And then, mercifully, music.

He looked up to see Kate fiddling with the radio beside the bed.

“. . . hate quiet,” she mumbled, turning past a classical station to something with a low, heavy beat. She found his eyes in the curtained dark, and flashed him a tired almost-smile back before sinking gingerly back to the bed. Within minutes, her breathing had evened, and he knew she was asleep.

August let himself sink into the songs, drift past the words and into the instruments, picking apart the threads of sound as he tried to sleep. He couldn’t remember ever being so tired. The ceiling swam in his vision, and a shiver passed through him, like the cusp of a cold.

And then, just as he was drifting off, the hunger started.

August woke from fever dreams to cool air and the smell of mint.

His skin ached and his bones were humming, and a shape hovered over him, a nest of hair blocking out the last light beyond the window. His dreams had been a tangled mess of teeth and shadows, and for a second, he thought he was still asleep, still dreaming, but then he felt the cheap motel carpet beneath his back, and the shape leaned closer, revealing blue eyes and strawberry curls and skin covered in stars.

“Ilsa?” he asked, throat dry. But Ilsa couldn’t be here. His sister didn’t leave the compound. He tried to blink away the phantom, but she only grew more solid.

“Shh, little brother.” She pressed her fingers against his mouth and turned his face toward the bed. “Someone is sleeping.”

Kate was curled up on her side with her back to them, a blanket slipping to reveal the bandages wrapped around her waist, and it hit him in a wave, where he was, what had happened. Colton. The Malchai. The tunnels. The hunger. August sat up, and the room tipped. “You can’t be here.”

“Can’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t, won’t,” she whispered. “No one saw me go. No one thinks to look for someone who’s always there. They are all looking for you.”

“How did you find us?”

“You tick, I tock,” she said, her voice so soft that only his ears could pick it up. “I would hear you anywhere.” A breeze blew through the window. It was open, twilight streaming in. He’d slept all afternoon, and he winced as his pulse thudded in his skull, and Ilsa pressed her cool palm to his cheek. “You’re warm.”

He brushed her hand away. “I’m all right,” he mouthed, because it was still true. “Is anyone with you?”

She shook her head. Her eyes were wide, the skin tight over her bones, her edges haloed by the thin light from the window. She looked wrong outside the compound, as if she’d left some part of herself behind.

Our sister has two sides. They do not meet.

“Ilsa,” he whispered. “You can’t be here.”

“Henry is worried. Leo is angry. Emily wanted me to come. She didn’t say the words, but I heard them anyway.”

“You need to go back home. If Harker’s men see you, if they catch you—”

“I told you everything was breaking.” Ilsa sank down next to him, curled up right there on the floor with her cheek to the carpet, picking at the fibers. “I could feel it,” she murmured. “And I’m glad it’s not inside me, but that means it’s out here. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I let the cracks into the world.”

He rolled toward her. “Hush, Ilsa. It wasn’t you.”

“I told Leo about the cracks, and he told me everything breaks. But I wish it didn’t have to. I wish we could go back instead of forward.”

“I wish we could stay the same,” whispered August.

She gave him a rueful smile. “Nobody gets to stay the same, little brother.” She nodded at Kate. “Not even them.” She took his hand and folded it in hers, the way she had with the traitor’s back at the compound, just before she took his soul. “Please come home.”

“I can’t, Ilsa. Not yet.” His eyes went to the bed.

“Do you care about her?” The question was simple, curious.

“I care about us. About our city. Someone tried to kill her. To frame us. To break the truce.” A shadow swept across Ilsa’s face.

I don’t want to burn again.

“She’s an innocent,” he added. “I’m just trying to keep her safe.”

Ilsa’s features smoothed. “All right,” she said. “Then I’ll help.”

August shook his head. “No. Please go home, Ilsa.”

I need you safe, he thought. There is too much to lose. I can’t risk you.

A small crease formed between her eyes. “But someone has to keep the shadows back.”

August tensed. “What shadows?”

“The ones with teeth.”

He sat up. “Malchai?”

Ilsa nodded. “They are coming. They are on their way.”

“How do you know?”

“I can feel the cracks they make and—”

He took her by the shoulders. “But how do you know?”

“—the man downstairs, he told me,” she went on, as if she hadn’t heard him. “It spilled right out of his mouth, little brother. He couldn’t keep it in. He went back and forth, back and forth, but then he broke, like all things do. . . .”