Will she meet Teresa in forty-five minutes at the bar just west of 7th Street?

She will.

Well, that was easy enough. Now Teresa will just need to figure out what's actually wrong.

And how serious a threat it poses.

It is night, and Eve is at the edge of the city. Near the wall.

This is a poor place, but it was rich once, long ago. Before spire-salt. The streets are of cobblestone, and the buildings are tall and gaunt and vaulted, built of wood and granite: the beams shrunken by the years and pulled taut against the bricks, as if the flesh of the houses has shriveled upon the bone.

Above, the stars glitter indigo in a velvet sky. The moons are out, both of them, but of each only a faint sliver shows. The streetlights, of thin white oil-flame, cast shadows about the street. There are living things in those shadows. Eve does not fear them.

Had they mind enough, they would fear her.

She is wrapped in the darkness, pressed against a building's face, nestled behind an outcrop. Concealed perfectly. It comes naturally to her. Not that there is much necessity: to her prey's human eyes, beyond the faint pools of light cast by the rows of streetlights it would all be blackness.

There is one now.

A woman, no older than Eve herself, emerging from a cheap establishment across the street. With short black hair, and a crimson dress. It is not well-made, but it is meant to look alluring. The woman passes through the light, laughing as she waves to someone inside, and Eve sees the paleness of the skin exposed by the cut of her dress. She is young, and beautiful, and she would hurt very, very prettily.

And yet Eve is not much interested.

She sighs, and shivers, and wraps her arms around herself in the darkness. There is writhing beneath her skin. Impatient. Dissatisfied. A stranger will not be enough. Eve knows this. She always knew this. She came here to discover it anyway, because -- because what choice has she but to struggle?

She wishes for the thousandth time that there was some alien terror she could curse. Some devil on her shoulder. But she remembers. No one ever told her: nobody else even knows, so far as Eve is aware. But she remembers. Every detail, from the very beginning.

The spore that took root in her mother's growing womb, when the sxelanthe struck and the woman, slowed by pregnancy, was not quick enough to escape untouched. The way it floated there, unseen, unknown, beside Eve's half-formed body, basking in the nutrients meant for the human child --

The way it grew, until it was not a spore but a worm. A twisting alien thing, hidden away in the amniotic sac. The way it set upon the fetus, choked it like a misplaced umbilical cord -- drilled a hole through her skull and wormed its way inside --

And ate every last scrap of her brain.

Eve Moreau died twenty-two years ago.

Nothing remains but the sxelanth. A fossil in the shape of a girl.

There is no parasite within her,

because she is the worm.

The woman in red is out of sight now, and still the sxelanth that is Eve stands cocooned in the dark, shivering and needing.

She... She will go to meet Teresa, as she was told.

She arrives at the bar three minutes early. It is not far from where she made to hunt, and so it is one of those old corpse-buildings upon the cobble street. She goes inside and finds a seat. The lights within are dim, and the few people present are dimmer: sunk into their drinks and their thoughts. It suits Eve well. She does not like to be seen or listened to. That is probably why Teresa chose this place.

She arrives precisely on time, wrapped up in her silks and her gemstones, and the door seems to brighten at her presence. This run-down establishment is no place for a high noble, and it is no place where one would display valuables: but Teresa has no fear. She is a pilot. Upon the skill of her jeweled fingers rest all the hopes of all the people the city wide. None will lay a hand on her.

She makes for Eve like a falling icicle.

When she is seated, delicately, opposite Eve in the dark little booth at the corner of the bar, she gives no greeting. She only says:

"I'm sorry, Eve, but you will need to depart."

Eve does not understand.

"From the bar? From the city?"

"From my home and my family," Teresa tells her.

Oh.

There is no shock. There is no panic. There is sadness, but -- was it ever really gone?

So it is over, then. It is only natural. She always knew it would end -- that even these sisters she loves could only tolerate her tainted presence for a time --

Will she be allowed to say goodbye to Lynia?

She thinks of how dangerous she is to that girl, and how Teresa probably knows, and how no one sane would ever let Eve close to a loved one --

Now there is panic.

Teresa's eyes are sharp and stern.

"You are hurting, Eve. I do not want you to hurt, because I care for you. But I care for Lynia more. She loves you dearly, you know."