‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘that’s what I said.’

‘That, that thing is not a wolf.’ Her voice was as tight as a drum, as high as a bat.

‘But it is Stanislav. I guess.’ He finally did blink, and the fleeting instant of his eyes closing showed him a writhing mass of barbed tentacles, tooth-lined mouths, glistening, dripping spikes, vacuous sucking holes, and eyes. So many eyes, and all of them disturbingly human.

‘We can’t fight that,’ said Mary, pointing back inside.

‘I know, I know. But … it’s him.’

‘Dalip. He’s gone. Whatever he was, has gone.’

‘But you, you’ve changed backwards and forwards. Maybe he still can.’

‘I change into a bird. The first couple of times almost broke me. You ever seen him like that before?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘When Crows was showing me how to do magic, I got a bit carried away. This … thing, like that thing, appeared. It was sort of me, but not me. I told it to fuck right off, and it disappeared. If Stanislav took one look at his true self and gave it a big, wet kiss, then he’s finished as a human being. Your mate’s come home. That’s what he really wants to be.’

Dalip thought about the shifting, pulsating mass, constantly forming and breaking down. A wolf, a werewolf even, would have been reasonable, understandable. Instead, they had unfathomable chaos.

‘What should I do?’ he asked.

‘You cannot go in there. I mean, fuck. Did you see what he’s done to the guards?’

Dalip had. There were bits of them everywhere, just rolling around on the floor at the urging of the ever-moving tentacles, and some seemed to be in the process of being absorbed into the main mass.

‘There might be part of him I can still talk to.’

‘No!’ She slapped his arm. Twice. ‘No. Your parents – and at least you’ve got parents – are going to want you back, and I’m not telling them you fed yourself to some monster because you thought you ought to try or some other shit excuse. Just no.’

‘So what happens now?’

‘I don’t fucking know. You’re supposed to be the smart one. Think of something … smart.’

Dalip tried, but couldn’t. All he could think of were tentacles with teeth like chainsaw blades, turning, always turning.

‘Let’s go back to the tower,’ he said.

‘That’s an idea I can get behind. And you know what? I’m going to run.’

She did, and Dalip was right behind her.

29

29

Mary sat herself down in front of Bell and steepled her fingers. ‘We have a problem.’

‘You have a problem,’ said the geomancer.

‘No, we have a problem. And it’s your fault. So what we’re going to do is find a way to fix it, before anything else happens. Stanislav—’

‘The man, the one who attacked me—’