I rammed into the ghoul with a shoulder. Fiery Shemesh! It was like shifting rock. It moved just enough for him to jerk back out of reach. It did not claw at me because now the advancing ghouls were all fixed on him, not on me.

“Catherine! I can’t see the gate.”

More thumped down from above. The breath of the ghouls was like the burrowing tongue of a craving that can never be eased. They would never stop coming. They swarmed toward him, but I had the scent of the spirit world in my lungs, all the gate I needed.

“Vai! Take my hand!” I thrust wildly to give them pause, then dragged Vai backward.

The memory of sun vanished as we crossed the gate. We staggered to a halt, panting, on the balcony where he had taken refuge. The city spread around us in its false beauty. Winds rippled color through ribbons. Bridges vaulted in graceful, intertwined arches, slender spans spun out of gold and silver. I swayed, a hand pressed to my sweaty forehead. A scraping shuffle sounded from the broken staircase as an unseen creature clawed uselessly at the rock.

“No! No! No!” I cried, ready to burst with sheer raging fury. “I’ll kill them! I’ll kill them!”

“Love, love. It’s all right.” He embraced me. I wasn’t sure if he was comforting me, or comforting himself by comforting me. “They can’t climb without stairs or ramps. They lack both the agility and the strength. We’re safe on this ledge.”

“We’re not safe! We have enough water for a day, at most. And no food! No way out—”

“Catherine! Enough!”

I broke off, my breath ragged.

His dark gaze met mine. “I saw a salter one time in Expedition, when I went out to the country with Kofi. It was before you came to Aunty’s boardinghouse. I saw her beg her brother to kill her. Then I saw her no longer able to speak, dead of mind but still alive in her body, a ravening beast. Worse, for beasts have purpose and their own sort of intelligence. Her family used spears to push her mindless flesh into a pit, but spears did not kill her. They poured salt water over her, and that did kill her, only she shrieked in such agony I have never forgotten the sound.”

I would not look away even though I did not want to hear what he was going to say next.

His voice emerged in a harsh whisper. “Promise me, Catherine. Promise me you will kill me cleanly rather than make me suffer that death.”

He did not flinch from my answering gaze, nor did his unwavering trust allow me to flinch.

“I promise you,” I said, each word a knife in my heart.

He gave a nod so final that my heart squeezed tight with love and terror.