the balance to really yank him, and even in his fragile state Henry was taller and broader than she was. Frustrated, the couch only a few feet away, Tovah tried again. Pulling on Henry was like pulling on a block of stone.

  She crutched over to one of the games tables and pulled a chair away from it, but carrying a chair was next to impossible without the full use of her hands. Frustration stung her further, making