“Uh . . . ma’am?” said Manuel, wide-eyed.

The Doppelganger lashed out with one hand, fingers morphing into talons, and shoved Manuel away from the door. He shrieked in pain and surprise as he fell backward, tumbling out of sight.

“Manny!” Dare shouted.

The Doppelganger turned and stalked toward me, growing taller as it abandoned the pretense of my form. “Bad girl,” it chided, grinning. “Bad, bad girl. Time to be punished.”

It was moving slowly, certain of its own strength. That was the only opening I was likely to get, and so I took it, swinging my bat as hard toward its midsection as I could. Something in my shoulder ripped free, and the world was suddenly bathed in a fresh veil of pain.

The Doppelganger reached out and caught the bat midswing, careless as a child gathering daisies. It tightened its hand, and the wood shattered into splinters, leaving me holding nothing but the bottom third of what used to be a bat.

“Oh, crap . . .” I said, starting to back away. Aluminum. Next time, I was going to buy aluminum. Or maybe a tire iron.

Moving too fast to dodge, the Doppelganger reached out and grabbed my chin, talons cutting into my cheek. “You’re a stupid thief, but you’re scared enough now,” it said, still smiling. “You’re going to tell me everything I need to know.” Dropping the splinters of my bat, it dug its fingers under my armpit and lifted me off the ground. My heart was pounding so hard that it hurt almost as badly as my injuries. I’d seen death before, even recently, but it had never been that close.

That might have been the end, if the Doppelganger hadn’t made one small, fatal mistake: it turned its back on Dare. I didn’t know her very well, and I still could have told it that turning its back on her wasn’t a good idea. The young changeling had been given time to process all her possible responses to someone smacking her brother aside like a stray dog, and she’d settled on the one that came most naturally. Rage.

“Hey, ugly!” she shouted. The Doppelganger didn’t turn around. That’s probably why it was so surprised when the knives started slamming into its back. It bellowed, dropping me. Miraculously, I landed on the one part of my body that hadn’t previously been in pain: my ass.

Snarling, it turned toward Dare. I had to give the girl this much: she might have been an arrogant little brat, but she looked into the face of death and was sincerely unimpressed. “I’ve seen scarier things than you on blind dates,” she said. She still needed a dialogue coach, but I wasn’t in any position to judge. “You wanna piece of me?”

Apparently it did, because it stalked toward her, still snarling. She didn’t flinch, but flung another knife, this time aiming for the throat. The creature batted it aside without a pause. I think that’s when Dare realized that maybe insulting something that large when it’s close enough to catch you isn’t a good idea, because she started backing away, eyes wide.

My shoulder wasn’t just bleeding anymore, it was gushing, blood soaking my robe and running freely down my arm. I forced myself to stand, squinting past the pain that threatened to knock me down again. Four of Dare’s knives were embedded in the thing’s back. Two were stuck in the lower back, and one in the side of its arm, but the fourth was at an angle that might put it through the rib cage if somebody grabbed hold of the hilt and shoved upward.

I’ve always made a pretty good somebody. Moving as fast as I could still manage, I wrapped my hands around the knife’s hilt, slippery with almost black blood. My left hand didn’t want to close, but I forced it, gritting my teeth as the Doppelganger’s blood started burning my skin. Dare was whimpering somewhere in front of me, blocked from sight by the bulk of the thing’s body.

That did it. My hand finally caught a good grip, and I shoved the knife up as hard as I could.The Doppelganger bellowed, whipping halfway around, but I managed to keep hold of the knife, twisting it and driving it deeper in. One clawed fist hit my right arm as the creature tried to rip me off its back, slashing through the muscle of my bicep. It didn’t matter anymore. I was committed: I couldn’t have let go of that knife if I’d wanted to.

“Dare, the front!” I shouted.

She didn’t say anything, but I heard her high heels hitting the floor as she launched herself at the thing. The Doppelganger kept bellowing, lashing out in all directions as it tried to get away. I twisted the knife harder, not letting the pain of the blood washing over my hands force me to let go. It felt like the skin was being eaten off my bones. At least if that happened, it would probably stop hurting. I heard Dare strike again, screaming and cursing, and the Doppelganger fell. It landed unmoving, with me still clinging to its back.

When I was certain it had thrashed its last, I pried my unwilling hands away from the hilt of Dare’s knife, forcing myself to my feet. Dare’s last strike had opened its throat in a ghoulish parody of Evening’s death, bathing her in a veil of acidic gore. She was clutching her last knife in one hand, eyes wide and glassy with shock.

Manuel stumbled back into the doorway, apparently having just gotten up; combats never last as long as they feel from the inside. Four parallel slashes ran down his chest, marking where the Doppelganger hit him. Con grats, kid. You’ve got your first scars. “What . . .”

The Doppelganger’s edges were starting to smoke and blur. I stepped away from it. “This is the part where it melts.” And it was doing just that, dissolving into a pool of sticky slime that was never going to come out of the carpet.

“Ms. Daye?” Dare said, in a surprisingly meek voice. Was this her first kill? Oberon’s blood, had I just watched her lose the last of her innocence? “Ms. Daye, are you okay?”

I turned to look at her, part of my brain noting idly that her eyes were even greener when I was dizzy with iron poisoning and blood loss. “No,” I said, almost smiling as I felt the pain finally start to fade. Shock will do that for you. “I’m pretty sure I’m not okay. But it was nice of you to ask.” Then I collapsed. This losing consciousness thing was becoming a habit.

NINETEEN

VOICES DRIFTED THROUGH the haze. I tried not to react, waiting for the things they were saying to come clear before I took the irrevocable step of opening my eyes. Once you’ve admitted you’re alive, you usually aren’t allowed to go back to playing dead.

“I thought I told you two to take care of her!” shouted Devin. His voice sounded like it was coming from just a few feet away—and it sounded like he was pretty pissed. If it was possible for a changeling to die of high blood pressure, he’d probably manage it one day. When did Devin come back to the apartment? I sorted through my recollections of the day and couldn’t remember letting him in.