knew. The knowledge squirmed inside her, setting off sparks in her brain. How was that possible? She hadn’t seen anyone! She hadn’t seen it happen, and for some crazy reason Joy thought, after everything she’d been through, she ought to have felt something happen, at least.

      She crumpled against the wall. After all Ink’s efforts to keep her safe, to keep her unclaimed and free, she’d been marked, tied to some stranger in the Twixt. Her mind spun with the implications: Who? How? When? Why? With someone already out to kill her, the mark on her flesh felt like a beacon. Joy felt inexplicably violated, exposed. I can’t believe this! What happened? What could she do? What would she tell Ink?

      Oh my God. Ink!

      Joy remembered his rage when Briarhook had branded her. He’d been livid, a sharp, deadly quiet, and when he’d returned to Graus Claude’s, his arms had been soaked to the elbows in blood. She’d thought for certain he’d killed the gruesome hedgehog and his sneering accomplice, Hasp. She’d been horrified at his violence and herself for feeling avenged, but she had felt it all through a woozy thickness that had been her healing trance that night. Whatever Kurt had given her had left her memories both foggy and bright, but she could still see the vivid streaks of blood against the sink’s porcelain knobs and what it was like to see Ink’s signatura for the first time: an ouroboros, a living tattoo winding over his back.

      Yet Briarhook lived because Ink valued life, instead cursing him to earn back his heart, now kept in an iron box. Ink said that he had never killed another living being...until now. What would he do if he found out that she’d been claimed by some stranger? Would he hunt down whoever was responsible, only to later be crushed with self-loathing and remorse? She pictured him hugging his arms over his head in misery. Joy never wanted to see him like that again.

      Grabbing her purse from the hallway, she took out the scalpel. She returned to the bathroom, turned her back toward the mirror and tried catching the edge of the blade under the newfound mark. The blade head slipped, snagging nothing. She tried again. Either she couldn’t get the right angle or she was doing something wrong. Maybe it wasn’t a real signatura? Maybe it was too fresh? Maybe it was something else? Joy wasn’t completely clear how signatura worked, and since she didn’t know whose it was or where it had come from, perhaps that made it impossible for her to erase? She’d only ever removed four signaturae from her skin: Ink’s, Inq’s, Briarhook’s and Aniseed’s. Of course, that was four more than anyone else had ever managed, and the reason that the Council was interested in her still. She felt stupid for having assumed that removing anyone’s signatura would be just as easy and then furious to be proven wrong now.

      Why NOW?

      She kicked the linen door in frustration and stretched her arm farther, straining her shoulder and wrist. She felt the blade skip against her skin and realized that she’d probably cut herself before she’d do any good. She tried to remember what it felt like to slice Briarhook’s brand off her arm, erase Aniseed’s mark in the air or slowly fuse Inq’s belly closed—that oily, slick, reverse-spark of undoing.

      Whatever it had been like, this wasn’t it.

      She dropped her arms and examined the shape: it was a roughly circular blob, runny and blurred. She blinked and tried another angle. Squinted. No use. She couldn’t make it out and she couldn’t risk asking Ink. Joy knew she had to get rid of it before he found out and did something...horrible. She didn’t want to be responsible for hurting him again.

      Dropping the scalpel back into its pocket, Joy picked up her brand new phone—replaced thankfully under warranty—and prayed that all her data was retrievable from the cloud once her transfer was confirmed, but she couldn’t access her contacts list until then. She ran to her room and opened her desk drawer, rifling through old papers, library cards, business cards, magnets and Post-it notes, excavating the one she’d hoped to find: a crisp piece of card stock with exquisite penmanship. Graus Claude’s voice mailbox was a convenient 800 number.

      She dialed quickly, waiting for the automatic voice stating its standard instruction that she could please record her message after the beep.

      “Hi, this is Joy,” she said, feeling foolish. “I have something I have to show you.” She added, “Alone. My cell phone’s reestablishing voice mail, so please call or email. I’ll check for messages until I hear from you. It’s kind of urgent. Thanks.” She recited her phone number and spelled out her email address and hung up, wondering if she was making things worse.

      Ink trusted the noble toad absolutely, but Inq was suspicious. The Bailiwick already suspects something, Inq had said when they’d been passing off Joy as Ink’s chosen, his lehman. But that was before Joy had proven herself, undoing Aniseed’s pandemic curse, potentially saving both worlds, and falling in love with Ink. Graus Claude knew that she was on their side, didn’t he? He counted her as a friend. A niggling voice chased that thought through her mind. Well, he didn’t actually SAY that he considered her a loyal friend—he’d implied it—but the Folk twist the meanings to suit their own ends. The Bailiwick is no different.

      Joy trembled with more than apprehension; she still hadn’t eaten.