She squinted at him. "Someday, that kissing thing isn't going to work."

"Then I'll have to think of something else." He swaggered onward with a grin.

They passed three young men in red bowler hats, slouched against a gypsy wagon painted black. Within the wagon were birdcages, all of them empty. Finn turned in place when a girl in an aviator's cap and leather dress strolled past, her silver eyes as reflective as a cat's.

"Most of those who come here are changelings," Jack told Finn. "Or aislings. Mortals, stolen away, who've become strange and inhuman. This is a place to purchase Fata things that delight or terrorize, help or harm."

"Jack," Moth whispered, "we need to keep out of the light. Finn's shadow . . ."

Finn noticed the darkness stretching from the toes of her Doc Martens to the nearest lamp. She glanced up and around at the Fatas, none of whom had shadows. She swore softly.

As Jack and Moth steered her among pavilions less well lit, Jack said, "This'll sound like odd advice-but don't touch your dagger or any weapon unless you need to. Contact with weapons invites violence, in this place."

Finn slid her hand from the silver dagger in her coat as Jack gently tugged her toward a ribboned pavilion that stood beneath a birch tree strung with blue lanterns. A young black man sat on a thronelike chair beneath it, surrounded by a collection of ornamental bottles in jeweled hues. As Jack, Finn, and Moth approached, he leaned forward. Jack drew back his hood and the black youth said in a jovial tone, "Jack Daw. Where have you been? And who are your charming companions?"

"I've been elsewhere. And let's call my companions Kate and John. Kate and John, this is Teig Lark-alchemist, moonshiner, and medicine man."

"Also, poisoner." Teig Lark's smile glittered. His snow-bright hair hung in thick braids. He wore white jeans and rings on his bare toes. "But not so much now that monarchy is dead. So, Jack, are you here to trade for something? Apple Love perfume for your lady? A DragonSteel potion to fight an enemy?"

"The elixir."

Teig Lark's smile vanished. "Then I shall need to speak with you privately."

"No. She doesn't leave my-"

"Jack." Teig Lark became somber. "I deal in secrets. You don't want some of the things you know to reach other ears. I'll leave the flap open, and you'll be able to see your companions." He rose and slipped into the pavilion.

"And just what kind of secrets aren't we supposed to know?" Moth demanded.

"If I told you, they wouldn't be secrets." Jack ducked into the star-patterned pavilion and he and Teig Lark began speaking in low voices, Jack keeping his gaze on Finn.

Moth slouched against the birch. Finn sank to the ground beneath it, rummaging in her backpack for a Slim Jim and a can of espresso. "Do you want some?"

Moth looked disdainful. "No."

"Moth . . . that fruit, back there-"

"That was goblin fruit-spells encased in things made to look like fruit. Those Fata men would have gotten more from you than teeth or blood or a kiss." He looked impatient. "I believe there's a poem about goblin fruit. Haven't you read it?"

"Maybe. Get some food." She gestured to the fair and decided she wouldn't be sampling any fruit here. "You're a changeling, so you can eat, right? I can hear your stomach growling and you're getting grouchy."

"There's a girl selling soup-" He nodded to a Fata girl spooning soup into wooden bowls. Dressed in striped tights and an Elizabethan corset, she looked like she belonged in a modern Shakespeare play.

"What will she ask for?"

"I suppose I shall find out." Since Moth rarely smiled, it was startling when he did. He called out, "Hey! Soup Girl!"

Incredibly, the soup girl answered this uncivilized summons and sauntered over. She looked Moth up and down, from his tousled pewter hair, to his battered boots. "And what would you like?"

"How much for-"

The Fata girl stepped forward and kissed him. As light and shadow rayed out around him, Finn jumped up, grabbed her backpack, and swung it at the Fata girl.

Someone blew shimmering pollen into Finn's face. She inhaled, stumbled back, and raised an arm to shield herself.

"JACK." TEIG LARK SPOKE the moment they were in the pavilion. "I don't want anything-I owe you. That pretty boy with you? He isn't whatever he's pretending to be. He stole the hearts from two Fatas, both of whom came looking for him."

"Moth?"

Outside, Finn cried out and raised an arm as if shielding herself. Jack started toward her. "Finn!"

"Jack!" Teig Lark tossed an object to him.

Jack caught the tiny bottle and dove out of the pavilion- Something hit him hard in the face. He fell back, stunned. He heard Teig Lark yell and stumbled up, his vision sparking.

Someone grabbed his shoulder. He whirled, striking out.

A pretty Jill in a sundress-and he knew she was a Jill from the glint of death in her eyes-smiled at him.

He avoided the blade in her hand, twisted, kicked out, and caught her in the ribs. She fell, rolled up. He slammed a hand into her head. She collapsed, her dagger spiking into the grass.

When Jack realized Finn and Moth were gone, he stood very still.

He had lost her.

FINN GROGGILY LIFTED HER HEAD and saw lamps of yellow glass dangling in front of black drapes patterned with gold suns. She was in a pavilion. A human-sized doll made from wax was seated in a chair. A large wooden harp formed into a girl stood in a corner. There was a sentience to the doll and the harp that made her skin crawl- "Fairy dust," she said through her teeth, remembering the flung glitter and falling asleep. She struggled to rise.

Someone grabbed her. As she was hauled out of the pavilion, she lashed out. She was released. She staggered back and stared at a golden-haired figure in a white suit. "Leander?"

"That"-Leander pointed to the pavilion-"belongs to Lot's lieutenant. She's here with Caliban."

"Caliban already attacked us."

"Go back to Jack, Finn. I can't help you." He began walking.

She strode alongside him. "Did you help Seth Lot steal Lily? Did you?"

"You shouldn't have come."

"I saw you bleed. You still love her! What did you expect me to do, Leander? Forget her? Pretend she was really dead? Seth Lot came to me and told me to find him or he'd kill Lily. Seven days, Leander. I have seven days."

Leander stepped back, whispered, "No . . ."

"Just tell me how to get Lily out of the Wolf's house. And where it is."

"I don't know where it is and you can't get her out. I'll find your sister. But I won't give you to the Wolf in exchange." He leaned close to her and whispered, "They're watching me, Finn. I can't help you. Return to Jack before they get him."

He backed away and vanished among the pavilions. She started after him, realized he might be leading them, the enemy, away.

She turned and ran through the fair, terror for Jack causing her to shove past Fatas, to ignore anything that might be following.

A fist slammed into her stomach. She fell to the ground, blood filling her mouth as she bit through her lip and curled around pain.

Then she was being dragged through the shadows, away from the fair, into the field. She spat blood and yelled, attempting to clutch at grass, weeds, dandelions, until her hands were streaked with green. When she was finally released, she heard a voice that made her flinch. "Well. That was easy."

She raised her head to see Caliban walking around her. "Do you know who's going to gut your Jack? David Ryder's Jill. You remember the Stag Knight, don't you? The one who burned? His Jill is with the Wolf. And she doesn't like you."

Fighting the pain in her skull, Finn bit her lip against a whimper. Don't let him know how scared you are.

A summery breeze drifted through her hair. She smelled flowers. She focused on something not far away, a blur of yellow. Daisies, her mom's namesake. She remembered her mom making daisy chains in the spring. Protection from the fairies, she'd say.

Finn scrambled up, reeling, and lunged.

Caliban snarled, "Oh, no, you don't."

She rolled into the circle of daisies, where she lay, staring up at the night sky. She waited breathlessly, her stomach clenched, hands curled at her sides.

AS JACK HUNTED FOR FINN, anger and fear tearing him to pieces, he ripped open pavilions and pushed into stalls and wagons.

Then he saw Leander striding toward him.

"Where is she?" He stalked toward Leander, who backed away. "I don't know, Jack. She didn't go back to y-"

There was an immense rustling, like the leaves of a thousand trees being struck by the wind. Jack's body iced.

He stared around at the cavernous forest that now surrounded the pavilions and glittering rides. Scarborough Fair, which had not been scheduled to leave until winter's end, had moved and taken him with it.

AS CALIBAN CROUCHED outside of the daisy circle, Finn sat up and slid as far away from him as the border of flowers would allow.

"Lucky you," he said. "And clever. Daisies . . . bloody stinking things. But you can't stay in there forever."

She was exhausted-she'd been running from this psycho all night and it had been a very long night. Her voice scraped out of her. "The Wolf sent you to separate me and Jack, didn't he? It's part of his game . . . a trick . . ."

Caliban shrugged, his predatory gaze fastened on her.

"Calib-"

"Don't," he hissed. "Don't say my name. You took her away from me."

The fair looked miles away. Jack didn't know where she was. She had to stall. She said, "Reiko never loved you-she loved Jack. That's why she died. And you never loved her-you don't bleed. You really are nothing-"

He leaped at her.

He fell back, choking. When he scrambled up, there were cinder marks on his skin-as if the daisy pollen had burned him.

Finn continued with shaky bravado, "Are daisies like napalm to you people?"

"My people"-he rose to prowl the circle and she stood also, teetering a little and pressing one hand against her sore midriff-"are harder to kill. Not fragile, like you lot, with all your bits and pieces that come off so easily."

"You were once one of us," she whispered.

"I should slap your mouth for saying that." His voice was ugly.

She stumbled on something, caught herself, glanced down to see Christie's book of poetry spilled from her backpack and open on the grass. A breeze ruffled the pages.

"You can't stay in there forever, leannan."

"You said that already." Finn waited until the book's pages settled. "Jack and Moth will find me."

"Is that what he's calling himself? Moth? Lot's fancy aisling. Let me tell you, darling, some things about Jack and Moth, because I knew them, way back when-"

"'It is bitterness to my heart, to see my father's place forlorn.'"

He took a step back.

She continued reading from the poetry book that had drifted open to that particular poem, "'No hounds, no packs of dogs.'"

He growled. Jack had once told her that Caliban, long ago, had been a Celtic chieftain's son who'd been tricked away by the Fatas and had returned to his home, years later, only to find his loved ones aged to dust and bones. She read on, relentlessly, "'No women and no valiant kings.'"

"Stop. Where did you-" His gaze dropped to the book. He snarled, looked up, past her. Then he smiled and said, "You're on your own."

He vanished into the night.

She stood, turning toward Scarborough Fair.

It was gone.

The lights and noise had been replaced by silence. The empty field with the abandoned factory rising in the middle was dark but for the flickering of those menacing orbs. Jack had said, It moves, and so Scarborough Fair had.

Finn stood, cold and alone, in the dark.

The orbs swarmed and came at her.

JACK AND LEANDER FOUND David Ryder's Jill still unconscious and hauled her into the pavilion with the harp and the wax doll. When her eyes opened, Jack gently asked her where Finn was. She laughed and told him that Caliban had taken her.

Jack didn't kill her. He turned and walked out and Leander followed.

"Jack, he won't hurt her. Lot doesn't want that."

"No. He wants to play games with the lives of two girls." If Jack thought about all the things that could happen to Finn in the Ghostlands, he would lose his mind. The presence of David Ryder's former Jill couldn't be a coincidence, either-she'd been lying in wait.

"There's a train station near. We can go back to where Scarborough was-"

"What town is this?" Jack asked.

"King's Highway."

"The way back is too far. I have a friend who lives near here. Maybe he can help us."