“Make her go,” whispered Wad.

Danny only gave a low chuckle. “You saw how I did this,” he said. “How Anonoei did it. You know that neither of us can make Bexoi do anything.”

“Then we’ll never be rid of her,” said Wad bitterly.

“Perhaps not,” said Danny. “But it’s not about us or what we want.”

Is it about me? thought Anonoei.

And from Bexoi came a wave of rejection and hatred.

Anonoei felt it as emotion because now she was directly connected to the body as if it were her own.

No, she was connected to it because it was her own. It belonged to her now.

She could feel the urgency of Bexoi’s demand: Where can I go? I don’t want to die.

Anonoei had no answer. Nobody wanted to die, and Anonoei couldn’t think of a good reason why Bexoi should be willing to die when her body remained alive, in someone else’s possession.

“It doesn’t want you now,” said Danny, and Anonoei realized that now he was using his voice. “It’s been offered a better life. A better self. What can you offer?”

Again Bexoi reached for the body’s voice, but she was not connected to it anymore. Yet Anonoei knew, without words, what she was trying to convey: It’s mine.

“It’s yours because you were such a powerful pret, back on Duat,” said Danny. “Such brilliance and strength. Of course it wanted to follow you. But look what you did with it. You might have felt no shame, but the beautiful beast you dwelt in was ashamed of how you made it live, what you made it do. Back then it had no choice. Now it has one. It’s hard to imagine a living soul that it would not rather be.”

Bexoi raged—or would have raged, if the body had obeyed her. What do you know about me? I don’t know you, you’re nothing to me, a boy, a stranger!

But Danny responded with perfect calm. “Bexoi,” he said, and the very act of naming her pulled her even farther out of the body which she was still desperately trying to control. “You know me. At this moment, you know me better than you have ever known anybody. I’m hiding nothing. You know me, Loki knows me, Anonoei can see me plainly. And you know that I have done nothing to you. Everything that grieves you, you did to yourself. You took life away from others without a moment’s regret. Did you think that meant that you would not also someday die?”

Anonoei felt Bexoi’s fury turn to a mix of fire and fear. She was trying to burn up Danny North, and she was terrified because her body gave her no such power now. It would not harm Danny North.