Jack nodded once. "The Wolf. This will lead us to the Wolf's house?"

"I've tinkered with it. It'll send you in any direction you want." Absalom moved into the room, peered at the Cheshire Cat clock on the wall. "Do you know why a raven's like a writing desk?"

Irritated by Absalom's verbal wandering, Finn planted herself in front of him. "Did you come here to help us or talk a lot of crazy?"

Absalom gently told her, "If the Wolf sent a Grindylow after that boy you call Moth, he knows Moth has escaped him. And then there's Leander Cyrus . . . Phouka doesn't trust either one of them."

"I want Moth with us." Finn sat on the edge of her bed. "He says he remembers the inside of Seth Lot's house-and we can't find Leander."

"Seth Lot's house." Absalom sat in the rocking chair, picked up a National Geographic magazine, and began leafing through it. "Do you understand the nature of how we travel? Has Jack told you?"

Finn looked at Jack, who dropped with a sigh into her red plush chair as Absalom continued, "To prevent mortals crossing into the Ghostlands, a skeleton key was created-get it? A skelet-never mind. Reiko used the seven abandoned houses of the blessed: LeafStruck, MoonGlass, etc.; Phouka sealed all those. Now there's only one Way into the Ghostlands-for mortals-and one key, divided between Phouka and Rowan Cruithnear. Phouka will give you her half of the key." He hunched forward in his chair. "The Wolf stole his domicile from a creature of dreams. The house travels. You must get your sister out while his house is in the Ghostlands, because there you can pin his house in place. The house will cease to exist, in either world, until he finds whatever pinned it. You'll then be able to escape."

"How do we pin his house?" Finn leaned forward.

"I don't know how, Finn Sullivan. With iron, I suppose. But you won't find iron there, and you can't bring it . . . iron transforms into something else in the Ghostlands."

"Sacred wood," Jack said. "Reiko once used sacred wood to hold Lot's house down."

"There you go then." Absalom tucked the National Geographic into his coat, stood up, and began sauntering toward the glass doors. "One more thing: Lot's house . . . it hoards dreams, memories, phantasms. If you get in, be careful."

Jack was gazing at Absalom with dark skepticism. As the Fata opened the glass doors, Finn got to her feet and strode after him, onto the terrace. Jack remained in the chair, examining the Grindylow's heart.

Finn shivered in the winter night. "Absalom, what will the Ghostlands do to Jack?"

"He already died, technically, so don't worry about it."

"Absalom-"

"Finn, you're very young." He turned to her and his voice was gentle. "You believe you've lived your entire short life to find love. Life is more than that. Do you understand that Jack is still immortal, that his every molecule now mimicking human is really still 'other'? He wasn't transformed by that divine fire-he was offered a form, and he chose the form of something he'd always wanted to be-a mortal. It's an illusion."

"He's real, Absalom. He has a soul."

"Have you ever heard of the Tamasgi'po, Finn? No? 'Spirit in a kiss,' a lethal poison to our kind because it infects us with memories. And we are old, some of us. What are memories but the cellular structure of a soul?"

"Absalom," Finn hesitated, "do you have a soul?"

"Oh, we don't believe in souls." Absalom began moving down the stone stairs. "Which is why we try so very hard not to die."

CHAPTER 6.

May their backs be towards us, their faces turned away from us, and may God save us from harm.

-OLD IRISH SAYING Since Finn needed to meet with the HallowHeart professors to ask for their half of the skeleton key into the Ghostlands, she went to the one professor she grudgingly knew better than the others-Jane Emory.

Jane Emory's cottage was located at the end of a woodsy, residential road, and it was exactly what Finn had expected-a charming oasis of wind chimes, stone sun faces, and clay cherubs. The garden was now veiled beneath snow. Attached to the kitchen was a small greenhouse.

As Finn stepped into the kitchen, Miss Emory opened the fridge and drew out plates of neat little sandwiches and a pasta salad. "Would you like tea or this green juice I blended? I forgot what I put in it . . . kale, garlic-"

"I'll take the tea, thanks, Miss Emory." Finn, draping her coat over a chair, noticed the alarming amount of rabbit figurines in the kitchen-not cuddly ones either. Some were primitive totems; others, disturbing hybrids of human and animal.

"Please call me Jane." As Jane lifted the plastic wrap from the tea sandwiches, she said, "I wanted to talk to you about Halloween night."

"Why weren't you there?"

"Sophia Avaline wanted me to look after your father while she and the others went to watch over you and your friends. I think Sophia suspected something terrible was going to happen. I think she put safeties in place."

Finn sat down and remembered Sophia Avaline's white face the moment Reiko had announced Finn was to be the sacrifice. "What about Dean Cruithnear?"

Jane hesitated. "I honestly believe he didn't suspect it would be you. It would have been helpful if he'd told us about the sacrifice in the first place . . . Perhaps he thought it was none of our business because Nathan Clare had agreed to it."

"Professor Avaline said, that night, the sacrifice is something that must be done, to keep the peace. She didn't seem surprised."

"Of course she said that-Reiko needed to believe we were harmless, that we'd accept whatever she threw at us." Jane looked at her. "They all had knives, you know, and Wyatt had a revolver filled with silver bullets. If any of the Fatas had even suspected that Wyatt and the others were armed . . ."

Finn's eyes widened as she imagined what would have happened if the professors had gone to war with the Fatas.

Jane sighed. "When I saw you in your kitchen on Halloween night . . . I knew. I just knew something had gone wrong. And then I glimpsed Absalom Askew behind you. He winked at me."

"Absalom."

Jane turned to put the kettle on. "From what we've noticed, Absalom is an unstable element."

"You think? And you mean an unstable elemental." As Finn selected one of the sandwiches, Jane continued, "Before Halloween, Absalom told James Wyatt that Jack would be the death of you."

Finn frowned at the sandwich. The sunlit kitchen suddenly seemed to darken as if a cloud had passed over the sun.

"Sophia Avaline believed it was a warning." Jane sat down. "So they all brought iron or silver, sharp things hidden in their clothes, because who would suspect a bunch of college professors to be armed? Before all hell broke loose, Sophia, Hobson, Wyatt, Charlotte Perangelo, and yes, even Edmund Fairchild, were all prepared to battle through that ring of malevolence to free you, armed with nothing more than old-timey kitchen implements and fancy silverware and Wyatt's Colt." Jane rose to lift the whistling kettle from the stove. "But you and Jack pretty much allowed us to remain neutral. Halloween . . . well, that was a game changer."

"Despite what Sophia Avaline said that night, about allowing me to be sacrificed to keep the peace, you don't intend to ever let the Fatas take another life, do you?"

Jane set two mugs down on the table. "We've failed at that, haven't we? Angyll Weaver was murdered. And Nathan . . . no one knows what happened to Nathan."

Finn bit into her sandwich even as her stomach convulsed.

"Finn, the Fatas are like earth, fire, water, and air. They can either help or harm-and Reiko's Fatas seemed intent on harm."

"You allowed her to get away with so much."

"We didn't allow it." Jane's voice was filled with sorrow. "We couldn't stop it."

"How did you find out about the Fatas? I mean, you, personally?"

"Each of us encountered them in our teens-not Reiko's Fatas, but others. And we kept our memories of them even after we got older. That's not common. It was Rowan Cruithnear and Sophia Avaline who found each of us and organized us, and Rowan Cruithnear who gave us jobs in this very haunted town."

"So there are probably others like you? In the country? The world?"

"It would be nice if we knew that. Rowan had to stop searching after a while. But you asked how I found out about the Fatas." Jane chose a sandwich. "I was eighteen. In Virginia Beach, at dusk, I met a boy on the seashore. He was lovely and charming and he had hair as red as reef coral. No one else ever saw him. He was my secret."

Finn wished she hadn't guessed where this story was going.

Jane stirred cream into her tea. "I began to get sick. I was tired all the time."

"You weren't . . . ?"

"No, I wasn't pregnant. But I learned, after my parents took me to a doctor, that I'd lost a lot of blood."

"Oh." Finn sat back.

"He was what they call, in Irish mythology, a ganconer, a love-talker. In Greece, he would be an incubus. He was bleeding me and taking away the memory of it. He was also a creature of the sea tribes, the water Fatas, who are in no way friendly to us."

"How did you know it was him? The red-haired boy?"

"I did some research. I wrapped up an old iron spoon and went to meet him. But it's as if he knew. He never showed up. I never saw him again. After that, though, I could tell . . . I noticed others."

"So he was like a mermaid love-talker?"

"He didn't have a tail." Jane smiled wryly.

"My sister once did a drawing of a mermaid, with starfish and crabs in her hair. She looked like a shark. It was creepy-it wasn't a nice mermaid. Then Lily started to read about mermaids, a lot. Whenever we went to the beach, she wouldn't go in the water. I knew something was wrong. Like she was going crazy. But it wasn't that . . . someone had told her about mermaids."

"Before she met Leander Cyrus?"

"She had an imaginary friend she called Norn."

"Did she?" Jane sounded troubled. Delicately, she continued, "Finn, do you think Jack knew about Lil-"

"No."

"I understand how you feel about him. But he's been badly hurt-manipulated, traumatized. I can't even imagine what he's seen-"

"And I'm only an eighteen-year-old girl who can't possibly understand those things."

"Don't get defensive. Just be careful."

Finn ruthlessly changed the subject. "I've seen Sophia Avaline's sister. Eve."

Jane became startled and wary.

"Her name was Eve, right? She's dead. I mean, well, she's a spirit, I think. And I think Professor Avaline knows. I think she blames Jack."

"Finn." Jane sat back in her chair. "Did he . . . ?"

"Jack didn't kill Eve. It was Reiko." Finn gazed down into her tea. "Jack thought he loved Eve."

Jane was quiet, so Finn filled in the silence: "My sister might be alive, Jane."

Jane lifted her head, her eyes widening, and Finn told her about Moth, Seth Lot, Lily's charm bracelet, and Leander Cyrus. Jane looked dumbfounded, then horrified, as Finn told her that she needed the key to the Ghostlands. "Finn, you can't."

"If you don't help me, I'll find another way."

"Your father-"

"Won't know. And have you heard him when he talks about my sister? No. Because he still can't. Phouka told me no time will pass here while we're gone, as long as we return the way we came."

"Damn her."

Finn leaned forward and calmly said, "My sister, Lily Rose, is a monster's prisoner. If you don't help me-"

"You don't know this is true, Finn."

"Leander loved her and he's a Jack. He bleeds. Jane, you have to-"

"Stop." Jane's voice was strained. "I know what I have to do."

AS JACK ENTERED MURRAY'S ARCADE, he surveyed the throngs of teenagers until he saw Absalom disguised as one of them, standing with a plastic gun and shooting at monsters on a screen.

"Jack." Murray, a Scotsman in his late fifties, approached Jack. The owner of the arcade wore a tracksuit as if he'd just returned from jogging. "A word with you please?"

"About what?"

"Don't be confrontational. Just"-Murray nodded to the exit door-"come join me on the patio."

THE "PATIO" WAS A CEMENT BLOCK with a railing, a view of the alley, and an expensive outdoor grill, all garishly illuminated by Christmas lights strung from the eaves. After brushing snow from one of the plastic chairs, Jack sat and regarded the grill with amusement. "Aren't you afraid someone's going to steal that?"

"Oh, the someones know better." Murray settled into the other chair and glanced around. "I should have brought beer. Would you like me to fetch some Killian's? You are of an age, aren't you?"

Jack was suddenly on edge. "I am."

"And how long have you been that particular age?"

Jack's new heart rocketed. He was on his feet in an instant.

"Now, now." Murray held up both hands. "I'm Scottish-you think I'd not notice the damn fairy folk in my own backyard?"

Jack sat back down. "Do all Scots have this sort of radar?"

"Only the ones with superstitious grandmothers. And you did obtain some antique pieces for me that seemed impossible to acquire. Also, you're always gloomy and ghost-eyed, I never saw you until after sunset, and, as for your 'family'-"

"Okay." Jack settled back, calmer now. "You've got the sight."