A CIGARETTE HAD CAUSED THE fire. Rhys and Belle told the police that lie because the truth would have caused a media frenzy: Maia Finley, successor to the great Natalya Filipova, freaks out and almost burns down a foster home filled with kids. The new face of the Sect indeed.

I’d been alone in my sterile, private hospital room for at least an hour, staring blankly at the window, my latest failure replaying over and over again in my mind.

When Rhys walked in and shut the door behind him, I pulled the covers over my face.

“They’re okay, you know.” He sat in the chair next to me. “The fire didn’t spread as much as you probably think it did. Belle and Lake took care of it, though it did take a while to haul away some of the broken tree branches.”

I already knew. Lake had called not too long ago. No one had gotten hurt, but that was only a fleeting relief from the misery. After gathering just enough of my senses to tell her about the box beneath Claudine’s bed, I’d ended the conversation there.

“I could have killed them.” I clenched my bedcovers. “It’s all my fault.”

“It’s Vasily’s fault.” Gently, Rhys untangled the sheet from my fingers. “Not yours. His.”

Wiping the wetness from my eyes, I sat up. “Where is he?”

“He escaped.” Rhys’s features grew cold. “While everyone was distracted by the fire. I put some field agents in town on the alert, but they haven’t seen him. He’s probably long gone by now.”

I thought of Vasily’s remorseless smirk as he tried to choke the life from me. There was no other explanation: “He killed Natalya.”

“What?”

I looked at Rhys. “He killed her. He practically admitted it when he tried to kill me.”

Rhys’s face shut like a door, like it had before when I’d brought up the possibility of Natalya’s murder. But this time was different. He leaned over, propping himself up on his legs, his fingers twined between his knees. “If anyone’s capable of it . . . it’s him.”

“Tell me about him.” I shifted to my side, pushing off my covers. “Who is he? He works for Blackwell, right? Could Blackwell have ordered Natalya’s death?”

“I started training as an agent when I was ten years old,” he said suddenly. “A lot of us are like that.” His eyes were fixed on my bedspread. “The Sect likes to take in kids. Orphans, street kids, and so on. Kids can be molded more easily, I guess.”

It was a rare opportunity, hearing Rhys speak about himself. “Are you an orphan?”

“No,” he said. “There are some families out there that have sworn themselves to the Sect. Some have been with the Sect for decades. Like mine.” He smirked. “Fighting monsters as a family tradition.”

I could see the muscles in his face and neck work as he swallowed, each tiny movement displaying the defined edges of his jaw.

“I come from one of those families,” he said. “My dad fought. My brother, too. ”

I blinked. “You have a brother?”

I must have sounded a little too baffled, because Rhys smiled. “He’s more into the administrative side of things now.”

“Oh.”

He grew solemn. “I met Vasily at one of the Sect’s training facilities. In Greenland. Some training facilities are a little tougher than others.”

I waited for him to elaborate. He never did.

“When Vasily graduated and became an agent, he was scouted by Blackwell to be his personal operative. It happens sometimes. But what happened in Greenland . . .” Rhys shook his head. “I guess it changed him.”

“Did it change you?”

Rhys wouldn’t look at me. “Experiences always change people. But at the end of the day, he’s a Sect agent. He follows his orders. That’s what agents do. The Sect is absolute.”

I stiffened on my bed. Of course Rhys would feel that way. He’d been trained too, by his family and by the same Sect that had forced me to swear allegiance to them.

“But Natalya was learning about Saul,” I said. “About Nick and Alice. Vasily may have been ordered by the Sect to watch me, but when he realized I was learning too much, he tried to kill me. You said Vasily follows orders. Doesn’t that mean there’s someone in the Sect who knows more about Saul than they’re letting on? Isn’t it possible they killed Natalya to keep it all quiet?”

Silently, Rhys stood and crossed the room to the window. I waited.

“I didn’t know Natalya for that long,” he finally said, “but I liked her. She was so . . .” He leaned over, planting his hand on the windowpane. “Noble. Just. And I could see it was killing her. The burden she had to bear . . . I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

He turned to me. My cheeks flushed, but I kept myself steady, even as he closed the distance between us. “When I first met you in that Brooklyn hotel, I saw this innocent kid who’d suddenly had the weight of the world dumped onto her shoulders. The weight of Natalya’s legacy. And . . .” He pressed his lips. “I just wanted to help you.”

The dimness of his eyes worried me. It was like the light had been stolen from them.

“Rhys . . . why are you telling me this?”

He sat next to me on the bed, a respectable distance away. When he brushed back his tangled black hair, for the first time I noticed how tired he looked—the bags under his eyes, his faded pallor, his lips aching for moisture.

I wished someone would tell me how to react as his fingers squeezed mine, so tightly and desperately I wondered what he was really clinging to. What would June have done in my place if she’d seen the silent tears running down his cheeks?

Rhys couldn’t look at me, even as he gripped my hand tight. “Maia . . . Natalya . . . she . . .”

“It’s okay.” Something hardened in me as I watched him. “I’ll find him.” I was more determined than ever. “I won’t let Vasily get away with murdering Natalya. I promise.”

Rhys lifted his head, but a rustling at the door kept the words from forming. My body went rigid. Silence stretched between the three of us—Rhys and me on the bed, and Belle standing bewildered at the door.

“Belle . . .” I withdrew my hand, but the rest of me was frozen. “I—”

“It’s okay. It’s . . .” Belle shut her eyes, her hands slipping off the knob. “No, this is good. Maia, come with me. I’ve decided.” By the time she’d opened her eyes again, they’d hardened to steel. “I’m going to teach you how to scry.”

  •  •  •  

It was pitch-black outside. Even with my coat and sweatshirt, the cold night seeped into my skin. Belle had taken me to a place called “Le Lavoir,” overlooking the Epte River. I couldn’t believe it was a tourist attraction: It looked like a long sidewalk of cobbled stone, sheltered by an equally long rusted roof. Definitely different. But I could tell that it was also very old: a monument, perhaps, to the town’s early days, before the phantoms came.

On the way there I’d told Belle about Natalya’s death, the memories I’d seen, and the cigar box hidden underneath her floorboards. It was a bit worrying, the way Belle stayed silent throughout the explanation. She didn’t speak at all until she walked up to the stone balustrade separating us from the river.

“Do you know what our job is, Maia?” Belle placed her hands on the ridge. “As Effigies?”

I nodded, very sure of myself as I pulled up my jacket hood for warmth. “To protect people.”

“Our job is to destroy phantoms,” she said, turning. I shifted uncomfortably. “But Natalya . . . She always did more than she needed to. Always an idealist.”

Her tone turned flat and lifeless as she said the word, her shoulders slumping as she looked off into the distance.

“And you’re not?”

Belle’s silent response unnerved me. Natalya’s drive to protect life made her a hero. Didn’t it?

I thought of Natalya’s apartment: the decanter filled with scotch, the empty bottles of wine and vodka decorating the tables like ornaments.

I shook my head. Natalya was a hero. Belle, too. Fighting phantoms and protecting people went hand in hand. That was what Belle had probably meant.

It was just the look on her face that made me so uncomfortable.

Belle turned back to the river. “Scrying is very simple. Natalya once used a matryoshka doll to explain the concept to me. The Effigies.” She tapped her head with a finger. “Each time one dies, a piece of her mind remains in the next. You know this. You also know that the consciousness of the last Effigy to die will be the strongest, the freshest. Yes?”

I nodded.

“There is a barrier separating your mind from the shards of consciousness remaining from Natalya, but it’s penetrable. Achieving a state of pure calm and peace allows your psyche to cross into hers comfortably. Once you do, you’ll see it. Perhaps you already have: the red door.”

“Red door?”

“And a white stream. I haven’t been there in a long time, but I can still remember.” Shutting her eyes, Belle lifted her head. “The frigid white waters rippling around my ankles. The fog, so thick you can see nothing else but the red door in the distance. It is the gateway to the mind of the one who died before me. This is what you’ll see if you scry the correct way.”

Like striding through the front door with pride instead of being dragged in, screaming and blindfolded, through the back window.

I kicked my foot across the stone floor. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I haven’t exactly been the poster child of ‘pure calm’ lately.”

“I told you in Argentina. It was Saul who prematurely forced you over the first threshold. Now, if your mind becomes disturbed, even while asleep, parts of your psyche can potentially cross over into hers. But the reverse is also true.” Belle peered into the rippling waters. “While scrying, your mind is more vulnerable than ever before. If, in that state, you become too deeply unsettled, the psyche of the previous Effigies can slip into yours. In extreme cases, one can take control of your physical form for a short time.”

Saul had told me that once too. I hugged myself to keep from shuddering too violently. “If that’s the case, then shouldn’t you have taught me proper scrying a little earlier?”

I could see Belle deflating.

“Natalya committed suicide.” Belle’s hair whipped gently over her face as she spoke. “I never believed it. I couldn’t. But if it turned out . . . that she really did . . . that she . . .”

She looked away.

For me, the best and worst aspect about losing my family was knowing, deep inside, that they weren’t really gone. They’re never really gone—a point belabored ad nauseam by all the priests and counselors and therapists. I’d resented it then, but it was true. Some days, I would have rested easier if they’d simply been eradicated from the world. But the dead left traces: pictures, old messages on answering machines. Memories. Pain. Bits and pieces of each lost life remained on Earth, trapped here and there, comforting and haunting their loved ones in equal measure. And part of Natalya remained in me, along with the truth of her death. I couldn’t blame Belle for being scared.

“But now we know. No, I want to know.” Something quiet and frightening passed across Belle’s features as she looked at me. “Scry, Maia. Find Natalya.”

I tried. I followed Belle’s every instruction, staring at the river, letting its peaceful, rippling rhythm ease my nerves. Each time I lost focus, Belle urged me to try again in a soft tone only thinly hiding the urgency belying it.

I kept trying.

Shut out the cold. I repeated Belle’s words like a dutiful student. Count each breath. Don’t think. Don’t feel. Just let your mind fall into the waters and search for her.

But when I gazed into the river, I saw my own face, June’s face, staring back at me. June, who would never smile at me again. And suddenly, I was thinking of what June’s face would have looked like after the fire . . . what my own face would transform into after being ravaged by flames.

I could only imagine it; I never saw June’s remains. Uncle Nathan was the one who’d identified the bodies. And Uncle Nathan . . . Was he okay? No, of course not. How could he be, after losing his family, and then losing me to the Sect? I just wanted to talk to him. Why wouldn’t they let me talk to him?

As the tears blurred my vision, a sharp burning pain scorched my skull. Grimacing, I gripped my head and dropped to my knees. I could see stars behind my eyelids, flashes of light in the black. The next time I opened them, Belle was kneeling on the ground in front of me.

Or was it Belle? It couldn’t have been. The girl looked like her, but she was suddenly so much younger. Blood and sweat matted her blond hair wildly to her face. She was screaming with her bloodshot eyes, but when her lips fluttered, bits of French and broken English passed through them in hoarse whispers. Her little body was bent over, fingers hidden in the sand she gripped.

“Belle?”

It was Natalya’s voice. Belle didn’t respond to it. She only trembled, rasping for air.

“I saved them.” Belle nodded quickly, planting her dirty hand on her dirtier face. “I saved them. I killed the phantoms. Twelve. I killed twelve. I killed twelve. Are you proud of me, Natalya?”

That was when I saw it: the bodies draped across the sandy field. Bodies of Sect troops interspersed between the remains of phantoms rotting in the sinking sun.

“Kill me,” Belle cried and grabbed her hair. “Kill me! I want to die. I can’t do this! Kill me!”

With a violent shudder, I awoke from Natalya’s memory, only to find the present Belle gripping her shoulders.

“What did you see?” Belle demanded. “Did you see Natalya’s killer?”

Belle, the Twelve-Kill Rookie. It should have been a moniker of pride for the girl who’d managed to take down twelve phantoms during one of her first missions. But that memory . . . that horror I’d just witnessed . . . how could I even put it into words? I tried to push them out, but they wouldn’t go.

Belle just kept shaking me, her nails digging into my skin. “Tell me what you saw. Tell me! Who killed Natalya?”

“Please stop!”

The moment I let out the desperate plea, Belle finally got hold of herself. But it was a tenuous grasp.

“That’s enough,” Belle said, stumbling back. “That’s . . . that’s enough for today.”