Chapter 29 · Make It Bite

Micah smiled at me with someone else’s mouth.

It was wrong in every possible way. My brother’s face was gray under the blue-white glow leaking from his eyes. Blood ran from one nostril and down over his lip. His fingers twitched against the concrete like he was trying to claw his way back into his own body.

Then Vera Kline laughed through him.

“There you are,” she said.

I nearly dropped him.

Elias caught my elbow before I could fall backward into the black split in the floor. The Gate had opened under the abandoned station platform, tearing through tile and old rail lines like the city had a mouth under it.

Cold poured out of it.

Not cold air. Not winter cold.

This was the cold from inside a morgue drawer. The cold from a dead apartment when somebody had been gone too long and no one had noticed.

“Get out of him,” I said.

Micah’s head rolled toward me.

His neck made a soft crack.

“Nora,” Vera said, still wearing his voice badly. “You always did make things difficult. Your mother had the same little habit.”

My grip tightened around Micah’s shoulders.