It was hard to hold on to Bexoi. Anonoei had to keep such a careful balance. Since she had thrown herself out of her own dying flesh and plunged into her enemy’s body, Anonoei had known that she could not stay here without Bexoi herself. For the body was Bexoi’s and if her inself broke free and returned to Duat, the corpse would be left behind to rot, no longer a single continuous organ, but just a heap of tissues, food for the scavengers that always waited, a heartbeat away, for the first sign of death.

I am one of them, a scavenger, a fungus growing inside Bexoi, unable to sustain a life of my own, feeding instead on hers.

And Anonoei couldn’t even be sure how much of this situation Bexoi understood. Maybe, having come so near to death, Bexoi really did believe herself to be dead, or something like it. Maybe she couldn’t fully reattach to her body. What was holding her back? The baby, perhaps?

But it was just as possible and, knowing Bexoi, far more likely, that the Queen knew exactly what was happening, and kept herself hovering on the edge of consciousness, waiting for Anonoei to grow weary of the continuous tug of war.

If Anonoei pressed too hard, Bexoi would leave the body and it would die. But if Anonoei relaxed her grip, Bexoi would take back full control and Anonoei would be left with nothing, no part of this life. Then Bexoi’s attempt to murder her would at last be complete.

And maybe that would be best. Maybe it was not heroic but pitiable that Anonoei was so desperate to keep some part of her alive. If this miserable existence as a shadow lurking inside the body of the Queen counted as life.

Anonoei was powerless to make Bexoi’s eyes open and look at Wad or at Danny. Oh, she could do it—but that was just the kind of thing that made Bexoi’s inself detach itself in some unfathomable way. Anonoei could sense it happening, but she had no idea what sense was sensing it. Not some message from Bexoi’s body, she had long since realized. Anonoei could sense Bexoi’s inself letting go of her own body at some level where only the inself and outself existed. At the same time, Anonoei knew somehow that wherever Bexoi was going, there would be no coming back. Anonoei would be left alone in a body that was not hers, that she couldn’t control. She could stop Bexoi from doing anything, saying anything. But she couldn’t do anything herself, not without taking so much control that Bexoi would leave.

The message was clear: I may not be able to get rid of you, but I won’t be your puppet. If I can’t rule here, no one will.