Des comes over now, placing a hand on my shoulder. Gaelia notices.

“He still needs more time,” she continues, wrapping her arms around herself once more. “He’s not unstoppable yet.”

“Why would he tell you this?” Des says.

She doesn’t respond, but her fingers squeeze into the flesh of her upper arms.

“Answer him,” I say softly, my glamour forcing her to answer.

Still, she fights the words for another second or two, until they force themselves out anyway. “Children say whatever is on their minds. Even these ones. In this way, they’re not so different from ordinary children.”

“Why do you believe them?” I ask.

Her lips quiver. “Besides the prophesying? Because for years the nurses on rotation have been complaining of a figure that leans over these children’s’ cradles. And lately, I’ve started to see him as well.”

The back of my neck prickles. The Otherworld is chalk full of boogeymen, and this sounds exactly like one of them.

“What does he look like?” I ask, going off script. Up until now, I’d managed to pepper Des’s questions into the natural flow of the conversation, but now I abandon the rest of them altogether.

Gaelia shakes her head manically. “He’s just a shadow … just a shadow.”

“Where is he?” Des asks.

She shivers, not even bothering to fight our questions anymore. “Everywhere.”

Her words raise my gooseflesh.

“Do you know his name?” I ask.

“Thief of Souls,” she mutters. “Thief of Souls.”

“What does he want?” the Bargainer growls.

Her eyes meet ours. “Everything.”

Chapter 13

February, seven years ago

Tonight, Douglas Café is bustling, a dozen different conversations filling the air.

I stare into my coffee cup. “Des, why haven’t you made me repay my debts?”

Des leans back in his seat, his legs kicked up on another chair he’s dragged over.

He sips an expresso from the world’s smallest cup, his hand dwarfing the tiny glass.

He sets the cup down. “Are you eager to, cherub?”

Under the café’s soft lighting, his eyes glint with anticipation.

“Just curious.” I search his face. “Are you?”

“Am I what?” His attention moves casually over the rest of the room. I’m not fooled, just as I wasn’t earlier, when he deliberately took a seat in the corner of the room, making sure his back was to the wall.

Ever since Mr. Whitechapel reappeared with a few less toes and fingers and the Bargainer’s calling card on his chest, the Politia has been on the hunt for Des.

“Eager for me to repay my debts,” I say.

“If I was, then you would have already paid them.”

But why wouldn’t he be eager? Based on the deals I’ve witnessed, I know Des is religious about making his clients repay him in a timely fashion.

My bracelet is now nine rows deep and steadily growing. Not once has he made me repay him. Not for a single wish.

“All these beads make me nervous,” I say, twisting my bracelet around.

His gaze drifts back to mine. “Then stop buying favors.”

I stand, the chair scraping back. “You’re crappy company tonight,” I say.

Maybe it’s not him. Maybe it’s me.

Because at the moment, I feel so damn disappointed. Disappointed by this evening, by all the others just like it. By wanting something I just can’t have. By being too weak to give up this stupid crush even though I know I should. By collecting lifetimes and lifetimes of debt and shackling myself to a bad man who wants nothing to do with me.

“Sit down,” Des commands, and I feel the brush of his magic in the order.

My legs begin to fold, my body bending to take my seat. I fight the command, but it’s not much use.

I glare at him. And now I understand a bit better why my own power is just so terrible. It’s a peculiar kind of torture, to have your body answer to another person. Peculiar and vile.

“That’s what your repayment will feel like,” he says. “Only the compulsion will be worse. Much worse.” He leans forward. “Don’t be so eager to repay your debts. Neither of us will enjoy it.”

“If you won’t enjoy it Des,” I say, trying to stand up. His magic presses down on me, forcing me to stay seated, “then why don’t you stop making deals with me?”

Again, his eyes glint. “You play a dangerous game with me, siren. Making deals is its own sort of compulsion.” His voice is so low that only I can hear it. “And you offer them to me so easily.” He pauses, his eyes shining wickedly. “Don’t think I’ll ever stop taking them—because I won’t.”

Present

Des and I are quiet as we leave the servants’ quarters.

Next to me, the Bargainer looks grim.

Bloodsucking children, phantom visitors, and a man who goes by the name of the Thief of Souls. It’s enough to give me nightmares.

I rub my arms. “How long have these disappearances been going on?” I ask as we exit the servants’ quarters and enter the garden.

“Almost a decade.”

And in all that time, nothing has been solved …

I’ve done my job, I’ve glamoured an innocent woman at the Bargainer’s behest. I can wipe my hands clean of this task and leave that woman to her fate, a fate that made her mad with terror. A fate she had been warned about by a baby who should be too young to talk.