Asa immediately looked to Mouse to see her reaction. Her eyes were wide, and she had fruit juice all over her face. Asa let out a breath, irritated, before roughly wiping her face with a red cloth that had also rested on the tray. Mouse wouldn’t survive one day as an apprentice at the House.

  “Is that why you tried to steal the collar from me?” Asa demanded.

  Mouse shrugged one shoulder, clearly trying to imitate the Madame but executing it badly.

  “The magic on that collar could latch on to whoever is wearing it,” the Madame said, growing serious. “No child needs to have possession of it.”

  “Then how generous of you to offer to take it off my hands,” Asa retorted.

  “Do you even know the terms of that contract?” the Madame said, her dark gaze trained on Asa. “Do you know what would happen if those terms were broken?”

  “Why should I believe you?” Asa said. These were words he that he had never said to his own mother. But—this woman wasn’t actually his mother. She didn’t have his best interests at heart. He had to repeatedly remind himself of this because she just—sounded so much like his mother when she was worried about him. “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

  “There is a simple test we can perform, Asahel,” the Madame said briskly. When she used his full name again, Asa automatically tensed with guilt. “It shouldn’t hurt at all.”

  “Yes, it will,” Asa said immediately. “I know exactly what test you’re talking about. Don’t lie to me.” When Madame Katusha had completed this spell to reveal the terms of a demonic contract on a humanoid, it had always required blood and pain. Asa had seen it hurt very badly, even when the test revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

  “This test won’t hurt,” the Madame said, almost gently. “This one is my own invention.”

  Asa looked at the Madame and saw the same expression his mother made when she was giving him medicine when he was sick. “Mo–” he started to say, tongue-tied, and then stopped. “Madame, I’m not giving you the collar for the test,” he said.

  His body felt so confused. In his mind, he knew that this wasn’t her. But he had a lifetime of built up reflexes and associations to all of her facial expressions, all of her tones, all of her body movements.

  “There’s no need to remove it,” the Madame said, as she stood to pluck a piece of parchment from the shelves of magical objects that surrounded them. The sitting area of the Madame’s office more closely resembled Madame Katusha’s office due to the mass collection of theurgical objects that were stored in wooden shelves mounted to the walls. This parchment already had demonic script written on it in his mother’s handwriting. He hadn’t known his mother could invent spells. But then, he hadn’t known she could see demonic energy either.

  The Madame placed the parchment on the empty tray on the table. “This won’t be precise, but it’ll do the job,” she said, matter-of-fact. Then she withdrew a knife from her sleeve and sliced her palm to leak blood onto the parchment. Asa startled at the sight of his mother’s blood. He hadn’t even seen his mother perform incantations very often. When she finished the last word of the spell, different objects with demonic energy lit up with glowing, radioactive red.

  But the brightest red originated from his own House collar.

  “It’s so bright,” Mouse whispered, looking at Asa with awe.

  “Indeed,” the Madame said, not without satisfaction. She leaned forward, the red light painting her skin and clothes a lurid and bloody color. “I can also see now the addendum contract that binds your own power, Asahel.” She smiled. “You must have done something very disobedient for the House to do that to you.”

  Asa swallowed, his throat dry with bitterness. “I don’t think that’s any of your business,” he said stiffly.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The Madame inclined her head. “If you were to make a contract with me, I could undo the restriction,” she said. “You could have access to your full power again.”

  Asa laughed, mirthless. “And what would you want in return?”

  “I won’t obfuscate my terms,” the Madame said calmly. “If you give me your collar, in addition to restoring your magic, I will also significantly reduce your debt to the Station.”

  “And then what would you do with the collar?” Asa asked.

  “I’m afraid that is not part of the terms that I’m offering,” the Madame said, flashing an insincere smile.

  “Then I’m afraid your terms are not satisfactory to me,” Asa said.

  The Madame sighed. “That’s really a shame,” she said, sliding a long, old-fashioned cigarette and red lacquered cigarette holder from the ornate black case on the table. She lit the cigarette with a touch of demonic fire, and when she inhaled, there was no visual difference between this and the red demonic objects. “At least read the terms of the contract on the collar.”

  Asa frowned, his hand drifting upward to touch the collar before slowly unclasping it to locate the tightly written spell on the back. Mouse peered closer as well, her eyes tinting red from the light. “That wasn’t there before,” Mouse said, curious.

  “The contract was dormant until the spell revealed it,” Asa murmured as he started to read through the contract. The script itself was dense and minuscule in size, folding over itself many times because it was so complex. Asa had never seen a spell like this in all of his years as Head Apprentice. “This doesn’t make sense. There has to be at least two parties to every contract. Who would the contract parties be?”

  “That’s easy,” the Madame said, sounding amused. “The contract is on you.”

  He looked down on himself but couldn’t glimpse any sort of contract on his skin, even with the spell that the Madame had completed. Asa shook his head. “There's no way that would be possible,” he said.

  “Who was the person that gave you the collar?” the Madame asked.

  “What does it matter?” Asa said tightly.

  “Well,” she said slowly, gesturing toward the collar. “You should ask them why they did this to you.”

  Asa inhaled sharply, feeling as if she had punched him in the gut. “She had nothing to do with this contract.”

  “Are you certain?” the Madame said. “Can you really look at this contract and tell me that the person who gave this to you truly meant you no harm—?”

  “No,” Asa said fiercely, cutting her off. “She wouldn’t. She would have never have given this collar to me if she had known.”

  “How do you know that?” the Madame said, her tone casual. His mother would have immediately corrected him for interrupting her, but the Madame didn’t seem bothered at all. “You grew up in the House. You should know the kind of people who work there.”

  “The person who gave it to me would have never hurt me,” Asa said harshly.

  “If she didn’t know, then she must be a fool,” the Madame said, taking another leisurely sip of water. “And fools don’t survive long in the House. Whoever this person is, I can’t imagine she’s still alive.”

  Asa’s whole body burned up with fury. “My mother isn’t a fool,” Asa said savagely. “Don’t call her that.” He stood, unable to be in this room with this fun house mirror-mother any longer. She looked like her, and she sounded like her. But she wasn’t her, and he just wanted to fucking go home. “Come on, Mouse, we’re leaving.”

  “Sit down, Asahel,” the Madame barked.

  Mouse looked back and forth between her and Asa as if she was at a planet-side sports’ match.

  Asa stopped at the tone of her voice. The Madame smiled, as if she had successfully performed another spell. “You know what’s interesting,” she drawled, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs. “We have the same last name. You look just like me. You even bring my own robotic work with you—I can recognize my own digital signature, you know.”

  PQ-9 made a sharp beep of protest.

  The Madame smiled wider. “I can only conclude that I must exist in your time-line—and that in some unimaginable circumstance, I had a son.”

  Asa stared at her with wide eyes, her smile slicing into him with no affection in her gaze.

  “Are you certain that you don’t want to make a contract with me?” she said.

  “How could I make a contract with you?” Asa said, his heart squeezing in his chest. “I don’t trust you.”

  “Where did you get the idea that contracts require trust?” she said. “If I know myself, then you are truly a foolish boy for believing that you can trust your Galatea Rex.” She slowly exhaled smoke into the room, which swirled in abstract shapes. Mouse started to cough, and PQ-9 tossed her Asa’s handkerchief.

  “You don’t know my mother like I do,” Asa said doggedly.

  “It’s a pity that we couldn’t come to a civil agreement,” the Madame said, sounding sincerely regretful. “I’ll just have to—”

  Asa could only read her lips move in the formation of demonic dialect, something incomprehensible where all sound drained from the world, his ears clogging as more smoke escaped from her mouth. For the first time, Mouse looked afraid. Asa’s heart ached as he grabbed Mouse’s wrist to pull her from the sofa, but he couldn’t get his legs underneath himself—and then sound suddenly returned all at once, too loud, as she said the final word of the spell.

  Red, demonic light blurred his vision as Asa collapsed onto the sofa, all of the strength draining out of him—and then everything went black.