Onyx House smelled like cinnamon and burnt sugar when I came through the front door, which meant Emi had been stress-baking since dawn and nobody had possessed the courage to stop her.
Natalia peeled off toward the stairs with a look that promised a conversation later, and I let her go. The woman had been awake for most of two days holding vigil outside a bunker while a cosmic intelligence rearranged my brain. She'd earned a nap and I'd earned the small mercy of not being watched for twenty minutes.
Nel drifted through the back of my skull like a bad smell that had learned to talk.
"Six women, one snail, one Bakeneko, and a B-Rank Gate in seventy-two hours. The Audience is placing side bets on which one of them figures out you've been rewritten first."
Put me down for Skylar.
"Already have. She's the favorite at four to one."
