“Why?”
“If they heal, the compulsion spell will take control again—and do not ask why,” I hastened to add as Allison’s mouth opened. “I do not know. All I know is that it’s necromancy, and as long as Marcus is still alive, the compulsion spell still exists.”
“Seventy-three days,” Jie mumbled. “It’ll last seventy-three days—one for each of Marcus’s victims in Paris.”
A knot swelled in my throat. “Was it the hair clasp?” I asked quietly. “The one Madame Marineaux gave you. Was it an amulet?”
“I . . . I guess.” Jie lifted her shoulder almost imperceptibly. “I don’t remember everything. I just know he was proud of the length of the spell. He bragged about all the people he’d killed to make it.” She inhaled a shaking breath, and it sent her shoulders almost to her ears. Her whalebone corset had cinched her waist so tight that her chest overflowed from the top. I grabbed for the first lace.
“Wait,” Allison said. She fumbled in the case and withdrew scissors. Then, after a frightened glance at Jie’s face, she offered them to me.
With each snip the laces snapped free—and Jie’s ribs slowly shuddered back into their natural form. But even when the final pieces of the corset tumbled to the floor, her breaths remained too shallow and her skin too pale from lack of blood.
And all I could think of was Marcus. Of destroying him for this. I wanted to know how he had beaten us to Marseille. How he had gotten that newspaper article printed.
But above all, I needed to know what he had planned next.
“What else do you remember?” I asked as gently as I could.
“Too much,” Jie whispered. “Boarding a train. Leaving a train. Being . . . being stuck while he raised all the Dead. While he . . . put me in this dress.”
Suddenly, her fingers bent into claws, and she heaved at her undershirt. She was halfway out of it before I managed to skitter toward Allison. “Clothes,” I ordered. “Find her clothes.”
Allison nodded and hurried into the hall.
Jie cried out. I spun around . . . only to find her falling forward. She wore nothing but her pantaloons, and her body was covered in gooseflesh. Her legs buckled beneath her, and she cried out again.
I dived for her but was too slow. Her knees hit the ground, and the two orchids in her hair toppled to the floor. Her eyes landed on the wilted flowers. In a burst of sudden speed, she snatched the scissors from my hands and scuttled back. Gripping a fistful of her long, black hair, she lifted the scissors high.
“Oh God.” I crawled to her. “Stop, Jie. Stop—you don’t have to cut your hair.”
“He touched it. He touched my hair, and I don’t want it on me anymore.” She squeezed the scissors, and a grating sound filled the galley.
She sawed. She hacked. And her hair fell in clumps and strands.
I grabbed her wrist. “Let me do it.” She flinched away, her eyes bulging.
I held up my hands, palms out. “I won’t hurt you, Jie, but let me cut your hair. Let me do it.”
Her eyes grew wider . . . but then sank shut. Her posture dropped, and she offered me the scissors. I took them and kneeled behind her.
“All of it,” she whispered, staring ahead at the wall. “Cut all of it.”
“I will.” I gathered up her hair, staring at the fluffy wisps growing on her forehead. It had always been shaved bald.
For some reason, that made the moment all the more real. Something as fundamental to Jie as her shaved head was gone. My best friend was here, but she was still gone.
And then, to my horror, a sob shuddered through Jie’s shoulders. “You can’t stop him,” she said breathily. “It doesn’t matter what you do—he’s always one step ahead. He’ll raise the Black Pullet, and then he’ll take anything and . . . and . . . everything he wants.”
The scissor blades gritted through the last bit of hair, and Jie’s head toppled forward. Movement flickered at the door. I glanced up just as Allison reappeared, clothes in her arms. Her lips were drawn up to one side, her eyebrows tight with horror. But she moved to Jie, and in a quick, efficient move, she draped a loose shirt over Jie’s shoulders. Together, we got her arms into the sleeves.
But as I worked to do up the buttons, I stared hard into Jie’s eyes. “Marcus cannot get the Black Pullet now, Jie. I promise you. We destroyed the only clue left in Marseille.”
“No.” She pulled back, the buttons only half clasped. “You can’t stop him. He knows where the Old Man is already. He went to the crypt before you—before he went to Paris.”
Cold wrapped around my heart.