Thwack.

Stars exploded before Eureka’s eyes as an orichalcum club hit the back of her shoulders. Eureka spun around, her lips homing in on her attacker. She shoved another Devil aside—and froze.

It was happening again. Her hands barely touched the girl—she was only trying to move the Devil out of her way—but the pain came, and then another vision. A wall of fire. A baby screaming on the other side of it. Then Eureka was in the mind of the Crimson Devil as a young girl, the moment she gave up on saving her baby sister, the moment she turned away and ran from the blaze into the night.

The girl in her hands dropped to the ground. Eureka’s hands groped for another. It didn’t need to be a kiss. When she was enraged, all of her skin could kill. She was her own lightning cloak.

The club struck her spine. She howled and grabbed behind her, finding flesh. New pain. New visions. A boy and a girl kissing, hotly, madly, breathing fast. Eureka didn’t recognize either of them, but she felt the pain of heartbreak and betrayal on behalf of the girl in her grip. She heard the club hit the ground, and then felt the girl slide, lifeless, from her hands.

Her arms flailed again, this time grabbing two Devils at once. Her vision hadn’t cleared enough for her to see them, but Eureka could feel them writhing and, more keenly, she could feel the wild telescoping of their deepest agonies:

Fat. Dull. Worthless. A mother’s voice branded one girl’s heart.

And then a different mother, lying dead in a cold room, tiny embers of a fire remaining in the hearth. Blood all over the sheets. All over the Crimson Devil sobbing at the woman’s side.

Eureka reached for more flesh, more pain. A bottomless hunger for agony grew inside her. Her vision cleared. She was grasping at air, alone in the coral tunnel. Crimson dresses fanned around her feet. Had she killed them all so quickly? One, two, three, four, five—

“Don’t move,” a voice behind her called.

Eureka turned and something blade-sharp bit her gut.

Wetness. Heat spooling through the fingers clutching her stomach. Everything red. An orichalcum arrow lodged in her flesh. She grimaced and yanked it out. Green vapors swirled from her open wound. The glowing arrow was artemisia-tipped.

The remaining Devil stood twenty feet away, her crossbow resting on her shoulder. As Eureka stumbled toward her, she loaded another arrow, aimed shakily, and fired. A green flash bloomed through the tunnel.

Eureka ducked. Or maybe she fell. She was on her knees. Breath was impossible, a knife slicing organs. She saw an orichalcum club lying on the floor and thought of the organs and blood and bones mined to build it. She thought of those ghosts trapped in the Filling. Adrenaline rushed through her. She crawled on her knees and reached a hand around the Devil’s ankle.

The pain of the arrow wound tripled as the essence of Eureka’s agony flowed into the girl and the girl’s agony flowed into her. This time the vision was of a dappledsilver horse, stolen from the girl’s family by the gossipwitches.

Eureka got up slowly. Artemisia clouded her mind. She took limited, shallow breaths, hardly enough to sustain her as she moved through the tunnel, away from the castle, away from the fantasy of guilt.

Nothing was real but her pain. When she exited the coral tunnel on the sand dune, she didn’t believe it. She watched her fingers unbutton her shirt, her hands tie it around her chest to stanch her wound.

The moon looked like her mother’s face. The roiling ocean sounded like her father cooking in the kitchen. But her father never sang when he cooked. What did she hear? It was so familiar.

Music from Delphine’s waveshop boomed in Eureka’s ears. Her other mother. Mother murder.

Brooks was in there. She wanted to go to him. No. She spat on the sand, disgusted with herself. She turned toward the purple Gossipwitch Mountains. The only way to release Brooks was to win.

She remembered the gossipwitch salve that had healed her once before. One foot in front of the other. Up the slope. Tripping over rocks. Trail of blood behind her. Clouds over the moon. The tide of pain was high.

At last, Eureka saw the fire. Three gossipwitches sat in a bright circle, turning spits over the flame. She smelled roasted meat. She thought they were wearing purple. She thought she heard bees buzzing. She stumbled and caught herself on a massive rock. “I’m looking for my—”

“Haven’t seen them,” one witch said. The others laughed.

“Esme,” Eureka said breathlessly. “Do you know where Esme is?”

The witches gaped at her. “You are not one of us. How dare you spread the gossip of our names?”

Eureka let herself slide down the rock. She crawled on her stomach toward the fire. The heat was calming and the pressure of the earth felt good on her ribs. Her mouth was filled with dirt. She didn’t have the strength to spit it out. “You know who I am. You know why I’m here. You’re home now because of me. Where are my family and my friends?”

“You gave them up, remember?”

Eureka closed her eyes. Her fingers worried the earth, feeling for a switch to shut everything off.

31

NOSTALGIA

Fingers parted Eureka’s lips and a warm liquid filled her mouth. She swallowed once reflexively, then tasted the soothing caramel-chocolate broth and began to gulp.

She opened her eyes slowly. Ander leaned over her, smelling like the ocean. They were rocking, and for a moment she wondered if they were on a boat. His warm hand was on her forehead.

“I didn’t think the dead could dream,” she heard herself say distantly, which made her think of Brooks trapped in the waterfall in the waveshop. She yearned to go to him. But in the moments when her eyelids fluttered, she yearned for Ander, too. It made her feel weak, like she needed too much.