She looked at me with the same terrible calm she’d had in the hallway.

“Coraline,” I choked out, the word scraping my dry throat.

“Can we — can we talk?” She leaned against the frame and let her gaze sweep over my ruined state.

She knew I had been broken, and she knew she had not had to lift a finger to do it.

“Come in,” she said, barely a whisper, and turned her back and left the door open, and I took a shuddering breath and crossed the threshold, out of my world and into hers.

Chapter 9 — The Price of a Soul