Derek was annoyed at being ignored and, I suspected, unsettled by Oriax’s sarcastic dismissal of him as a brittle little boy. He still followed her with his eyes, only managing to glance back at us from time to time.

I must admit that I did not see Oriax encouraging him in any way, but Oriax’s mere existence was encouragement, I suppose. It crossed my mind, just for the most fleeting moment, that it would be a wonderful thing to spend just one day looking like her.

“We have reached a moment I might have preferred to delay a little longer,” Messenger said to me, his voice as always so close to my ear. “It is called—”

“The Piercing,” Oriax interrupted, her tone mocking. “The Piercing. The perfect blend of solemnity and un-self-aware sexual metaphor. There’s a lot of that, Mara; you’ll get used to it if you decide to stay with Messenger.”

“If I decide? I was not aware I had a choice.”

“Oh, there are always choices, mini-Messenger. Not now, not today, not for you. But there are always choices. Sooner or later. Poor stupid Derek there made one. The time will come for you to choose as well. But right now the time has come for you to penetrate the veil of Derek’s mind, to intrude into his memories, and to find oh such exciting and terrible things.”

Messenger let her speak but was clearly having difficulty controlling his mounting irritation. “It is called the Piercing,” he said, “because you will pierce all of the subject’s defenses and discover the true fear at the heart of him.”

“It’s a hell of a ride,” Oriax said, wandering nearer, much to Derek’s enjoyment. He had gotten over whatever sting he had felt from her snide remarks. “The Piercing, indeed.”

“I don’t understand,” I said truthfully.

“I am called the Messenger of Fear. The punishment I inflict is raised from the subject’s own mind. It is to be his worst fear. In order to know what that fear is, you must travel deep within his mind, his very soul. It can be . . .” He searched for the right word. “. . . disturbing.”

Derek said, “She’s not going inside anything.”

“There are words to be spoken,” Messenger said.

“What are you talking about?”

“An incantation.”

“An incantation? Like a spell?”

“Stand behind him,” Messenger directed, and I moved with uncertain steps to stand behind Derek. Derek had laughed and tried to thwart this by turning around, but his feet were as if they had been glued to the wooden floor.

“Hey!” he yelled.

“Closer, Mara. Put your left hand over his heart, the center of his chest.”

To say that I did not want to touch any part of this loathsome boy would be an understatement, but now my curiosity was running well ahead of my caution. I wanted to know what this was, what it meant, this Piercing. So I complied. He squirmed but could not move more than a few hairbreadths to the left or right.

I felt his heart beating through his sweaty uniform.

“Now place your right palm against the side of his head,” Messenger directed.

Feeling silly, I nevertheless complied and resisted the powerful urge to apologize to Derek for this intrusion on his personal space.

“I’d rather she did this,” Derek joked nervously, referring to Oriax.

Oriax laughed. It was not a joyful sound. There was the sinister mockery of the hyena in her laugh. “Do you?”

“Yeah, you’re like, so hot.”

“Mmm. You have no idea,” she said.

“Now, speak these words,” Messenger told me. “By the Source. By the rights granted to the Heptarchy. By Isthil and the balance She maintains.”

The incantation was at once ridiculous and ominous. Surely it was all nonsense, the sort of thing that sounded impressive but meant nothing. Was I to believe there was such a thing as the Heptarchy? The word just meant seven of something, but seven of what? And who was Isthil? He’d mentioned that name before, I was sure, and when he spoke the name, it was with reverence. But once more, curiosity would be my preferred vice, so I spoke the words.

“By the Source. By the rights granted to the Heptarchy. By Isthil and the balance She maintains. I claim passage to your soul.”

At first there was no change. I was disappointed, thinking either that I had failed somehow or that the words were indeed meaningless. Derek’s heart beat beneath my left hand. His temple flexed beneath my right. And then, gradually so that for several seconds I could not be sure it was real, my left hand felt more than the muffled thump of his heart and began to feel rather the discrete muscular contractions within. I could feel the components of the heartbeat: valves closing as others opened; muscles contracting as others relaxed; the surge of blood squirting from the heart to fill arteries and push the blood to the lungs and brain.

I swear I almost felt the slick wetness of his heart, the rubbery tension of stretched muscle, the warmth of the viscid liquid within.

And at the same time I felt the fingers of my right hand seem to melt into his head, the gritty feeling of hair, the thin layer of flesh, the hard bone, like wet stone.

I tried to pull away, but my hands would not respond. I sent a panicked, pleading look to Messenger, but now the mist seemed to conceal all but the shadow of him. Muffled voices of Oriax and Derek, neither comprehensible except for the underlying emotion: her derision, his growing nervousness.

I felt myself spiraling, twirling, hands still locked on to Derek while my legs swung around in a wide circle. It wasn’t real, I was certain of that, or as certain as I could be of anything in this new, altered reality. But I could not un-feel the sensation of spiraling, of whirling madly while all the while descending, falling like Alice down the rabbit’s hole.