She’d broken through the Book and Snake gates and walked to Yorkside Pizza, where
she’d eaten two pies and then lain down in one of the ovens in an attempt to get warm. A
Lethe delegate had been present and was able to quickly quarantine the area and, through
a serious of compulsions, convince the customers the girl was part of a performance-art piece. The owner was Greek and less easily swayed. He had long carried a gouri given to him by his mother—specifically the blue “evil eye” or mati, which stymied any attempts at compulsion. Cash proved far more effective. At the owner’s request, Lethe also stepped
in to make sure Yorkside retained its lease when the majority of other businesses were forced out of Yale’s premiere shopping district by rising rents designed to bring in upscale
retailers. The local businesses along Elm and Broadway had vanished, making way for prestige brands and chain stores, but Yorkside Pizza remained.
So since Tara couldn’t talk, her body would have to. Alex had discovered a ritual to reveal harm, something simpler, lighter, used for diagnosis or for when a patient or witness was unable to speak. It had been invented by Girolamo Fracastoro to discover who
had poisoned an Italian countess after she’d keeled over, foaming at the mouth, at her own
wedding feast.
Alex didn’t want to put her hand into the haze above the gruesome wounds on Tara’s
chest. But that was what she’d come here to do. She took a breath and thrust her fingers
forward.
She was on the ground, a boy’s face above her—Lance. Sometimes she loved him, but
lately things had been … The thought left her. She felt herself open her mouth, tasted something acrid on her tongue. Lance was smiling. They were on their way … where? She
felt only excitement, anticipation, the world beginning to blur.
“I’m sorry,” Lance said.
She was on her back, staring up at the sky. The streetlights seemed far away;
everything was moving, and the cathedral beside her melted into a building that blotted out the few stars. It was quiet but she could hear something, like a boot squelching in mud.
Thunk squelch, thunk squelch. She saw a body looming above her, saw the knife, understood the sound was her own blood and bone breaking open as the blade sawed away
at her. Why didn’t she feel it? What was real and what wasn’t?
“Close your eyes,” said an unfamiliar voice. She did and was gone.
Alex stumbled backward, clutching her chest. She could still hear that horrible
squelching sound, feel the warm wet spreading over her chest. But no pain? How had there been no pain? Had she been high? High enough not to feel being stabbed? Lance had
drugged her first. He’d told her he was sorry. He must have been high too.
So there was her answer. Tara and Lance had clearly been messing with something
other than weed. No doubt by now Turner had been through their apartment, found
whatever weird shit they were using and selling. Alex had no way of knowing what Lance
had been thinking that night, but if he’d been taking some kind of hallucinogen it could be
anything.
Alex looked down at Tara’s body. She’d been frightened in those last moments, but she
hadn’t been hurting. That had to count for something.
Lance would go to prison. There would be evidence. That amount of blood … Well, you couldn’t hide it. Alex knew.
The map still glowed above Tara. Little injuries. Big ones. What would Alex’s map show? She’d never broken a bone, had surgery. But the worst damage didn’t leave a mark.
When Hellie died, it was as if someone had cut into Alex’s chest, cracked her open like
balsa wood. What if it really had been like that and she’d had to walk down the street bleeding, trying to hold her ribs together, her heart and her lungs and every part of her open to the world? Instead, the thing that had broken her had left no mark, no scar for her
to point to and say, This is where I ended.
No doubt that was true for Tara too. There was more pain locked inside her that no glowing map would reveal. But though her wounds were grotesque, there were no organs