She rolled onto her back, staring up at the blue ceiling flecked with gold stars. There was something oddly comforting about the night sky. At times like this, when the world seemed to suffocate her, she felt like she wanted to throw herself into the freezing night air, to drift along in the wind, riding a night storm…

Basically, she was a lunatic, trapped with her own thoughts.

And as if they weren’t enough to keep her awake, a glowing, spiked door lurked just outside her room.

She threw off her covers and rose from the bed. Shivering, she returned downstairs and snatched a dagger to slip beneath her pillow.

Chapter 12

As her nails dug into her palms, Ursula stood by the empty reception desk of Ostema, a hair salon near the Plaza Hotel. Around the room, tall mirrors gleamed over bamboo countertops. The air had a faint citrus sent. The place was designed to lull customers into a sense of peace, but Ursula’s head was a war zone. Her mind burned with everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours: her newfound wealth, Kester’s hound form, a soul that was no longer quite her own.

And her new, icy companion wasn’t doing anything to calm her nerves.

That morning, Kester had brought with him a slender young woman named Zemfira. With platinum-blond hair cut in a chic bob, and a patterned mini dress, she looked like some sort of retro supermodel. Ursula, on the other hand, wore the same black clothes from the day before, her red hair pulled into a messy ponytail. She’d been too overwhelmed to care how she looked this morning.

Before Kester had left, he’d explained that Zemfira—or Zee, as she called herself—would be getting Ursula settled. And, at Zemfira’s insistence, their first crucial stop was a hair salon.

“Try to look cool,” said the girl, her accent faintly Russian.

“I don’t even know what that means.” Be nice, Ursula. This girl was frosty, but if Ursula could get on her good side, maybe Zee would be a little more forthcoming than Kester. Like, about what had happened to the last guy who had Ursula’s job.

Working at Rufus’s bar, Ursula had met glamorous girls like Zee before. They loved to gossip.

Zee leveled cobalt blue eyes at her. “I don’t enjoy being seen around the city with someone who looks like she drank twenty wine coolers at a skanky art student party last night.”

Or maybe not. For some reason, Zee had decided she hated Ursula. Something had obviously struck a nerve, and Ursula needed to figure out what it was. “That’s how you’d describe me? A drunk art skank?”