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beside the gate, leaning in to speak the word that will let them leave. There’s a stifled hiss as the gate unlocks and he pushes it open.
    The boy stumbles once, lurching through the turnstile. As he does, something slips from his hand and lands with a clatter. Then they’re through the gate and gone, and I’m alone, standing in the spot where they stood. My hand feels numb, like it’s lost connection to my body.
    I bend down, reaching for the thing the boy dropped. It is an onyx-handled straight razor. I hold it away from myself, my hand dripping with slick, pink water.
    The red sky is already fading to gray again, leaving the terminal hazy with smoke. The razor feels light and graceful in my hand. I slip it into my pocket, then turn to face the crowd. Beelzebub might have been wrong when he said there was nothing here for them, but I can’t help thinking that just now, for me, it feels true. I know it’s not right or rational, but suddenly I’m overcome by loneliness, remembering all the endearing, baffling things about my brother. Everything I’m losing. Remembering how easy it was to wait for him when I always knew he’d come back.
    For the first time in my life, it feels like there’s nothing keeping me anchored.

SISTERS
    CHAPTER FIVE
    T wilight has settled in, leaving the city dark. I walk out of the terminal with my head high and my hands at my sides and it takes all my will to do it slowly.
    Then I’m outside, away from the building, and in the next instant, I’m running—darting through the crowded streets, winding my way between open cooling vents. The smoke rises in columns around me, pouring out of the grates, making everything gray.
    Obie is gone. He’s chosen to take his chances with Earth and Azrael, and I don’t know what to do now, so I run faster. Away from dropped razors, bloody water. Away from the dripping boy with his fierce, tragic eyes, the way it felt when I let him go. My feet are numb with the impact, pounding up the spiral stairs of the Spire building, up to my room, where I’ll sit alone on the couch and figure out a way to fix this.
    But I open the door to find my sister Petra standing on the end table, hanging an assortment of rainbow-colored streamers. My collection of glass apothecary bottles has been set out in perfect order, each one positioned according to size.
    Petra unfurls a streamer and holds it above her head, tying the end neatly to a ceiling hook. She’s dressed like the Pit girls, in a shift that hangs on her shoulders like a shroud, gray with soot. Her feet are bare and her hair is dense and stringy. She’s humming, lips pressed tight over gray teeth, arranging the streamers so they hang down like paper vines, green and blue and purple. In the riot of color, she looks strangely monochromatic.
    “I thought you might like it if I did decorations,” she says, pivoting carefully on the tabletop.
    For a moment, I just stand in the doorway with my mouth open and my hair a tangled nest around me. When I speak, it’s in a flat, dull voice. “It looks nice.”
    My hands feel weightless. I have to lace my fingers together and squeeze, just to prove they’re still connected to me.
    Petra steps down from the table. “Is everything okay? You seem upset.”
    I nod. The floor seems to shift under me and I can’t catch my balance.
    “Here, sit down. I know something to cheer you up.”
    Taking me by the hand, she leads me over to the vanity where she situates me on the little stool and opens the makeup box. She sorts through my collection of cosmetics and selects a tube of dark lipstick. I tell myself that this is right. It’s familiar, and now my life will go back to normal. It doesn’t work. I’m already considering the next step, the next possible move.
    Petra applies the lipstick deftly, careful to follow the precise shape of my mouth. My reflection stares back at me with blank features and hard, blazing eyes. Petra just tucks her hair behind her ears and keeps