“So did you.” He sounded almost sorry. Then his eyes hardened, the moment passing, and he turned to Manuel. “Take your time, make it hurt. She’ll tell us where she hid it.”

Manuel raised the gun, whispering a prayer. I closed my eyes, hoping his aim was bad and the first bullet would do the job. That it would end quickly.

I didn’t see what came next. I opened my eyes to see Dare leaping onto her brother’s back, momentum sending them both crashing to the floor. The gun went off when it hit the floor, bullet punching through the ceiling. I dove for my own gun an instant too late, shying back as Devin grabbed it from under my hands.

“Toby, get the gun!” Dare shrieked, trying to keep Manuel pinned. He had fifty pounds and six inches on her: there was no way she’d keep him down for long. I pushed myself to my feet, keeping my eyes on Devin. His attention was entirely on Dare, face twisted into an expression that went past rage or sanity. He was gone.

He’d been gone for a long time.

“No one disobeys me!” he snarled.

Dare looked up, eyes going wide, and screamed as the first bullet hit her in the side. Blood sprayed over the wall behind her, hitting Manuel across the face. The terror in her eyes turned to pleading as she glanced toward me, like she was hoping I could take it back. Even then, she thought I’d be her hero.

She finished her scream and jerked back, trying to curl into a ball. It was too late. The next two bullets were close behind the first, and by the time I’d recovered enough to lunge for Devin, her screams had stopped. Manuel was doing the screaming for her. My shoulder caught Devin in the ribs, bowling him over and sending the gun sliding across the floor. I had an instant to wonder where it landed before his foot caught me in the stomach, flinging me back.

I curled around myself, retching, as he climbed back to his feet; his second kick caught me in the chest, sending stabbing pains through my ribs and sternum. “Look what you did! You killed her.” There was no sanity left in his voice: he believed what he was saying. He pulled the trigger, and he still blamed me. Not that it mattered. I’d blame myself enough for both of us.

“Devin . . .” I gasped.

“Shut up!” The scope of the world had narrowed, becoming nothing but Devin, pain, and the growing taste of roses. I think his world had become just as small. He’d abandoned his sanity in the twisting maze of changeling time, and the balance of his blood had thrown him to the point from which there was no coming back. Sitting on the fence isn’t easy. Sometimes the fence breaks, and you fall.

Neither of us expected the gunshot. Devin raised a hand to his chest, touching the stain blooming there before looking back to me, eyes gone terribly wide. Mouth moving with words he never managed to finish, he folded and fell.

Behind him, still crying, Manuel lowered the gun.

The taste of roses rose and burst in the back of my throat, choking me as it dissipated. I hadn’t realized how constant it had become until it was gone. I stood with agonizing slowness; every breath hurt, but at least I was alive. Manuel didn’t move as I walked over and pried the gun from his fingers, dropping it to the floor.

He lifted his head when it hit the ground, expression bleak. “He . . . he . . .”

“Shhh. I know.”

And I put my arms around him, and held him.

TWENTY-SEVEN

WE STOOD THERE FOR almost fifteen minutes before I pulled back, looking at Manuel. “Is there anyone else here?” He gazed at me, eyes gone wide and glassy with shock. I shook his shoulders, as gently as I could manage. “Manuel, is there anyone else here? Anyone at all?”

“He . . . sent them all away,” he said. “He knew you were coming. He didn’t want anyone else to be here when you came.”

He sent away everyone but the two kids I cared about. I closed my eyes. Until today, I’d never known that he could be evil. “Come on, Manuel. Let’s go get your things.”

“I don’t want to leave her.”

I looked back to his face, forcing myself to smile. “You have to, Manny. It’s time for the night-haunts to come, and they won’t do it while we’re here.”

“But . . .”

“Come on.”

The room Dare and Manuel shared with half a dozen more of Devin’s kids was dark and cluttered, hammocks hanging from the middle of the ceiling to keep the mattresses from using up all the available floor space. It was familiar enough to hurt like hell. I used to share a room just like it with Mitch and Julie and a rotating group of others, all of us fighting for our little corners and the pretense of dignity that having “a little privacy” could create.

I leaned against the wall, watching as Manuel packed up their meager store of possessions. The hollow echo of the night-haunts’ wings whispered down the hall from the front of the building, warning the living to stay away; their only business was with the dead. The night-haunts work fast. By the time Manuel came back to the doorway, clutching a duffel bag in one hand and a tattered red suitcase in the other, the sound of wings was gone.

Eyes still glassy, he looked at me, and asked, “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know.”

The bodies in the front weren’t any easier to look at now that they seemed human. I forced myself to keep my eyes on the door, tugging Manuel along in my wake. He went silent again at the first sight of his sister’s manikin, retreating back into shock. I couldn’t blame him. He’d lost his sister and his teacher in the same night. Who was going to take care of him now?

“Wait here,” I said. Manuel didn’t respond; just stood there, staring dully at the wall. “I’m going to go to the office. Can you wait here for me?” I paused, giving him time to answer. He didn’t. “All right. Just scream if anything comes.” I left him there, standing silent in the company of the artificial dead, as I turned to enter Devin’s office for the very last time.

The lights were off, casting the whole room into shadow. I paused at the doorway, just looking at the darkness. No one ever went into Devin’s office without him, and he was never in the office with the lights off. He was really gone.

We’d have to come back later and search the place, tear it brick from brick to find out who might have known what he was planning, who he’d hired, what he’d paid them. For right now, that could wait; the dead weren’t coming back, no matter what we did. The first aid kit was underneath the desk. I picked it up, wincing as the movement put pressure on my ribs, and turned toward the door. Then I paused, looking back toward the bulletin board on the wall. All those pictures . . .