Page 65 of The Exorcism of Faeries

“Yes, yes, I’m amazing.” Emmy started helping Atta gather her study materials, throwing a couple of pens into the satchel while Atta put on her shoes. “Do you need this one?” Emmy pointed a finger toward the book Atta had just opened, then bent in to look, her face twisting in horror. “Christ, that’s ghastly.”

Atta tied the laces of her Oxfords and stood from the bed to see what had bothered Emmy. “Oh.” She marked the page with a dried sprig of lavender and closed it. “That’s a chapter on possession.”

Emmy wrinkled her nose. “Cute.”

They left the lads a note to meet them at The Buttery for a bite to eat before afternoon classes and headed for the library, where Atta suggested a certain row and a certain desk where she’d unknowingly first laid eyes on a certain professor nearly a decade earlier.

Emmy complained about the rain ruining her hair for at least three minutes before someone from the next row stomped over, told her to hush, and she finally pulled out her study materials, both of them sinking themselves into their work.

Atta went directly to the page she’d marked after her fanciful fairytale poem quotation, discovering it was a chapter on possession she recalled from undergrad but hadn’t paid much attention to other than what was needed for her exams.

The photo that had disturbed Emmy was a painting depicting Sister Palmerín, a nun who was possessed after Urbain Grandier, a Catholic priest, made a pact with the devil. The poor nun was prostrate on a small bed, terrified, while a winged demon floated above, only visible to her.

Atta read on, stopping to look over the images of the alleged pact between Grandier, Satan, Leviathan, Astaroth, and several other minor demons.

The next page had her blood running cold the moment she set her eyes on it.

In the painting, a woman was on the floor, her back arched, her eyes rolling back. A priest stood before her, a shining icon of Mother Mary illuminating a burst of small, winged demons that had erupted from the woman’s chest. Atta held the page to the light, noticing for the first time that the woman’s veins were black, crawling up her neck like vines. Her chest was split open where the beasts had flown out, and her heart was not an anatomically correct organ at all but a bloody rose.

Adrenaline flooding her veins with ice, Atta crouched closer to look at the demons. They almost looked like little trooping faeries, only they had horns.

She let out a gasp. What if they weren’t demons at all?

“I have to go.” She grabbed all of her things in one sweeping motion, holding them close as she rushed out of the library, Emmy calling after her.

Everything was soaked by the time she made it to Sonder’s office, and she rushed in, dripping all over the floor.

He stood from his chair so quickly that his coffee cup fell to the floor and shattered. “What is it? Are you hurt?”

She didn’t answer. Breathing hard, she slammed his door shut with her foot and dropped everything to the floor, crouching on her knees and spreading it all out.

Sonder joined her on the floor. “Atta, what’s going on?”

She still didn’t answer. Instead, she flipped to the painting. Pointed at the beasts. Looked at him.

“Atta,what is it?”

“What if they’re not demons but faeries?”

“You’re not making any sense. . .”

“What if the Plague is not an infection but a possession? What if they’re not Infected, but Inhabited?” His brows pinched, but she ploughed forward. “Think about it. The strange coins, the flora. . . Where is itfrom?”

Sonder’s mouth dropped open. He looked from Atta to the painting, lifting the book so he could better see it. “The veins in her neck. . .”

“Look at her heart.”

“Holy hell.” He sat back on his heels. “Atta, this is madness.”

“But you think I’m right.”

“I–” Shock was writ across his features in harsh lines. “Yes, I do.”

“We need a live patient, Sonder. A live Inhabited.”

“First we need to understandwhy. What they could possibly want with us and how they select us. We need another cadaver, too.”

“Sonder.”

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