“‘One may smile, and smile, and be a villain,’” I told him.

He crinkled his brow. “What?”

“Shakespeare,” said Conn from his corner. “It’s a line from Hamlet.”

Ivers craned his neck to look at him.

“Her friend’s in the school play,” Conn explained.

“Her friend?”

“Her human friend. In the Alter.”

I didn’t think Conn could betray me more than he already had, but his confirmation that I wasn’t human stung. “I’m a person,” I said. “You keep calling me a Shade, but I’ve no idea what that is, or what the Alter is, or where I am. All I know is that I’ve been abused and kidnapped and drugged.” I flung those last words at Conn. They didn’t touch him. His face was impassive.

“I want an explanation.” I heard my voice and wished I’d never spoken. That hadn’t been a demand. It had been a plea.

I was begging.

Ivers unbuttoned his jacket, reached in, and pulled out a lighter and cigar. “This is a good day for the IBI, a day for celebrating.” He flicked the lighter open and I jumped at the sight of its tiny flame. Ivers lit the cigar, puffing, and blew a cloud of smoke into my face. I choked.

“The Alter is our word for your world,” Conn said suddenly.

“McCrea,” Ivers warned.

“You’re in Chicago, but another version of the city you know. One where the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 never happened. That’s what caused the interdimensional split.”

“McCrea. Do I need to ask you to leave?”

A pause. “No, sir.”

“Good. Because the only explanation you need”—Ivers stabbed a finger in my direction—“is that that chair is made of iron so that if you catch on fire, you won’t burn the whole place down. But you will burn, sweetheart, oh, you will, if you don’t answer my questions.” He growled, “Exhibit A.”

An image glowed on the wall behind him. My name, dashed in colorful chalk on concrete. Alongside it in different handwriting was another name: Raphael Amador.

“Exhibit B.”

The image was replaced by another one: Raphael and me laughing as he tried to draw a daisy on the back of my tank top.

“What was your mission in the Alter?” Ivers demanded. “Why did the Shadow Society send you there?”

“You’ve been stalking me!” I stared at Raphael’s face as if he could help me out of this horrible, senseless mess.

“Surely you wanted us to see you,” said Ivers. “Flaunting yourself, flirting with a human”—he didn’t bother to suppress a shudder—“in front of a known portal between worlds.”

“We were at the Water Tower. It’s not a ‘known portal between worlds.’ It’s a mall!”

Ivers sucked on his cigar. “Don’t lie.”

“Fine, okay, the mall’s like a few blocks away from where we were. But we were just hanging out. I drew on the sidewalk, and then we went to the food court for smoothies. Wait … have I been arrested for graffiti?” I glanced between Ivers and Conn. “Am I being treated like this because of some chalk art? It’s chalk. It washes out in the rain!”

“Playing innocent is a stupid move,” said Ivers. “Because if you don’t play nice with me, like I’m playing nice with you, we’ll have to vox you.”

Vox? Something tugged at my memory. I knew this word. It’s Latin. It means “voice.”

“Only if you want to,” said Ivers. “You’re acting like you want to. Do you? I can do it myself, if you like.”

“No,” said Conn. The word was sharp. “That’s a bad idea.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion. You’ll be debriefed later, McCrea.”

Vox. Voice. A swirl of memory twisted inside me like a curl of that nasty cigar smoke, telling me that I did know what Ivers was talking about. I did know what it meant to vox someone.

They were talking about making me speak.

Torture.

“I was the senior ranking officer at the time of her arrest.” Conn stepped between Ivers and me. “I’m responsible for her. At least until I have been debriefed, and therefore relieved from this mission.”

Ivers looked at him disdainfully. “She’s a tasty bite, McCrea, but she’s a Shade. I don’t know what happened to you while you were playing school in the Alter, but you are seriously deep-sixing my respect of your objectivity.”

Conn took a deep breath. “I hate Shades. You know that, sir. That’s why you assigned me to this case. I am being objective. Voxing won’t work on her. I have reason to believe that she doesn’t actually know that she’s a Shade.”

“Impossible.”

“Then debrief me. Listen to my report. Decide for yourself. Or ask Director Fitzgerald what she thinks of the IBI rules and regulations.”

“Fitzgerald.” Ivers repeated, sour. “Fine. Fine, McCrea. I’ll debrief you. And in the meantime, you sweet little witch”—he tossed his burning cigar at my feet—“solitary confinement.”

18

“I’ll take her,” said Conn.

“Yeah, I bet you will,” said Ivers.

Conn unshackled me from the chair, giving me a look that ordered me not to struggle. I didn’t, if only because he’d left the firecuffs on my ankles and wrists.

He pushed me down the halls. “We don’t have much time,” he said, casting a wary look at the guards we passed every few minutes. “Can you walk faster?”

“No, I can’t. Know why? Because I’m chained at the ankles.”

“I can’t do anything about that. Not now. Listen, about solitary: it’s not as bad as it seems.”

“No complaints here. At least it will get me away from you.” Compared to everything I’d been through recently, a stint in solitary confinement would be a walk in the park.

“Your chains will be deactivated once you’re inside the box,” he said. “Just remember that nothing there can hurt you. Try to distract yourself. Think about … think about your art project. Or about how much you hate me.”

With that, Conn stopped in front of a pair of guards standing outside an iron door. “Indefinite solitary confinement,” he told them. “Ivers’s orders.”

To me he said, “I’ll be back for you. I promise.”

“Please. Take your time.”

He gave me an inscrutable look, then turned and strode away, almost at a run.

The door clanked open and the guards pushed me into a dimly lit chamber lined with iron on every side, even the ceiling. Standing in the center of the room was a large glass box.

For the first time since I heard the words “solitary confinement,” a worm of worry began to nibble at me. In my limited experience in the world of exploding handcuffs, glass was usually not a good sign. I dragged my feet, but the guards wrapped careful hands around my chains. “Don’t fight it,” one of them said. “You’ll break your cuffs.”

So I let them lock me inside the box, repeating Conn’s promise to myself as if he weren’t a mastermind liar. Nothing in here could hurt me.

I shifted my feet. I could walk two paces in each direction. The sounds I made were small and muffled—the scrape of my shoes, the short beat of my breath, the clack of my chains. I watched, but could not hear, the guards leaving the iron chamber.

I congratulated myself that I wasn’t the claustrophobic type. Conn was so condescending. Solitary confinement wasn’t so bad.

Then I heard a hiss and a click and my world burst into flames.

I reared back. Pure terror sucked the scream out of my throat. Fire was everywhere, flaring at me from all sides, driving away every rational thought. There was only heat and orange and red and fear fear fear. I beat against the glass walls, not caring that I might break my chains. Then I did break my chains, and ground my skin against their shards.

It was those thousand little cuts that began to slice through my insanity. They hurt. Nothing there can hurt you. Just one more of Conn’s lies.

But if I was burning alive, shouldn’t the pain be greater?

I glanced down at my wrists and saw smears of blood, but the flames weren’t touching my skin.

The fire was outside the box.

It was a trick.

A psychological game, designed to make me crazy.

And it worked. Even now that I recognized that this was only mental torture, I couldn’t stifle my panic.

Think, I told myself. You’re supposed to think. Distraction. Conn said.

He said he would come back.

Yet … how could I be so desperate as to trust anything he said?

My sudden anger at myself reminded me of myself. Of who I was. Self-sufficient. Strong. Able to deal.

So deal.

Sweat oozed down my forehead, and I took a shaky breath. Everywhere I looked, flames blazed. I closed my eyes.

Think about how much you hate me, Conn had said. Now that was a topic that could occupy my mind for a long time. Thinking about him, though, only made me furious, and anger couldn’t stop the earthquake inside me. I needed to be calm.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

The words floated out of nowhere. Where had they come from? I grabbed on to the rhythm that strung the words together.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers …

They were lines of poetry. From “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Yet they were more than that … they reminded me of something. Of a warm day last summer. A kitten carried by the scruff of its neck, hanging from its mother’s teeth.

Marsha had wanted to go on a road trip to Michigan. “You’ll love it,” she said. “Aunt Ginger lives on a blueberry farm. You can eat all the blueberries you want.”

“I’d rather stay here.”

“It’ll be fun!”

“I’m not in the mood for fun. I’d like lots of non-fun.”

“Well, too bad. We’re going.”

Then hours in the steamy car, with its broken air conditioner and broken tape deck. “Tell me again why we’re doing this?” I had groaned.

“Aunt Ginger’s sick. I spent every summer on her farm when I was growing up. This might be my last chance to see her.”

And see her we did. She greeted us with a double-barreled shotgun.

It took some time for Marsha to calm her down, to remind her that she was her niece, and to explain that the stranger in the car was her foster daughter. Finally, Aunt Ginger lowered the gun and hugged Marsha with scrawny arms. She led us up the path to the peaked farmhouse, her white pouf of hair glowing in the sun. It was only then that Marsha whispered that Aunt Ginger was dying of Alzheimer’s.

Also, we were going to clean her house and spend the night.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I packed a bag for you. You’ll adore sleeping in the attic, like I did when I was little.”

I said she’d tricked me, and that sleeping over was a really bad idea (one word: shotgun).

But she badgered me into the house and then into the kitchen, which I had to admit was kind of cute with its frilled curtains and a lime green refrigerator that was all curves and chrome details like a 1950s Cadillac. Aunt Ginger forgot my name every five minutes, but she also made us chamomile tea and showed me the kittens in a cardboard box under the sink.

Then Marsha shooed me outside, telling me to explore while she gave Aunt Ginger a bath. I certainly didn’t want to stick around for that. I wandered around the farm, checking out the blueberry fields. They probably hadn’t been harvested for years. They were a vast thicket.

In the burning glass box, I tried to focus on the memory of tasting those blueberries. Soft beads cloaked in violet skin. The flesh green and pink and pale and slippery and sweet.

I remembered heading back to the house, where I helped Marsha with the cleaning while Aunt Ginger conked out on the couch. When night fell, Marsha led me to the attic, and she was right: it was awesome. Huge, with a view of the pond. A high, slanting ceiling and rows of beds on either side—at least twelve beds, in several shapes and sizes. Marsha plopped down onto a saggy feather mattress, said, “Take your pick,” and promptly fell asleep.

I tried out the other beds, but none of them felt quite right. Finally, restless with my own restlessness, I gave up and tiptoed downstairs. I thought about raiding the refrigerator.

I slipped toward the kitchen through the living room, which flickered with light from the television. I glanced at Aunt Ginger asleep on the couch. Her twiggy hands lay almost gracefully on an afghan.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep … tired … or it malingers …

Aunt Ginger’s eyes sprang open. “You, girl!” An ancient finger crooked. “Come here.”

I did.

“You’re spooky, you know that?” She looked me up and down. “Your eyes are great black pools of need. You’re hankering after something. Yes, you are. It makes a body uncomfortable, seeing all that want in your face and not knowing why. Go on, tell me what you want.”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t be shy. Who knows? Maybe if you tell me your heart’s desire, it’ll come true. If not”—she grinned, flashing a full set of dentures—“I’ll forget it anyway.”

I thought about the disease creeping up the walls of her mind like the blueberry thicket coming closer and closer to the house. She was right. My secret would be safe with her.