Claire looked vague and dumbstruck for a second when I let go, but she grabbed a handhold—me—as the truck backed up. “Hey,” she said, “what the heck are you wearing?”

“I went shopping,” I said. “What do you think? Straight off the runway.”

“Where, at the detention center?”

Banter was tiring, suddenly, so I resorted to the truth. “I had to ditch my clothes. They were full of draug.”

She winced, and unsnapped the top of the jumpsuit to see the red marks on my skin. The bleeding had stopped, at least, though the worst bites had leaked into the paper, making it look either festive or horrific, depending on how your mood ran. Me, I was just happy to be alive and have my girl holding me. Today, that was one hell of a win. “Did you get hurt anywhere else?”

“We can explore that somewhere better than this, but I think I’m okay. Got away clean. I mean that like a metaphor, because I could really use a shower.”

Then I felt the sting again, hot as acid rain. I got away clean …. No, I couldn’t have. I didn’t get away. Nobody gets away. Something is eating me. I know it. I feel it. … No. No, I was okay. Everything was okay. Claire was right here, holding on to me. It was all fine.

“Did you close the valves?” Myrnin asked.

“One was stuck,” I said. “All the others are closed. You don’t think they can open them?”

“Unlikely. Magnus can manifest enough physical strength to manage it, but he is about to have much more to worry about,” Myrnin said. “I flushed the lines with silver nitrate. They can’t use the pipes with any safety. We’ve slowed them down considerably, at the very least.”

The truck did a three-point turn and accelerated, which was a relief. I’d been afraid the draug were going to do some end run around us and trap us all. But from the roaring of the engine, Mikey wasn’t going to let anything at all stop us now, and if the draug wanted to splash the windshield I supposed they were welcome to try.

Myrnin sat down on the cushy throne that was decorated with the Founder’s symbol on the top, and heaved a big sigh. He was smiling. Not the usual look for him, either—this had a certain gleeful cruelty to it that made me glad he wasn’t directing it at me.

“Can you hear that?” he asked us. He had his eyes closed and his head tipped back against the heavy velvet padding.

“Is it the draug?” Claire asked anxiously. “Are they singing? Is it getting to you or—”

“Not singing,” he said, and the smile grew wider. “Screaming. They’re screaming. And it is lovely.”

There was something off about him, I thought with a weird, fleeting chill. The Myrnin I remembered was a crazy asshole, but he wasn’t some kind of sadist. Then again, I supposed they’d been afraid of the draug for so long that maybe a little gruesome victory dance might not be so strange.