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and then switched it off.
    â€œThe light was too bright,” she said, close to my ear. “I can see in the dark now.”
    â€œI can’t,” I said. I blinked, trying to adjust, trying to make out the contours of her new face. As if she could read my thoughts, she took my hand, the one I had used to touch the blood, and lifted it to her face.
    She led my fingers along her cheekbone, higher and sharper than it should have been, and—this was what made me flinch, try to pull away—downy with . . . fur. It was as soft as the hair on her head, a smooth, short coat close to the skin—so fine I hadn’t seen it at a distance—but it wasn’t right.
    She held my hand tight until I relaxed and then drew my fingers along her cheek, farther than seemed possible. Her jaw protruded. The fur thinned close to her mouth, where her skin felt normal. Her lips seemed like normal lips, but her teeth . . . She flexed back her lips to allow me to feel.
    She had fangs.
    â€œWhat are you?” I said.
    â€œIt turns out you don’t have to be just one thing,” Evy said. “I’m a monster in the dark. Will that do?”
    â€œI’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
    It was my fault. I hadn’t fought hard enough. I had let this happen.
    â€œShh, shh, sweetie,” Evy said. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not.”
    She kissed my cheek with her strange new mouth, and I had to restrain myself from shoving her away.
    â€œAre you ready, Evy?” Jack said from the mouth of the bridge.
    â€œAlmost,” she said.
    â€œWait, where are you going?” I said again.
    â€œWhy? Do you want to come?” Evy asked, and the meager light from the tunnel’s mouth caught her teeth as she stretched her jaw wide.
    â€œNo, no, I just . . . Why do you have to go?”
    â€œShe has to feed,” Hap said. “Once that happens, it won’t be safe for us here.”
    â€œFeed?”
    â€œLife costs life,” Evy said. “It’s an exchange we all make. I’ve just moved up the food chain.”
    â€œYou’re going to . . . eat someone?”
    Hap kicked a leg out to his side, and a shadowy lump at his feet shifted . . . and groaned. I hadn’t noticed it, had taken it as part of the landscape, until it moved.
    â€œIt’s time,” Jack said, “while the moon is high.”
    Close to me, Evy nodded. “Come,” she said, and pulled me toward the Marsh boys.
    Evy wouldn’t hurt me—she couldn’t—but would she let them?
    â€œDon’t be frightened,” she said. “This is a happy time.”
    She dragged me back to the Marsh boys and passed me off to Hap, who pulled my back against his chest, wrapped his arms around me in a bear hug, and rested his chin on my head. It might have been comforting, big brotherly, under any other circumstance, but now it was one more wrong thing in a world of wrong.
    Evy, preternaturally quick, swooped down to the form on the ground. Even though he looked bigger than her, she lifted him with zero effort and cradled him against her chest.
    â€œLook who I picked,” she said.
    Malcolm, with the shiny-slick hair and the puppy-dog eyes.
    â€œNo.”
    Hap squeezed me tighter.
    Malcolm seemed dazed, and his face was wet, like he’d been drooling, or crying.
    Evy looked down on him, almost lovingly. “I always kind of thought I’d come back to him, like he was going to be important in my life. I just couldn’t understand how.”
    â€œEvy, this isn’t you.”
    She looked up at me. “No,” she said. “It isn’t. You always liked him, Les. Why didn’t you say anything? Why did you let me mess with his head? I would have given him to you.”
    â€œYou don’t give a boy to your friend,” I said.
    â€œBut now you have Ben,” she said, “so it’s all right. You