Sweet anger flowed through my veins. I punched the girl in the solar plexus, and she shot backward like one of those hinged targets at the baseball toss booth at a carnival. She skidded across the clay, knees bent, and I climbed on her before she could sit upright. I hit her again. Her jaw popped. Again. Her head jerked to one side. Again. Blood cascaded from her nose over her lips.

“Idiot child.”

I swatted my ear.

“Take my advice or you will take her life.”

The nagging voice kept buzzing.

“Shadow and light canno’ exist in ta same place at ta same time.”

I clamped my hands over my ears.

Shadow and light. Shadow and light. Shadow and light.

The echo was maddening.

An image flickered in my mind’s eye, a card drawn from the deck of my memories by the presence somehow rooted in my head. Two identical girls. Holding hands. Plush rabbits tucked under their arms. Matching dresses. Hair ribbons fluttered behind them.

One corner of the image caught fire. Flames engulfed one girl. Lori. My twin. My shadow.

“Perhaps you’re no’ a waste of oxygen after all.”

The pressure in my skull vanished. The voice did too.

The moment of clarity was brutal. Harlow lay ruined and unconscious between my thighs.

“I didn’t tell you to stop,” the Fury seethed. “You aren’t finished yet.”

Yes, I was.

Lori was never more than a thought away. Not really. No matter how hard I tried to forget the gulf of loss her name inspired. Becoming her such a short time ago only strengthened my bond to her form. I inhaled as Camille and exhaled as Lori.

Harlow’s blood stained the hem of my nightgown. I scrambled off her and hid my face behind my hands. I let sobs crash through me, allowed my shoulders to shake with fear I didn’t have to fake.

A dull thud sounded beside me.

“The hell, Tia?” a man’s voice boomed. “What is she? A kid? You didn’t say nothing about hurting no kid.”

I peeked through my small fingers at him. The man had jumped into the basin to save me—or at least to determine if I deserved saving.

Choking out a cry, I ran to him and wrapped my arms around his legs. He patted my head while glaring down Letitia, who appeared torn too. She didn’t want to hurt a kid, mothers were hardwired that way, and right about now she was thinking of her own rugrats. Even the shadow assigned to me faltered. That hesitation was all I needed.

The man wore jeans smeared with oil and smelling of diesel fuel. I reached up as if to take his hand, fingernail loosening, and pricked him with my spur. His blood sent faint tingles through my palm. Witch.

The man yelped and slung his hand in the air. “I think she bit me.”