Matt didn’t recognize the ragged man as Corbin Rafferty until he spoke, until he shouted Ellen’s name over the silent market. His hair was matted, his beard tangled, but he pointed toward her, accusing. “Ellen, get down from there, what the hells are you doing?” and spinning to see the crowd, “What the hells are you all doing? Don’t you see what’s happening up there? We have to get safe.”

Ellen was afraid, and the crowd shook. Whatever was happening here, with the goddess, Matt was only on its edge, but Ellen stood at its center, and as she came apart so did the web she’d knit from these people—like a whirlpool in a sink stopped when you replaced the plug.

He ran to Rafferty. “Corbin, stop it. You don’t know what’s happening. Calm down.”

The eyes that stared up into his were sharper than he remembered Rafferty’s eyes being, and the hands that gripped his outstretched arms stronger, too. “Matt, that’s my girl. Don’t you step between a man and his family,” with man and family spat. “Ellen! We’re going home.”

Matt forced Corbin against the wall.

But when Corbin’s back touched the bricks, he snarled and went limp. Matt lost balance, stumbled forward. His nose struck Corbin’s forehead. Bone crunched. Corbin kicked Matt in the knee. He started to fold, refused to let himself. Caught Corbin around the waist with one arm. An elbow crashed into his shoulder, and again.

“Ellen, get down from there!”

“No,” she said.

“We are going home. Now.” So loud, so shrill, his voice was almost breaking. “You listen to me.”

“Stop it,” Claire said.

*   *   *

The demon that rode Umar made him blend with alley shadows and observe the Market Square, the gathered congregation of this little goddess, lending her their faith so she might perform miracles.

A girl stood on a dais before them, and the Lady of the Moon was with her. Through her ran a path to the goddess’s heart, to freedom. All he had to do was seize her, and drink.

The demon tensed Umar’s legs to run.

Then the shadows turned jade.

A thin man stood in the alley mouth. He wore a gray goat’s beard and mismatched clothes, and behind him—or in place of him, as if he cast a brilliant shadow or were himself the shadow cast by a greater form—rose an ibis head in green. The thin man’s cheeks were wet.

The mind the demon rode named the figure: “Hasim.”

“Do not speak my name,” Hasim said, “with his tongue. You debase it.”

The demon made Umar move, fast.