"I didn't murder Reiko." Her voice shook.

"The penalty is stitchery, Serafina. So, I'll ask you, child, what the wolf asked Red Riding Hood: Which path do you prefer-the path of pins or the path of needles?"

That question, with its hint of ancient rituals and primitive evil, stripped away all the false valor the elixir had given her. When one of the Wolf's cool strong hands, heavy with rings, landed atop hers, Finn flinched and her stomach heaved.

"No," Lot gently said, "don't be ill. That's ugly."

"My sister . . ." She could scarcely speak past the bile clogging her throat.

"Don't worry about your sister. She chose her path." His jeweled fingers encircled her wrist and caressed the bracelet of silver charms that had been Lily's. The silver didn't burn him. He smiled and it reminded her of a dark winter road glittering with blood and broken glass. Softly, he said, "And where did you get this pretty charm?"

She pulled her hand from his. "You know."

He settled back into the shadows. She gazed out the window and wondered what it would be like to die.

JACK AND MOTH HAD MANAGED to steal two motorcycles-antlered bikes of green-sheened brass taken from the parking lot of a coffeehouse with an eye of bioluminescent glass as its sign. Jack was able to start his engine, but it took Moth a few attempts to get the ignition working on his. As they roared away, Jack glanced at Moth-whatever Moth was, he was far more than an aisling.

As they followed the Grindylow compass toward the house of the Wolf, Jack whispered Finn's name as if it could become a living thing and travel to her upon the air.

SETH LOT HAD CEASED SPEAKING TO HER and sat in the shadows. Finn preferred it when he spoke, because at least, then, he was pretending to be human. She huddled against the door and watched the Ghostlands glide past and thought, I can't die. Not now.

As the Rolls swerved around a corner, he called out, "Easy, Hester."

The name sent an icy blade of dread into Finn's heart. When she glimpsed the chauffeur's reflection in the rearview mirror, she thought at first that it was another betrayal.

Hester Kierney, her silver eyes making her an alien thing, met Finn's gaze in the mirror. Her hair had gone diamond white; her skin was alabaster, as if all the blood had been drained from her. She's one of the dead now, Finn thought as Hester whispered, "Finn . . . I had to."

Rigid with rage, Finn turned to Seth Lot. "She's one of the blessed."

"She wanted immortality. Didn't you, Hester? She was quite frightened and alone when I found her. Oh, she didn't betray you. She stumbled into the Ghostlands by accident. She chose the path of needles, so I filled her with her favorite flower and stitched her up. She had to hurt first. But she's not afraid any longer, are you, Hester?"

Watching the back of Hester's head, remembering her as gracious and sweet and alive, Finn dug her nails into the seat leather and managed to speak past a violent urge to be sick. "I don't think that's what she meant when you forced her to make that choice."

Hester spoke as if each word were a link to sanity. "He helped me. I didn't want to die, Finn. I was alone."

You're dead now. Finn wanted to scream as Seth Lot placed his beautiful hands on the wolf head of his walking stick and smiled and said, "And that is why you should be careful what you wish for. I could have fed her her own heart, which I used to do with my Jacks and Jills. Or twisted her into a thing that kills. Here we are."

Finn dragged her gaze to the house that appeared as the Rolls-Royce rounded a forested curve in the road. The Wolf's mansion was as forbidding as she'd imagined it, a Gothic chateau, spiny and crooked, a deformed creature looming in caverns of briars and cradled by black alders like the broken bones of giants. Two stone wolves guarded a cracked stair leading up to a pair of medieval-looking doors. The house's leprous-white marble and blanched stone were stained nearly black by a sludge of dead leaves and moss.

The Rolls-Royce halted in the weed-choked driveway. Hester got out and opened the back door. Seth Lot exited the car and began strolling up the lane.

Standing with Hester, Finn studied the ruined house. Her vision was suddenly blurred by tears she furiously blinked back. "Why aren't there guards?"

"He doesn't need any. Who'd be crazy enough to break in?"

"Hester." Finn turned to her, but Hester looked away.

"No worries, Finn. The number-one law of nature is adapt or die. Give me your backpack."

With a shaking hand, Finn held the backpack out to Hester, who took it and began moving down the lane, the heels of her boots clicking against a pavement clotted with toadstools and lined at intervals with rusty metal poles holding empty birdcages. Finn followed. The house was worse close up, decrepit and dark, its windows shattered. The exterior walls were streaked with reddish stains. The miasma of rot and mold drifted in a clammy vapor from the shadows beyond the gaping windows. As they walked through an evil-looking garden scattered with headless statues and debris that seemed to have come from the destruction of other houses, Finn stepped over a porcelain sink and avoided a broken rocking chair.

Lily was in that awful place.

Whatever alchemy the elixir was working on Finn's body, heightening her adrenaline, alerting her to any movement around her, it also kept her from breaking.

Seth Lot moved up the split stairs and touched the doors. As they opened, the house shimmered into a gorgeous, lamp-lit mansion of snowy marble and pale granite with friezes of briar roses around stained-glass windows and a garden that bloomed around Finn into a winter-touched fairyland of white roses and statues with the beautiful faces of remorseless angels.

"Come along, Serafina." The Wolf, a shadow now, turned in the light from the house and extended one hand.

HE LED HER, WITH HESTER, down a starkly elegant hall and paused in front of a scarlet door. He took a key from his pocket. Finn scarcely noticed the key, waiting for that door to open and reveal her sister.

The door clicked inward. He gestured to her. "The house wants to welcome you."

She stepped past him- -and into a birch forest. She staggered. There was snow beneath her boots. A road. The sky was gray. The elixir hummed through her like thousands of dragonfly wings.

A twitching, girlish shadow stood at the road's end. It was . . . wrong.

Finn whirled, to run- -and came face-to-face with her silver-eyed double.

It was an alabaster creature wearing the same ruffled dress, only in black. Her-its-hair was tangled with tiny bones and red berries. Black spirals were painted beneath eyes as inhuman as moonlight on mirrors. It exuded harm and malice.

Finn stepped back, clutching at a tree for balance. She whispered, "Don't-"

"Don't." It mimicked her voice exactly.

Finn choked out, "What are you?"

"What are you?" The thing smiled at her, its teeth small and sharp.

"I'm not afraid of you," Finn lied. "What are you?"

"Your future."

Finn shook her head. In folk tales, meeting one's double was never a good thing. Carefully, she said, "I'm Finn Sullivan. You are nothing."

The creature hissed and vanished.

Finn now stood in an enormous hall, its stone walls hung with threadbare tapestries and ancient weapons. A black velvet chair was draped with a fur-lined coat. Before her was a door of gray wood carved with images of snarling wolves. She strode forward and gripped the doorknob, tried to twist it. When it didn't turn, she slammed both fists against the wood. "Stop playing games! I don't like your damn house and where is Lily?"

The door opened.

Finn peered into a girly, Victorian bedroom that was all creams and ivories, the large bed veiled by gossamer curtains patterned with butterflies, the open windows revealing a Ghostlands night. A girl sat on a sofa of white velvet, her head bowed, long dark hair concealing her face.

"Lily?" Finn stepped in, hope tearing at her.

The girl raised her head-and it was Reiko Fata who smiled at her.

The door slammed shut behind Finn. She backed against it, slid down. Reiko laughed, rising with serpentine grace. "Oh, he said it would be entertaining, your reaction. Who do you think I am?"

Finn wanted to push herself through the door's wood as Reiko sauntered toward her, speaking. "You're the queen killer, a little thing like you . . . He won't tell me which queen you've slain. Did you do it alone, little mayfly?"

Finn couldn't believe how vivid this trick was. "You can't . . . be here . . ."

Reiko leaned close. "Seth said you did it to save a lover. A Jack."

As the Fata queen stepped back, Finn understood what was happening . . . Absalom had said Seth Lot had stolen this house from a creature of dreams, so it held memories, phantoms. This was a Reiko from the past, a memory, trapped here . . . This Reiko wouldn't remember the child Finn she'd nearly drowned, because they hadn't met. This Reiko hadn't yet decided to sacrifice eighteen-year-old Finn at the Teind.

"I have a Jack." Reiko fixed Finn with a playful look. "And I would murder kings and queens for him. You do seem familiar." Reiko approached again. Her green eyes glinted as she reached out- -and gently pulled Finn away from the door to open it. "I don't know what you are, little mayfly, but you belong to the Wolf now. You may roam the house. But you will never leave it."

As the door closed, Finn sank down onto the sofa and began to scheme.

JACK AND MOTH LEFT THEIR MOTORCYCLES in the forest surrounding Lot's house, a looming, hollowed wreck that stank of toadstools and the iron taint of blood that meant mortals had died there. As they slipped closer to the house, reaching the border of the sinister garden, a figure in a grimy, white suit moved from the darkness.

Although Jack had his kris at Leander Cyrus's throat in a heartbeat and Moth had drawn a dagger, Leander calmly said, "You can't take Lily Rose out of the Ghostlands."

"And why is that, Leander?"

"This house, Jack . . . the Wolf's house . . . it once belonged to someone else. This house is a tomb for memories and parts of the past. Ghosts."

A cold despair cut through Jack. "I know that."

"Do you understand why Lily can leave the Wolf's house, but not the Ghostlands?"

"What is he saying?" Moth demanded of Jack. "Lily isn't a ghost. She's real-"

"Listen," Leander's voice broke. "Lily isn't ali-"

"Stop." Jack felt as if everything was collapsing around him. What they had risked to come here . . . He stepped close to Leander. "You are not to tell Finn. And if you betray us, I'll rip out your flower stuffing. Do you understand?"

"I understand"-Leander was somber-"that you are truly Jack Daw again."

"Jack," Moth said quietly, "shall we stick to the plan?"

Jack sheathed his kris and said to Leander, "So Jill Scarlet got my message to you, did she?"

Leander nodded, his eyes silvery and rimmed with shadows. "I've been waiting . . . I saw Finn . . . she's in there now."

Jack's black heart pulsed and he almost snarled. "Get us in, Cyrus."

Leander turned and led them down a tunnel of briars that clung to their skin and hair. Jack, silent as the night itself, felt a predator thriving within him. They pushed through a decaying door into a courtyard where a tower rose at the back of the mansion over which a lavish glamour had fallen. The tower's stained-glass windows glowed with light, its walls covered with wickedly thorned briars and roses as pale and perfumed as a Fata queen's false skin.

"That's Lot's room"-Leander indicated-"at the top. It's the last place he'll expect anyone to attempt."

"Grab a vine. We're going up."

"Jack?"

The voice caused Moth and Leander to whirl around, but Jack turned slowly, ready to kill the girl in her white chauffeur's uniform.

The familiar face, despite the white hair and Fata eyes, made him pause. He took a step forward. "Hest-"

Moth slid past him, grabbed her, and kissed her on the mouth.

As Moth cascaded into light and shadow, Hester backed away from the insect that emerged and glided away. She looked at Jack. "You can't help me."

"Hester." Jack held out a hand. "Come with us."

"Just . . . help her. I'll try to distract him." She turned and ran.

Leander cursed. Jack gazed at the tower, rage coursing through him. "Let's climb."

"Jack-"

"She won't give us away, and Moth is doing his part."

The briars made them bleed, but Jack and Leander climbed quickly. Reaching a ledge, Jack hauled himself up. He broke the window with his elbow, unlatched it, and swung it open, then slid over the sill into an elegant chamber of black, green, and gold. A fire burned in a hearth. The deceptive debris of books and masculine ornaments was scattered everywhere.

The strength left him as Sylph Dragonfly's illusion was stripped away from him. He collapsed to his knees, retching, and began to choke up wet, red petals. He heard Leander speaking frantically, but the buzzing in his ears kept him from understanding. His heart slammed to true life and he tasted blood in his mouth. No. Not now. He couldn't become mortal now . . .

The horror of returning to being a Jack had been a price he'd been willing to pay, to save Finn. When he saw his shadow stretching across the floor, he began to shake.

"Well done, Leander." The velvety voice hit Jack like a train. "You've earned your reward for bringing him to me. Go on."

"Jack." Leander moved past Jack, who was on all fours now and feeling every injury he'd recently received. "I'm sorry, Jack. He knew. He knew you were coming."

Struggling not to fall, Jack raised his head and managed to rasp out, "You've killed all of us."

As Leander fled, Jack focused on Seth Lot. The Wolf lounged against a bedpost as the room slowly faded into a dark, stone chamber, the bed becoming pillars strung with rusted chains and gruesome totems of bones and teeth. There were stains on the floor. The windows had metal grilles. "Can you hear me, Jack?"

A shudder racked Jack's body as he gasped out, "Where is Finn?"

The booted foot that slammed into his side sent him flat to the floor. He coughed, spat blood as Seth Lot circled him, the rings of the Fata kings and queens he'd murdered shining on his fingers. "Are you hurting, Jack?"

Through sheer force of will, Jack dragged himself into a crouch.

"It's what you wanted, wasn't it?" Seth Lot's foot shoved him down again. "To be a real boy. After all the trouble Reiko and I went through to make you invincible."

Jack clenched his teeth and grabbed a chain on one of the pillars, pulling himself up, wincing as the bits of bone on the chain bit into his fingers. Seth Lot continued to circle. "Serafina is such a fine, brave girl. I think Reiko made a mistake, calling her a mayfly. Underestimating her."

Jack whispered, "I caused Reiko's death, not-"

Seth Lot slammed his walking stick against Jack's chest. Jack cried out and clutched at the pillar to keep from falling. He retched. "Don't dissemble, my Jack." Lot threw an arm around his shoulders, smiled, and, with false, threatening intimacy, said, "Did you know I once thought of you as one of the best of your kind? When Reiko botched the Teind for you one hundred years ago, I realized that was what made you dangerous. To her. And now you've slain her, you and that fine, brave girl."

Jack could feel the grinding of a broken collarbone. He said in a low voice, "I think a Fata who murders mortals and other Fatas shouldn't toss around accusations."

"Maybe I'll let you live long enough to watch me cut her open and stitch her full of flowers. What flower should it be? Something innocent but exotic."

Jack used the last of his strength to twist free and kick at Lot's throat. The Wolf disdainfully struck him across the face with his walking stick and Jack fell, blood filling his broken nose. Exhaustion crept over him, worse than the pain.