“It was easier to reach things from here?” Maren’s voice had gone up about three guilty octaves, and she hadn’t meant to phrase it like a question.

Obscura pulled Henri from her arm and threw him into the air. With an outraged screech, he flapped, recovered, and flew away to the balcony. “Get up,” she said.

Maren planted both her feet, as if she could somehow glue her legs and the phone to the chair. “I’m not done making this dream.”

“I. Said. Get. Up.” Obscura’s moth-bee hummed into the back of Maren’s head. Clutching the phone to her leg, Maren tried to swivel away, but as soon as she rose from her chair, Obscura grabbed her elbow. The phone flew out of her hand and hit the floor with a rubbery thunk. Shame flooded Maren’s entire body, even though trying to escape was nothing to be embarrassed about. The thing to be embarrassed about was being foolish enough to get caught.

And oh, she was caught.

With her battered pointe shoe, Obscura kicked the phone away, and Maren’s last dreg of hope tumbled off the stage with it. Then she opened a brown bottle and poured a sweet-smelling liquid onto a rag.

“I’m sorry,” Maren whispered to Lishta and Amos, and to herself, as Obscura crossed the stage.

The rag covered Maren’s mouth, and she fell into blackness.

Twenty-Four

The unfurnished room had no doors or windows. Red paint covered its walls and floor; it dripped from the ceiling in a steady rhythm. In the far corner of the room lay a furry lump: a black cat curled up with its face hidden.

Plop. A droplet of paint landed in Maren’s hair.

Plop. A droplet fell on the cat in the corner, which lifted its head and opened glowing red eyes with vertical slits for pupils.

“Nice kitty,” said Maren, because she hoped it was. But those glowing eyes told her it probably wasn’t.

The cat got to its feet and stretched. Somehow, the curled-up black shape on the floor remained. It shifted and became another cat, which stood and stretched. Then another cat, and another, and another.

Normally, Maren loved cats. But the room was so small and there were at least twenty of them now, their eerie, bright eyes locked on hers. She edged backward, casting around for a door, a hole, some way out of this awful room, but there was only wet red paint everywhere she touched. Her feet left crooked prints on the sticky floor. More cats, and more, and more, all with those searing eyes. Suddenly, they all crouched and hissed, and Maren’s heart went icy.

Plop went a droplet of paint, right in Maren’s eye.

Plop went another droplet in her other eye.