into the glass window, she pressed her body into mine. It was surprisingly cold, sending a shudder of goose bumps down my arms. “We’ve had quite a few fun times, haven’t we, little Thaumas girl? You always were my favorite partner.” She cupped my cheek, running her fingers over my jawline.
“The dancing?” Every inch of me ached to squirm free of her grasp, but she was stronger than she looked, and her grip on my wrist was like a shackle. “The parties weren’t real? Any of them?”
Kosamaras laughed in delight. “Now you’re putting it together!” She turned back to Cassius. “You know, I must give credit where it’s due. Your little sweetheart was much harder to beguile than most of her sisters. The boy had to slip her something every time, just to knock her out enough to dream. Wine, tea, champagne, whatever.” She shifted her attention to me again. “But I always got you dancing in the end.”
“You had Fisher drug me?”
She slapped my cheek to the side and drifted over toward the beacon, like a moth to a flame. “Him?” she asked, turning back to the pile of Fisher. “It’s never been him. Not truly. He’s been a moldering sack of meat for weeks. I”—she drew out the word with preening importance—“controlled everything.”
“That’s not possible. I saw him alive just—”
“You saw what I wanted you to see!” she snapped, every trace of mirth gone from her voice. Around her eyes, dark webs of spider veins throbbed with rage, and a fresh wave of tears cascaded down her cheeks, dripping to the floor with abandon. “Everything you’ve seen, everything you’ve done, has been what I wanted you to.” Her eyes flickered across Cassius. “Well, nearly everything.”
A bolt of lightning danced by Old Maude, striking the cliffs far below us. I wanted to cry. The storm was here, and we were trapped on Hesperus until it let up.
“So you sent the girls dancing,” Cassius said. If he’d noticed the lightning, his voice did not betray him.
I spotted the dagger still in his hand, limp at his side, and briefly entertained the thought of stealing it to plunge into her chest. But a little bit of steel wouldn’t even scratch an immortal and I shuddered to think what she would do to me if angry.
“It’s quite an impressive beguiling, very elaborate, I’m sure. But I don’t understand your endgame. Why send them off to dance in extravagant castles in pretty dresses? It hardly seems your style.”
Kosamaras stepped over Fisher’s ankle to stare out the window. She tapped on it once, leaving a bloody smudge across the glass. “I see what you’re doing, nephew—cajoling me into telling you more than I should.” She shrugged. “It’s not as if anyone’s going to believe either of you, though, is it? Not with me in their minds.” She hummed a pretty waltz, dancing around pieces of Fisher. “I admit, the complexity was part of the appeal. Controlling the visions of eight girls at once, with none of them the wiser…it was a challenge I couldn’t pass up. And they were all so moony and swoony. It seemed the perfect theme. I lured them in with baubles and brilliance, then let their own madness take over.”
Another strobe of lightning briefly lit the sky, far brighter than Old Maude’s beam.
“Two already danced themselves to death,” she continued, her voice swelling with pride. “Straight out into the cold like lunatics, spinning around and around until they froze into blocks of ice.” She whirled back to us. “And this one—she’s close, so close, Cassius. I wouldn’t be surprised if she takes her own life any day now. You can’t have nightmares like mine every night and not break. You should have seen the way I made her squirm. Did you like the turtle, Thaumas girl? I made it especially for you.”
“What turtle?” Cassius asked, turning back to look at me. His eyes were heavy with worry.
“You killed Rosalie and Ligeia,” I murmured, ignoring him as I remembered that horrible day, running through the forest, so hopeful that we’d find them alive. “The third set of footprints in the snow was yours.”
“His, technically,” Kosamaras said, pointing down at Fisher. “I’ve been inside him for a very long time.”
There were so many thoughts swirling in my mind, gaining speed as they flew in and out of focus, demanding attention. But they all snapped to silence at her words. “How long?” I demanded, my voice so much stronger than