I tried to disentangle myself from Al, and the foot hit me, flinging me across the room like I was a rag doll. I hit a bookcase, numb. My fingers splayed over my chest, and I couldn’t breathe. Shit, I think my ribs are broken, I thought, and I slid sideways to the floor, my cheek burning on the carpet.

“You lied to me!” Newt screamed, and I tried to cry out in pain as she lifted me up and slammed me against the shelf again. “I killed my sisters for you!”

My mouth was working, but nothing was coming out. My head lolled, and my focus was blurry. The line I’d been connected to was gone, and my gore rose.

And then I was screaming as the line I had yanked through Al was arcing through me.

Tulpa! I thought, trying to spindle it, and I feebly pushed at Newt to get her hands off me.

“Newt! Stop! That’s Rachel!” I heard Al croak hoarsely, and the sharp sound of flesh smacking flesh. The world lurched, and I hit the carpet again.

I lay on the floor in a crumpled heap, my fingers rubbing the soft bumps of the carpet. My breath went in and out, and it felt good. It felt good not to be on fire. My head pounded, and I pushed most of the spindled energy out, sagging in relief.

“Newt, it’s not Ku’Sox!” Al shouted again, and I heard a bang and smelled ozone and the acrid scent of burnt books.

“I killed my sisters for him!” Newt raged. “Get out of my way, Gally!”

Al’s soft hand touched my shoulder, and I jerked, managing to sit up. Al was standing beside me in his robe, the hem trembling. Newt was in front of us, wearing her purple martial-arts robe, her funny, tall-sided hat almost in the fire. She had hair again, the straight black strands cut short in a pageboy style, and her long, ugly feet were bare. It was hard to tell what she was looking at since her eyes were black, but I was pretty sure she was looking at me, hatred pouring from her.

“This isn’t Ku’Sox,” Al said, his voice shaking, and I wondered why he had stopped her. “It’s Rachel. She smells like Ku’Sox because she fought him. It’s not Ku’Sox!”

Newt looked at me. Then her black eyes went to Al’s. “She survived him? Are you sure? Maybe Ku’Sox is wearing her skin. He does that.”

Al took a breath, exhaling long and low. His hand touching my shoulder left me, and I sat where I was, slumped over my knees, my hair in my face. I had tried to hurt Al to get him to leave me alone, and I think I might have gone too far. Drew a line through him like a familiar and almost fried his little kitty soul.

“It’s her,” Al said ruefully, and I looked up to see him shuffle to the arrangement of furniture before the fire and fall into the chair farthest from me.