Now Lilith raised her eyes to the end of the alleyway—odd, almost hungry eyes.

“We have come for Rokhl,” said Lilith. “The Rebbe’s granddaughter. Hers is a very great soul, Bluma—very great indeed. Why, if she were a grandson instead of a granddaughter, she would be in line to replace the Rebbe already. But as it is, in the morning, they mean to bind her to some blundering fool of a groom for all eternity. It is a crime, Bluma, a waste, like binding a soaring eagle to a plodding rhinoceros. I will not permit it. Even now my Sisters are inviting her here to speak with me.”

“But,” said Bluma, “what if she wants to get married?”

“She will join our Sisterhood, one way or another,” said Lilith.

This surprised Bluma.

“But,” said Bluma, “she’s a living girl, isn’t she? Not a…Not…”

“Not a demon?”

Bluma blushed.

“None of my Sisters are,” said Lilith. “And I do not care for that word.”

“Then,” said Bluma, “what are they? Your Sisters.”

“What they were,” said Lilith, “was mortal women. Just like you. And when their time came to die, they looked back on their lives and saw how they had been compelled to live: subservient, second, Sisterless. And so, one by one, they joined me, in the hope that things might change. Now, for the first time, we mean to enlist a living Sister—for nothing changes in the realm of the dead. But once we are bound into Sisterhood with the living…”

This was all very exciting to Bluma. It meant that she, too, might join the Sisterhood.

But something nagged at her.

Why couldn’t she be the first of Lilith’s living Sisters? Surely her soul was great enough.

Wasn’t it?

“But,” said Bluma, “what if the Rebbe’s granddaughter really does want to get married? If she—”

Bluma was just about to offer herself as a replacement when Lilith cut in.

“She will join our Sisterhood,” said Lilith again. “One way or another.”

And at precisely this moment, out of the corner of her eye, Bluma saw a hungry gray cat alight upon the far wall of the second cemetery.

“Ah,” said Lilith. “She comes.”

Swiftly, the Lileen assembled, crouching, perched, gazing down from the high brick walls: one, two, three, four, five Sisters, spread out about the second cemetery like the fingers of a fist, waiting to snap shut.

But six of Lilith’s Sisters had come along to Zubinsk.

Where was the final cat?

Lilith’s eyes were fixed on the alleyway. “Yes,” she breathed, so tightly and so soft that Bluma thought it must’ve been an accident.

And turning to look over her shoulder, Bluma saw why.