Then the creature reached across its body and, screeching, dug a chunk of flesh out of its own left arm. It dropped the tissue on the floor with a wet plop and dug out another piece.

I watched, horrified.

“Why is Lord Limu hunting this individual?” Cordus asked, drawing the green man’s face close.

It continued mutilating its own arm, writhing and screaming as it did so. With a terrible shock, I realized Cordus was forcing the creature to injure itself. I swallowed convulsively, struggling not to throw up on that nice marble floor.

Cordus gazed into the green man’s crazed eyes for several long minutes as it tore away chunk after chunk of its arm, until only bones and ligaments remained. He seemed wholly unbothered by its agony.

Then it started in on its belly. Cordus set it down on the floor, and we all stood there, watching it kill itself. It ripped away almost its entire abdomen before it finally died, its hoarse screams fading into whimpers, then gurgling breaths, then silence.

The stench of blood and feces was overpowering. I couldn’t believe what I’d just witnessed.

Cordus said, “Mr. Williams.”

Williams’s fingers twitched, and the green man’s remains drew together into a ball. He bent and picked the mass up by whatever invisible netting was holding it together, and headed outside with it.

Cordus turned to us. If he’d found something out from the creature, he didn’t share it.

“You may refresh yourselves and rest in your quarters. I shall speak with you in the morning.”

Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he turned to me.

“Miss Ryder, you will attend me now.”

I stood watching Cordus examine the deer. He’d had it carried to what looked like a guest bedroom and laid on the bed. He’d spent some minutes passing his hands over its body without actually touching it.

I found myself mesmerized by his fingers, which were long and graceful, like a pianist’s. I was terrified of him but couldn’t stop looking. My eyes strayed to his side, where his shirt was ripped and a little bloody. I wanted to touch him.

“She is alive, but weakened,” he said, jolting me back to attention. “I assume her trip here was neither easy nor pleasant.”

He turned to me.

“Miss Ryder, do you believe this animal to be your sister-in-law, Justine Jenson Ryder?”

God, I was going to have to talk to him.

“Um, I don’t know.” I searched for something else to say. “Zion was sure it was her.”

“I sense only an animal. Odocoileus virginianus, to be exact.” He tilted his head to one side and studied me. “Why was Zion so certain?”

Haltingly, I told him about taking Zion to Ben’s house, and about her inability to sense anything other than a human woman there until I passed on the advice from Ghosteater.