“I don’t know the occult like Lennon does,” Thane says. “Once I’m able to open the gates and obtain my mother’s soul, she’s going to help me resurrect her.”

“With what?” I demand. “You don’t have a body!”

“There’s a whole cemetery full. We’ve been watching for the newly deceased. Lennon says it’s best to have a fresh one.”

Things are suddenly falling into place. With the coin, it’s possible Lennon can obtain a soul from Spirit. She’d resurrected Lily’s soul into her body for practice.

“You can’t be serious. Thane, your mom won’t come back right.”

He sucks in a breath. “I knew you’d say that, but Lennon’s been perfecting her spell.”

He’s delusional.

“I do hate this, Anora. I’d like to think we might have been friends.”

I grit my teeth. We were friends, I want to say, but I know now that’s not true. Instead, I ask, “How long?”

“How long what? How long have I been working with Lennon, or do you want to know when Influence took me?”

It is strange to hear him talk of Influence, as if he’s fully aware of the darkling inside him. I stare, waiting. Answers to both questions will suffice.

“Influence took hold the day my mom died,” he says. “Lennon approached me shortly after. We are united by our hatred of the Order. I introduced her to the death-speaker Underworld. She has a following there.”

A following? I try imagining Lennon rallying the death-speaker troops to defeat the Order. Prior to tonight, I’d have said it wasn’t possible, but you never know who or what you’re dealing with. The Lennon I witnessed today is completely capable of such a feat.

But it’s not even her presence that makes her a threat. It’s her story. She lost her mother to the Order. She was rejected by Valryn society, forced to go underground. Yet she’s survived.

People rally behind stories, and hers—it is powerful.

“You didn’t have to do this. You had friends.”

“You never consider that I might like what I’ve become.”

“Do you?” I challenge.

“It wouldn’t have worked anyway, Anora. We have two different perspectives on the world. You think it’s worth saving. I do not.”

I didn’t always care. Before coming to Rayon, I wanted to hide, lead a normal life, let the world spiral out of control around me if it meant I could continue going to school.

But I can’t live each day turning on the news to another horrific disaster perpetrated by Influence, knowing I can change it.

What kind of person would that make me?

No better than the thing that killed my poppa. No better than Influence.