"Embrace your true form," ordered Leo, and his words rolled through August, sweeping away the last of his strength.

August knew that he was right, knew what he had to do.

He stopped fighting.

And as soon as he did, the pain dissolved, and the fire went out, and he fell down, down, down, into darkness.

VIII.

Kate stood alone in the night, and felt ... nothing.

No panic. No fear. Even when the music stopped, it kept playing in her head, twining with the light ... the red light.... Did everyone have the same amount, like blood? There was so much of it....

She heard herself speaking, but couldn't focus on the words, couldn't focus on anything but the man in front of her, and the boy behind him.

The boy knelt there on the ground, wrists bound, looking so hurt, so scared, and she wished she could give him her calm. The boy ... who was he ... not a boy, but a monster ... not a monster, but a boy ... and then the music finally began to fade, withdrawing from her head, and Kate's thoughts seeped together into a name.

August.

Why was August on the ground? And who was the man? Kate fought against the haze. Everything was far away, but her mind was shifting and sorting, finding order. It was Leo, standing before her, and August behind him. Only he wasn't on his knees anymore. He was getting to his feet, darkness wicking off his shoulders like steam.

And then, between one moment and the next, he changed.

His face went smooth, and all the tension vanished from his mouth and eyes, the weight falling from his shoulders. His head tipped forward, the black curls swallowing his face as shadows rolled across his skin. They spread out from his chest, spilled down his limbs, blanketed flesh and bone, and for a moment, he was nothing but a plume of smoke. And then the smoke drew in like a breath, began to shift and tighten, carving out the lines of a body, its edges traced with firelight.

Where there had been a boy, now there was a monster.

Tall, and graceful, and terrifying. The chains crumbled from its wrists, blew away like ash, and when it lifted its head, its black eyes gazed wide and empty, lightless, shineless, matte as the sky on a moonless night. Smoke trailed up over the creature's head into horns and billowed behind its back into wings that shed curls of fire like burning paper. And there, in the center of its body, cracking through the darkness like a smoldering coal, its heart pulsed with fiery, inconstant light.

Kate's eyes watered as she stared at the creature. She couldn't look away. The fire crackled and burned in the cavity of its chest, and its edges-limbs, wings, horns-wavered against the dark, and it was mesmerizing, the way the blaze had been in the chapel that night. A thing made, and then set free. That fire had started with the flick of a match, and this, this had started with a boy.

Leo stepped out of the way, and the creature craned its head toward Kate.

"August," she said.

But it wasn't him.

There was no August in its face, only shadow.

No August in its eyes, only ember and ash.

Kate tried to retreat, but under the monster's gaze, she couldn't. She was frozen, not from fear, but from something else, something deeper. Her body was no longer listening, not to her. The red light still danced across her skin, and she marveled at the way a whole life could be distilled into something so simple. The way a death could be folded into a touch.

The Sunai took a step toward her. It didn't move like other monsters, didn't twitch and shudder like the Corsai, or slither and strike like the Malchai. No, it moved like smoke, dancing forward on a breeze she couldn't feel. A song she couldn't hear.

Its hand floated up, fingertips burning. The heat brushed the air before her, and the fear finally caught up. She tried so hard to pull away, to fight the hold of the red light wrapped around her skin. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she didn't close her eyes.

"I'm not afraid of death," she whispered, meeting the creature's gaze as it reached for her. She didn't know if August was still inside, if he could hear her, if he would care. "I'm not afraid," she said, bracing herself for the Sunai's touch.

But it never came.

The Sunai took another step, but its hand swept toward Leo, its shadow fingers closing around his throat. Leo gasped in surprise, but couldn't pull away. He fought, clawing at the monster's grip, but its hold was unbreakable, its strength absolute.

"What are you d-?" demanded Leo, but then the creature's grip tightened, cutting him off. It leaned in, and whispered something in Leo's ear, and Leo's face went from shocked and angry to blank. Not still, or calm, just ... empty.

Something began to rise to the surface of Leo's skin, not black like the Malchai's life or red, like a sinner's. What came to the surface of the Sunai's skin, Kate couldn't process. It was light and darkness, glow and shadow, starlight and midnight, and something else entirely. It was an explosion in slow motion, tragedy and monstrosity and resolve, and it swept over Leo's skin, and wove through the monster's smoke, tracing the outlines of a boy-like shape inside the shadow like lightning in a storm.

And then, like lightning, it was gone.

Leo's legs folded, and the Sunai sank with him, its hand still wrapped around its brother's throat. The Sunai knelt over the body as it turned to stone, and then ash, and then nothing. Kate stood, the red glow of her soul still hovering above her bruised and bloody skin, but its light was fading as it began to retreat back into the safety of her self.

The Sunai straightened, the last of Leo's body crumbling away in its hands. A single beat of burning wings, and the ash was gone, and the Sunai lifted its horned head and turned its gaze again on Kate.

It came toward her, crossing the space in two elegant strides. It raised its hand, and Kate closed her eyes at last, and felt the heat of the creature's fingers, not on her skin, but on the cuffs around her wrists. She blinked and saw the metal blacken and crumble under the creature's touch.

The Sunai looked down at her, its hand hovering in the air between them, edges wavering like smoke. And then, it shuddered. A single, animalistic shiver that rolled from horns to wing and down, through its body and into its feet, the darkness retreating like a tide, revealing black hair, and smooth skin, and gray eyes.

August stood there, barefoot and shirtless, chest rising and falling. His wounds and bruises were gone. So were the black tallies that had counted out days, months, years across his skin. And for a long second, his face remained empty, his features too smooth, his expression as blank as his brother's. He looked at her as if they'd never met. As if they hadn't fled together, hadn't fought together, hadn't nearly died together.

Then a small crease appeared between his eyes. The faintest edge of a frown.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

His voice was still distant, but there was something in it. A sliver of concern. Kate let out a ragged breath. She looked down at herself, her torn sweater and bloodied hands. "I'm alive."

A tired smile flickered across his face. "Well," he said, "that's a start."

IX.

Nothing was different.

Everything was different.

They crossed the field in silence as the first signs of day seeped into the edges of the sky, Kate's eyes on the distant house, and August's on Kate. Her shadow danced behind her, restless, reaching for the world and pulling at his senses, a gentle, persistent tug.

He wanted to comfort her. And couldn't. There was this gap, where something had been, some part of him he couldn't reach. He wanted to believe it was fatigue, loss, confusion. Wanted to believe it would pass.

The house was as they'd left it. The cars on the gravel drive. The front door hanging open. The body in the hall. Kate fetched her lighter from the grass and stepped around the corpse, went into the kitchen. August padded toward the bathroom, where his violin lay splintered on the tiled floor, its neck broken, strings snapped. He forced himself to step around it, the way Kate had with the corpse.

He recovered his shoes and watched his fingers tie the laces. His skin was smooth, no black marks running up his arm. He ran a finger thoughtfully over his wrist.

Four hundred and twenty-four tallies gone.

Erased.

He straightened, his eyes drifting up the mirror. He searched his face, tried to remember the version of himself from hours before, the boy clutching the sink, desperate not to lose control, eyes wild and feverish, face contorted with terror and pain, every feeling sharp and terrible and real. He tried, but the memory was more like a dream, the details already fading.

"August?"

He turned to see Kate standing in the doorway, staring down at the wreckage of the violin.

"It's all right," he said quietly. "It's only wood and string." He'd meant the words to sound comforting, but his voice sounded wrong in his ears. Too steady. Like Leo's.

Something rose in him-a ghost of panic, an echo of fear-but then it settled.

Kate was holding out a black T-shirt. When he reached to take it, their fingers brushed, and he drew back sharply, afraid of hurting her. But of course nothing happened. His violin was strewn across the tile floor, and her soul was safe beneath the surface.

The shirt smelled of lavender, he noticed as he slid it on, the fabric soft against his cool skin.

"August," said Kate, her voice brittle. "Are you ... okay?"

"I'm alive," he said, echoing her answer.

She wrapped her arms around herself, but her gaze was level. "But are you still ... you?"

August looked at her. "I've been tortured, turned, and I just killed my brother. I don't know what I am right now."

Kate chewed her lip, but nodded. "Fair enough." She looked lost.

August ran a hand through his hair. "I have to go back to V-City, Kate. I have to see Henry. I have to help my family-what's left of it. Leo said the fighting has already broken out and-"

"I understand."

"There are two cars. I'll-"

"I'm going back, too."

August frowned. "Is that a good idea?"

"Probably not," she said, fingers closing around the silver pendant at her neck. "But I need to see my father," she said. "Will you come with me?"

August tensed. They'd come this far together, and he trusted her, but the thought of facing Harker ... "Why?"

Her knuckles went white against the metal. "I need to ask him something," she said. "And I need to know he's telling the truth."

X.

Kate Harker sat on the edge of her father's desk, watching clouds drift past beyond the window, low white streaks over the city. Her heart was pounding, and her whole body ached, but she was here. Where she belonged.

Harker Hall was a fortress; there was no getting in or out without being seen by someone.

Which was fine with Kate. She wanted them to know she was here.

Wanted him to know.

She'd done her best to keep August a secret, though. Told him exactly where to stand to keep him off the cameras.

And here they were.

It had taken four hours to drive back to the capital, and now the sun was at its peak, the city's monsters at their weakest. Music played from the penthouse's dozen speakers, the volume low but the beat steady. August had wanted something classical, but Kate had chosen rock.

She hadn't bothered to clean off the blood. Hadn't bothered to change clothes. In one hand, she held the gun Harker kept inside his desk. In the other, the silver pendant he'd given her the morning of the attack.

Kate had never been able to figure out how they found her that afternoon, in the bones of a building two blocks from the nearest safe house. Or at the restaurant. Or the house. It wasn't until she was prying the last screw from the metal plate that she understood. The pendant had cracked, the silver case splitting to reveal the chip inside.

Sloan had never lied.

But her father had.

The whole drive back, Kate had tried to figure out what to say. What to do. She knew she should have just run, but she couldn't, not without knowing the truth. Not without hearing it.

August was tucked back against the wall beside the door, arms crossed, his fingers dancing absently against his sleeve. His gray eyes were miles away when she heard the penthouse doors open, and a set of strong steps cross the wooden floor. A single set.

Even after everything, he was still underestimating her.

"Katherine?" called her father, voice breathless, tinged with urgency, as if he'd just heard she was here, just heard she was safe.

"I'm in here," she called back, and a moment later he appeared in the doorway. His dark blue eyes raked over the scene, taking in everything except August, and relief swept across his face. It was almost believable. "What are you doing here?" he asked. "You should be at the house."

"I was," she said. "But Sloan came to get me. He said you told him to."

Harker's eyes went to the weapon resting barrel-down on the desk. "Where is he now?"

"Dead." Harker winced. She'd seen her father satisfied, and her father furious, seen him cold and calculating and in control. She'd never seen him caught off guard. "I told you I would do it," she said. "When I found the monster responsible."