"Wait-" He stepped forward. Her face hovered near his chest. Consuela's chin grazed the very edge of his shirt. She could see a b.u.t.ton up close-black threads, four holes. She felt the warmth of his closeness. She smelled bar soap and lavender mist. V sighed and she felt his breath in her hair.

This felt very different with skin.

* Oh. *

V noticed her paint-splattered room and the lack of exits.

"Did you do this?" he asked.

"No." That was all she needed to say. They both frowned.

"The obvious route's the door," V said.

"I wouldn't."

He sensed her nervousness. "You don't trust it?"

She shook her head. "No. I think Tender did something to it. b.o.o.by-trapped it, like the mirror." Tender had wanted her to go through it. She didn't want to go there now.

"Okay," V said, throwing the damp towel over the back of her chair. "So here's the plan: you suit up in your skin of fire and we'll go check on Sissy. Use the window." He headed back to the bathroom, pointing. "I'll get my mirror."

Consuela trailed after him. They returned into the steamy warmth of the bathroom, perfumed with her own herbal shampoo. Now V smelled like her, she thought. Or she smelled like V. Would there be something residual, like the scent of lavender soap, after she'd worn his skin? Would she be able to walk through mirrors? Could he create skins?

V picked up the compact by the sink.

"Tender took this and left it for you," V said. "He probably painted all the other ones over so you'd have no choice but to use this." He gripped the case in his fist. "Open it," he said, handing the compact to her.

Consuela clicked the top back and saw a small circle of oily film floating like a flattened bead.

"It's not a mirror . . ."

"It's the Flow," V said. "Tender laced it with the Flow. Or something like it," he said. It was shiny, black, and gummy.

"I think that's what he eats," Consuela said, looking at her own palm. "What he digests."

"Lovely." V grimaced and, grabbing a hand towel, wiped the surface with one hundred percent Egyptian cotton. Ghosting his breath upon it, he polished it neat, scrubbing it clean. On the towel, the darkness clung like gum. "Remind me to get a new one if we make it out of this."

Consuela's smile faltered. "Don't talk like that."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm here. You're here. We made it. We're going to get out of this and we're going to get you home." V projected the confidence he'd always had with that promise, but now it lingered, tinged with regret.

* Away from here/the Flow/me/Everything/I have to/I'll have to let you go. *

"V . . ."

"We should really go now," V said quickly. "I'll head out and you get going. Be sure to bring this with you so Tender won't get his hands on it." He tried to look rea.s.suring. "I'll see you soon."

V lifted the case to his eye. Nothing happened. His gaze jumped erratically, searching; still nothing. V frowned, closed his eyes, opened them, and glared. Consuela eyed the clean bit of mirror.

* No . . . *

V shifted from foot to foot, agitated.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I don't know." He shoved the mirror at her like an accusation. "You try it."

"Me?" Consuela asked. "I can't."

"Maybe not," he said. "Try it anyway."

She took the compact and tried to ignore his eyes on her as she looked deep into her own brown windows of her soul. Consuela blinked and handed the compact back quickly.

"Nothing," she said. "Maybe it's the mirror . . . ?"

"No," V snapped. "I can't see it. The doorway."

* This can't be happening/Not possible!/Not now! *

He glanced around helplessly, his fingers in fists.

Consuela searched for something to say. What she saw was a tiny white spider on the ceiling.

"Wish," she whispered.

"Where?"

"No. One of his wishes," she said, t.i.tling her head to follow the tiny arachnid's tread. "What was he doing here?" Consuela asked aloud. It seemed like everyone had been in her room.

V shook his head, wiping the condensation off his face. "Probably looking for you," he said. "Making sure you're okay."

"I don't know," she said. "He's Tender's 'best friend.'"

Consuela felt their time growing shorter, their options shrinking, pushing to one, lone conclusion: confrontation on Tender's terms. See you at the end of the world. And where was Wish? Was he still alive? How much did he know? Whose side was he on?

"Do you trust Wish?" Consuela asked.

V dropped his eyes. "I don't know . . ."

"Do you trust him?"

* Wish/Joseph/Yad/Abacus, * I don't even trust myself. * Who set that fire? *

"I. DON'T. KNOW!" V shouted. It rang off the tile.

Consuela hopped her b.u.t.t up on the counter, slipping a foot in the sink.

"Well, I don't," she said, and slapped her hand flat against the spider.

V slammed against the floor.

chapter fifteen.

"Each of us dies the death he is looking for, the death he has made for himself."

-OCTAVIO PAZ "v!"

Consuela jumped down, but her outstretched hands pa.s.sed through his body as if he wore a skin of smoke. Her left palm burned. V rolled over, watching his chest move through her hands, pushing himself to sit up-looking more astounded than pained.

"It doesn't hurt," he said, more to himself than her. He sounded surprised.

Consuela met his eyes. "V?" she whispered.

"It's happening again," he said vaguely. "But it doesn't hurt." His eyes met hers. He looked afraid to be happy, afraid to believe it. "I'm going back."

"Back?" Consuela said, her throat constricting around the word. "Back where?"

V stood up, glancing through his ephemeral body.

"Back," he said wondrously. "Back up. Back home, I guess. Back." His face was full of relief and an odd sort of joy. The masterpiece portrait revealed.

The next moment, it crumpled with the sound of violin tears.

* No! * Not now! * I can save you! *

"V . . ." Consuela shook her head. He was dying. Living. Going back to life. "No, V . . ."

"Consuela." He said her name slowly. It hurt to hear it said that way. Like good-bye, despite anything they wanted. He raised his hands but they were insubstantial as ghosts. "I can feel it . . ."

She wanted to be generous and let him go, but she was crying and afraid.

"V, please, fight it. Stay!"

He raised a misty hand to her face. He couldn't touch her. She couldn't feel him. The shampoo smell hung wet in the room.

"Help me fight it," he said, trying to find purchase in her hair. "Help me stay."

"How? V!" She tried grabbing his hand and holding his knuckles to her face. If she closed her eyes hard enough, she could feel them there.

"Stay with me!" she begged, selfish and scared. "I can't do this!" Not against Tender! Not alone!

V was growing more tenuous by the moment, particles of him blowing away as if under a steady breath.

"I feel it coming," he said. "I'm sorry." He meant it. She was crying. His gentle eyes sparked dark once more. "They're calling me . . . and I'm ready to try." V spoke from far away, a distance that was growing deeper.

"You can do this," he said. "You can do anything. Remember: you don't need me-you don't need anyone."

* But I needed you. * Brave Angel. * I'm not afraid anymore. *

"Thank you for believing me." He smiled again, that portrait smile.

"Don't give up," Consuela pleaded through tears. "I have to save you."

"You did save me, Bones," he said softly. "And I was supposed to save you."

She looked at his eyes and every panic softened. He was here. He was with her. He'd saved her from death. He'd given her this. And time. And a chance. And him.

Consuela whispered, "You did."

Giovanni smiled like the sun.

"If there's any way, I will find you again," he said. "I promise."

He gathered himself with effort, tried one last time. His hand pa.s.sed through her face as he reached.

"Consuela."

Gone.

She groped at the s.p.a.ce that twinkled with shorn stars, the dwindling, last moments of V.

Now she was alone. The shock of it washed over her. She'd wake up soon.

An echo of electric hums thrummed through the room.

* I will find you again. *

BONES walked into the bas.e.m.e.nt room. She was unsurprised to find the door unlocked, she was unsurprised to find the fax hanging useless above the door, and equally unsurprised to find the room exactly as she had left it, save for a few returned cardboard boxes and Sissy slumped in her father's chair.

Sissy's honey-brown hair shrouded her face, her creamy skin still beautiful, her fingernails immaculately filed-one hand had been attached sickeningly backward and bent into a crude gesture, the middle finger raised. Her body caved around the gaping hole in her torso, which had hammered her into the leather chair back. The seat and the floor were soaked in her blood; her pretty shoes dangled in the puddle and the weight of the chair sank its wheels into wet carpet. Consuela knew that it would never change back.

The Watcher had been pinned like a b.u.t.terfly and, just as casually, discarded and left as a message. For her.

Consuela turned away. Sissy was gone. There was no one here to tell anything anymore.

She touched the shelves briefly, the chair, the books, the hidden Scotch. Sissy'd never gotten the shower she'd asked for, not really, just a cold, hard slap to sober her up.

That one, lonely thing made Consuela sadder still.

The rest of her burned as black as her palm.