orbiting each other in silence. Sibyl busied herself at the stove shoving lemon slices in the body cavity of a raw chicken, and Sloane knelt on the beige carpet near the cassette player, looking through the magazines. There were photographs of countries she had never heard of, their names and shapes and fates altered by the division between the universes. She saw rough-looking siphons on the hands of villagers in rural Romania and remote Siberia—an oddity still, the accompanying article said, but not unheard of in the younger generation.
“Mox said he doesn’t think the Drains are controlled by anyone,” she said, looking up from a photograph of a tractor on a small farm in Argentina. There was an island separating the kitchen from the living room. Sibyl stood behind it, chopping something. Onions, judging by the smell.
Mox had disappeared a few minutes before, enticed by Sibyl’s offer of a shower and a change of clothes. Her husband had left plenty when he died, and they were still in her bedroom dresser. Sloane could hear the spray of water down the hall.
“It’s important not to confuse causation with correlation,” Sibyl said, scrutinizing the pepper grinder she held in both hands. Even though she was a widow, she was still wearing her wedding band. “However, we know that a Drain happens every time one of you shows up to kill him, so they do seem to be related.”
“Wait . . . they do?” Sloane set the magazine down and got to her feet. “So you think they’re maybe caused by . . . the presence of an outsider?”
“All I know is you’re not supposed to be here,” Sibyl said. “Maybe the Drains are like the world’s allergic reaction to you.” At Sloane’s raised eyebrow, she scowled. “Well, I don’t know, girl, I’m not a scientist.”
Sloane leaned against the island. “What did you do for a career? Spitting out prophecy’s probably not that lucrative, right?”
“It is not lucrative at all in a haven city,” Sibyl said. “But magic grinds up against me like sandpaper, so I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?” She shrugged. “I was a teacher. Retired now, obviously.”
“Grinds up against you like sandpaper,” Sloane repeated. “That’s . . . odd.”
“What does it feel like for you?” Sibyl asked.
“Like sticking my head in a vise,” Sloane said. “Makes my hands go numb sometimes. I’m not wild about it myself, actually.”
“Hm.” Sibyl put on her oven mitts and picked up a heavy pot with the chicken in it. Sloane moved forward to open the oven door for her, and the chicken went in.
“He loves it,” Sibyl said, nodding toward the hall bathroom where Mox was showering. “To him it looks like . . . beams of light or something. He plays magic like guitar strings. Pluck—your gravity’s gone. Pluck—your house is on fire. Delightful.”
Beams of light. It sounded like the working Aelia had done on Sloane before she had dived in the river. Maybe Aelia had learned it from Nero, who had learned it from Mox.
“Have you ever met Nero?” Sloane said.
“I have.” Sibyl’s eyes hardened. “He wears masks on top of masks, that man. Can’t ever get a look at what’s underneath.” She set the kitchen timer, which was shaped like an egg. Painted on it was the phrase Have an Egg-cellent breakfast!
“You, girl,” she said, leaning closer to Sloane, “have the grittiest of all magic. Fate’s grabbed you hard and it’s not letting go. So I want you to remember something.” She closed her fingers around Sloane’s arm tightly, her grip strong for a woman of her size. “The line between a Chosen One and his opposite is hair-fine, so don’t get too cozy on one side of it.”
The smell of onions was pungent enough to make Sloane’s eyes sting. She tugged her arm free. “All I want is to go home,” she said.
“That,” Sibyl said, her eyes glittering, “is the fattest lie I’ve ever heard. You want everything. You’re a bottomless pit. Makes me feel exhausted just thinking about you.”
“You know, you’re not such a peach yourself,” Sloane snapped.
Mox called out from the bedroom, his low voice carrying easily across the house. “Sloane. Can I get a hand?” She remembered the blade stuck above his hip just the night before and left the kitchen. The hallway was painted the same milky pink as the living-room sofa, and it was covered with pictures—of Sibyl and her husband and children, Sloane assumed, from the way people were arranged, stiff