She fumbled with the keycard at the lab door, dropping it, scraping it from the tiles with her bone-tips. The bones; I need the bones; I need the marrow. She brought the card to her mouth and used her lips to hold it to the sensor. The light flashed red. The door handle stuck, unmoving.

They’ve changed the locks. Dread washed over her, almost enough to erase the pain in her hands, her face, her feet and knees. There was only one other place she could study the jars. Only one place that might have an answer about what was happening to her.

The thought of the cave was like an endorphin balm. She needed the cave.

***

Her knees left damp patches of blood along the trail behind her. She held her lantern clenched in her teeth. Her long fingers slid through spaces between the rocks, gripping them, hauling herself more easily than she had the day before—all her weight pivoting on the levers of her long bones. The pull of the cave was so strong it felt as though it lifted her up the mountain. When she reached the top of the rise where the cave gaped open, her bones had grown so tall that she had to fold herself unnaturally to enter. She rolled inside and lay on the floor, shaking violently, shrieking as more bones popped out of her jaw and hips, spraying blood across the ancient amber bones and ochre drawings. I’m contaminating the samples. She nearly laughed at her impulse to preserve the cave art. Die somewhere else. You’re making a mess.

Her hands, feet, face continued to erupt—her legs and arms extending until they were difficult to place. She tried to stand and fell over her own long legs, as she had when she was fifteen, trying to dance.

She felt eyes on her, then—angry and hungry—and turned toward the cave entrance, expecting to see Henri, maybe even Dr. Knochdieb. The opening was hidden in shadow, as if night had fallen as she lay on the floor. Shingles of bone growing from her face obstructed her view, but still she felt watched. Then the darkness moved toward her. She scrambled back, long limbs flailing against the rock and pushing her farther away from her lantern. As she squirmed toward the back of the cave, the neon-white light disappeared as if draped in cloth.