Aryyah woke at 3 A.M with nausea so severe she thought she might pass out, her entire body trembling while she knelt on the bathroom floor; Cletus had gone home to his workshop to finish an urgent commission, leaving her alone in the hotel room for the first time in days.

She'd insisted he go, had claimed she was feeling better, but now she regretted sending him away; the sickness was worse than it had been, waves of nausea rolling through her with no relief, and she felt frighteningly weak ...