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“You all owe me. Get me out of here. Now.”
    The disembodied voice inside the darkness of my shoe cackled aloud.
    “It’s not funny—” I could easily tuck one of the vanity’s lightbulbs in my shoe and kill them.
    “It pains us to admit this, but here we’re almost as powerless as you. We left the vast bulk of ourselves behind in Port Cavell when this small piece went with you in your luggage. And not all of us agreed as to the wisdom of hiding on you in the morgue on the doomed ship, so we became even more divided. Those fools went down with the Maraschino, and met our more difficult cousin. The portion of us that remains, you could hold easily inside your palm.”
    “But—” The Shadows back home were able to heal people, and make them forget things and do things they didn’t want to do—
    “But nothing. We’ve been trying to escape since your helicopter landed. We want to go back to the rest of us, where we belong. Only there was no dark opportunity to hitch a ride safely on your shapeshifter or Anna, and so now we’re trapped here. Again. With you.” They sounded indignant, as if they were the ones getting the worse end of the bargain. “We went scouting last night, but all the hallways here are lit, and most of the construction is solid stone. There’s a lot of food here at least, not counting you, although we do enjoy your generally high levels of paranoia.”
    The Shadows fed on emotions—that was why back home they lived underneath the hospital. My elation at discovering them was fading fast. “Don’t feed on me—”
    “We could hardly help it after the attack last night,” they tsked. “We are what we are.” And what they were was self-serving. I frowned again, as they went on. “But we do want to go home, and we would be willing to pool our efforts with you toward that end.”
    By which they meant they’d help me as long as I helped them … but if they found their own way back, they’d ditch me without a second thought. Still, it was more than I’d had last night. As far as deals with the devil go, baby—well, at least it’s a devil we know.
    There was a knock at the door. “Edie? You still alive?” Jackson’s voice. I dropped the shoe and stood up to shimmy down my skirt, which had become a belt on me the second I’d turned in my sleep. Then I swooped up the hammerhead and makeshift stake, just in case.
    “Still breathing,” I said as he pressed the door open and came inside.
    “Glad to hear it.” He gave me a genuine smile, then shook his head after looking at my hands. “We’re not allowed to have weapons here.”
    I set the hammerhead back onto the post left in the hammer and held the whole thing with one hand. “Look, now it’s back to being just a tool!” I said in my best magician’s-assistant voice.
    Jackson snorted. “Points for trying. I figured I could make an exception for you last night, but you can’t walk around with it—I can’t have you killing anyone by accident. Give the stake to me to dispose of.” I handed it over reluctantly. “You can hide the hammerhead somewhere in here for now. No promises it’ll be there when you get back, but it might, if you make it hard enough to find. I’ll wait outside.”
    I knew he was probably right outside the door, which given his hearing meant I wasn’t all that private. And the hammer wasn’t the only thing I wanted to ditch—I didn’t like the idea of the Shadows hanging out with me all day. I looked around the room trying to find a place for both things, and my eyes lit on Celine’s mattress.
    She was shorter than me—and she wasn’t a princess. I didn’t think she’d feel something if I jammed it into the end of her bed. I pulled up the lip of the fitted black satin sheets and used my unreal strength to shove the hammer head inside, after making a hole. Then I picked up my shoe. “You guys too,” I whispered, shaking it.
    For all their blustering, in a lit room they were really at my