And illegally drugged people she’d seduced with her talk of saving them, saving the planet, and forced them to participate in her rituals. But without evidence, there was no way the charges would stick.

Ultimately, Izzy believed, Sky had started the chain of events that led to Cyrus’s death. And she would have been responsible for Ever’s death, too. Ever, who had nothing to do with any of this, but who had suffered anyway. Because of me, Izzy thought. And because of Sky.

Izzy, suddenly unable to breathe, went out onto the porch, and Ever followed her. A white Wolf Moon and its attendant wolf cub stars roamed the pearlized sky above the Joshua trees.

He took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, turned it upside down, and shook one out.

“You smoke?”

“Yeah. I do now. Again.” He lit and took a puff, deep, blew the smoke away from her. “My mouth still tastes like death anyway.”

He meant after what had happened. “No. Please,” she said.

Ever leaned up against the wall, shoulders hunched, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the cigarette butt. Izzy thought of that dream she’d had once, the taste of salt and wine, the slide of warm, wet skin-against-skin, the thrust of Cyrus into her mouth and Ever behind her.

Cyrus was gone and here was Ever with his kindness, his music, his beautiful pain.

“I’m working on a song,” Ever said. “It’s about two people who look like each other’s dead lovers. But then it almost destroys them.”

Izzy stood there staring at him. He still would not meet her eyes.

“But like you said, you’re not him. And I’m not her.”

“No, you’re you. I’ve never met anyone like you, Izzy.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He shook his head. It seemed so heavy on his neck, almost too big for his body now, and Izzy thought of the papier-mâché masks at House of Hearts.

“I’m going to leave,” she told him.

“I don’t understand.”

“I have to leave.”

Ever smiled—not a real smile. His dimples showed but they looked like someone had poked holes in his face. She could see his incisors. Sharp.

“I can’t stay. I almost got you killed,” she said. “And we hardly know each other.”

Finally, now, he looked at her. His eyes were red and limned with tears. He and Izzy faced off, bodies tense as if for combat. She felt heat flash in her cheeks like grease in a pan. Her lips and nipples tingled, and this made her angrier.

“Izzy,” he said.

She turned away.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

He didn’t tell her goodbye when she left. He would go on with his life, she knew. As if he had never met her, as if he had never even spoken her name.

Part III

Part III

Under the Bridge