"My place," he told her. "Thank you, Jane." He moved to Finn and bent his head, spoke gently. "Go home. Rest. I'll be the only one who knows where Lily is. I'll be the only one taking her to where we agreed she should stay. Meet me and Moth at Max's Diner at five, with Christopher and Sylvie, and we'll go to Tirnagoth together. Hopefully, Leander will show up when the sun sets."

He kissed her as if she was the last bit of warmth in the world and he was slowly freezing to death. She resisted clutching at him as if she were a child. When he drew back, he lifted the phoenix pendant from beneath his shirt. "I still have this and your ring. My talismans."

She tugged the lionheart locket he'd given her from beneath the neckline of her dress. "I still have this."

"That's my girl." He kissed her one more time, stealing her breath, before striding after Moth and Lily.

Finn found Jane watching her with bright eyes. "You want to hug me again, don't you?"

Jane stepped forward and did just that, and Finn, who had thought it would be awkward, closed her eyes and, for an instant, guiltily remembered her mother.

When Jane stepped away and followed Jack, Finn, repressing a giddy urge to linger in the sunlight, looked around. She loved the sight of so many people. She savored the stray aromas of fast food and car exhaust and coffee. She said to Sylvie and Christie, "It doesn't feel real."

"Finn . . ." Sylvie looked as if she was going to cry. "Jack didn't have a shadow."

"I know. Take me home."

AS CHRISTIE DROVE HIS MUSTANG down the oak-lined road to Finn's home, Finn bit down on her bottom lip and felt her eyes sting. This was the house where she and Lily would be sisters again. All the horrors of the Ghostlands began to dim . . . the terrible deaths of Atheno and Hester . . . phantom Reiko . . . Seth Lot's savage and seductive promises . . .

Then Finn saw the sporty red car parked behind her da's SUV and her stomach twisted up. Christie clenched his hands on the steering wheel. "Is that Professor Avaline's car?"

Finn pulled her backpack into her lap. "It's not what you think. She's not my da's type."

"Call me." Sylvie and Christie said at the same time, as Finn slid from the Mustang, her boots stomping on ice-crusted snow.

"I'll tell you everything when we meet at Max's Diner." She strode up the shoveled path to the front porch.

She slipped into the hall, sloughed her coat, and set her backpack down quietly. She could hear voices in the parlor-her father's and Sophia Avaline's. She stood a moment, absorbing the idea that she was home. With a wrenching pang, she suddenly craved pot roast, a strawberry milk shake, chocolate. What had Lily eaten in that otherworld? Fairy cakes and Goblin fruit and the meat of fantastical beasts?

She moved down the hall and peered into the parlor, where she saw her father hunched on the sectional, hands clasped. Seated on the love seat opposite was Professor Avaline in a little black coat and high-heeled boots. She looked up, directly at Finn, who stepped in with a forced smile. "Da. I stayed at Sylvie's-Oh, hello, Professor Avaline."

"Finn. We need to talk." Her da seemed weary, and afraid. Finn frowned at Avaline, who moved to her feet as Finn's father stood and said, "Thank you, Sophia."

"I'm sorry, Sean." Avaline walked toward Finn.

"What did you tell him?" Finn whispered as she passed.

Professor Avaline spoke so that only Finn could hear. "You should never have been allowed to go where you went. I think it's Jane Emory you should be wary of, Miss Sullivan."

"Did you tell him everyth-"

"Speak to your father, Serafina." Avaline walked to the door. As it closed behind her, Sean Sullivan said, "The power went out last night. I went to check on you." He lifted a folded piece of paper from the coffee table. "I found your letter. And this." He held up Lily Rose's journal. The desperation in his voice scared her. "What is this, Finn? Fairies and boggarts and Lily being stolen away?"

"Da, it's not what you think."

"I thought it was just college, the move . . . I'm losing you, Finn, and I feel there's nothing I can do-"

"Da. The Fatas-"

He blinked as if he'd been struck and said, "What?"

"The Fatas-"

"Finn." Almost distractedly, he set down Lily's journal and the folded letter. "I'm sorry. I'm working so much." He ruffled a hand through his hair and sat, scanning the other papers on the coffee table before shoving aside his open laptop. "I've completely blanked-what were we talking about?"

Finn said faintly, "The letter?"

"I'm sorry. What letter?" He began rummaging among the papers and books. "Damn. I lost my train of thought."

She approached the coffee table and picked up her letter and Lily's journal. "You were saying how I'd left some of my stuff with yours-are you writing again?"

"I am." He smiled ruefully. "You're up early on a Saturday."

Clutching Lily's journal and the letter she'd left her da, Finn watched her father succumb, unawares, to a spell-most adults never acknowledged the Fatas' existence because they couldn't. It was a disturbing thing to witness. "Da-why was Professor Avaline here?"

"She was telling me about Jack. She disapproves of Jack. I told her it was none of her business."

"Okay. Well." Finn backed out of the parlor even though she wanted to hug him-that would seem odd, as, to him, she hadn't been away for a week, only a few hours. "Thanks for trusting me."

She turned, grabbed her backpack, and loped up the stairs.

Her room was cold and dusty despite the sunlight drifting through the gossamer curtains. All her things-the butterflies and moths in shadow boxes, her mother's watercolors of strange and whimsical figures, the Leonor Fini print, the Cheshire Cat clock-none of it seemed to belong to her anymore, but to an entirely different girl.

She sank to the floor, pressing a hand over her mouth. Everything was falling apart: her father's memory; Jack becoming less human; the Wolf ready to break into this world for revenge. But Lily was alive. Lily had stood in the sunlight and hadn't faded away.

A book slid from the shelves, flew across the room, and struck a shadow box on the wall. She flinched. Both book and box fell, the shadow box's glass breaking over the white moth inside. As the pages of the book rustled, Finn reached for it, pulled it toward her. She squinted down at Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, at an illustration of Alice sitting between the Red Queen and the White Queen, each of them crowned like a chess piece. She glanced at the shattered glass, the moth, the book. What was the mysterious entity trying to tell her? Just knowing it wasn't Lily made the hair rise on the back of her neck. Who else could it be . . . ?

"Oh," she breathed, looking up. "Gran Rose?"

CHRISTIE ARRIVED IN THE LATE AFTERNOON, ten minutes after she called. When she flung the glass doors open, he hugged her like a kid. She obligingly put her arms around him, patted his back. "There, there. We already did this."

He stepped back, worry shadowing his eyes. "The Wolf isn't dead, is he?"

"No." She snatched up a coat and put on Jane Emory's sunglasses; the light was still bothering her. She tucked the vials of Tamasgi'po and elixir in one pocket. "Avaline told my da that Jack is bad news. My da found Lily Rose's journal and a letter I left in case I didn't return. He thought I was going crazy."

"What?"

"The minute I mentioned the Fatas, my da forgot what we were talking about." She grabbed her backpack.

Christie followed her onto the terrace and shut the doors behind them. "Why would Avaline tell your dad bad things about Jack? And aren't you tired?"

She shrugged and stomped down the snow-crusted stairs. "Not really. I'm worried about my da's brain being rewired every time the word Fata is brought up. Weren't you covered with ink scrawls last time I saw you?"

He looked rueful. "They faded. Will you slow down?" He strode quickly to keep up with her. "I understand your dad's memory loss is distressing, but I'm a little more concerned about when the Big Bad Wolf is coming back to town."

"I think Phouka and the Black Scissors expected Jack and me to murder the Wolf. Their plan didn't work."

"Well, of course it didn't. That wasn't the reason you went there-you went to get your sister. Don't you think it's their turn to fight the bad guy? Let them do it. Finn, before Sylv and I got out of fairyland, you were being dragged away by a monster tree-ghoul that had been pretending to be your sister. You know how messed up we were? At least Phouka had the decency to tell us you were safe after you got to Cruithnear's."

"I'm sorry. I really am."

"Are they going to help?"

"It's daylight, so Phouka doesn't exist at the moment. And I don't know where the Black Scissors is. Rowan Cruithnear is still in the Ghostlands, and Avaline just stabbed me in the back."

"Oh. So nothing new." He hesitated, then asked, "Why do you think Sylv and I weren't replaced by our doubles?"

"I was told you and Sylvie weren't taken because you were flawed and protected."

"Flaw-oh. I was born hearing impaired. They would think that was a flaw. Jerks."

Her eyes widened. "You're so-"

"Eloquent? What can I say? I was a fast learner." He continued with a shrug, "So I was the flawed part. Sylv must be the protected part. She's got a Finnish Laplander dad and a mom who was raised Shinto. Knowing that our doubles exist, though-that's a door that I could have happily kept closed. When I saw that guy . . . it was like someone walked over my grave."

"His name was Sionnach Ri, your other. But he was treacherous and not really into girls."

"Exactly what do you mean by 'treacherous'?"

"Remember? He betrayed me and Sylvie to a family of psychopaths called Mockingbirds? Then changed his mind because Sylvie pickpocketed the heart he grew for Moth-"

"Got it. My replica and Moth. That's a door I'll happily keep closed." He became quiet as they continued walking, Finn absorbing every beautiful, ordinary thing around her, from the slush in the roads, to the mailboxes like sentries on the sidewalk, to the colonial houses decked out with wreaths and tacky holiday decorations. When Christie started talking again, she was almost annoyed. "Sylph Dragonfly, Sylvie's twin . . . she wasn't much like Sylvie."

Given Christie's reputation, Finn did not like where this was going. She turned to him and gravely said, "You didn't."

"I had no choice." He pressed his hands against his chest. "Jack and I needed her help and she wanted more than a kiss."

"So Sylph Dragonfly ravished you." She folded her arms.

"Not really." Ruefully, he continued, "Did I tell you I'm a witch?"

"A wit-"

"The Dragonfly showed me."

"Can you do . . . tricks?" Finn's eyes widened.

"I'm not a Las Vegas magician, Finn. This is different. It's dark. And slithery." He took a deep breath. "I don't want it."

"Okay." She had a bad feeling he'd have no choice in the matter. She said, "Sylvie's some kind of warrior soul called a heart widow. Did she tell you? I probably should have let her tell you. Don't tell her I told you."

"I won't. I'm not surprised she's a knight in shining armor." He clenched his knit hat, pulled it down in anguish. "Do you know how hard-I mean, difficult-it is to look at Sylvie now? And now I know she can kick my ass . . ."

"You absolute idiot."

"What do I do? She's my best friend-"

"You made your bed with the Dragonfly . . . you know how the rest of that goes." She stalked away from him, toward the retro building that was Max's Diner. He caught up to her and said, "I just need a little advice."

"What do you want me to say? 'You should inform Sylvie you slept with her double'? I wouldn't do that if I were you." She tucked a stray strand of hair behind one ear and smiled. "Oh, look-Sylvie's here already. Should I tell her how cool Sylph Dragonfly was?"

"You've got a sadistic streak in you, Finn Sullivan. I don't like it."

"FINN, I CAN'T SPEAK TO YOU while you're wearing those sunglasses." Sylvie looked up from her waffles. "I mean, we're inside now."

"There are lots of windows and I told you why the sun was bothering me." Finn primly adjusted the sunglasses that had gone askew when Sylvie had hugged her again. She wished Lily could be here. But Lily was in a safe place now, a location known only to Finn and Jack.

"So where's the prince of darkness?" Christie glanced around. Sylvie, pouring syrup over her waffles, scowled at him and said, "Stop calling him that. Jack saved your life."

"And I saved his. The way I see it, we're even."

Sylvie told Finn: "Christie killed some kind of skull-headed screaming woman."

"It was a siren, a very dangerous creature."

"Really?" Finn was startled. "You never told me."

"There wasn't time."

There were a lot of things he hadn't told her about his journey with Jack. When Finn thought of Jack and the Ghostlands, she felt a breathless yearning that shocked her. With the elixir sizzling though her and the alchemy of roses blossoming within him, they had, for once, been a match.

She told Christie and Sylvie about her and Jack's harrowing escape from Lot's house, leaving out the bits about Reiko's and Jack's phantom replicas and Hester's death. They didn't need to know about that terrible thing yet.

Sylvie had little silver clovers pinned in her dark hair, which was knotted spikily on top of her head. "What if Professor Avaline's the traitor Cruithnear suspects among the professors?"

"I don't know." Finn knotted her hands on the table as she studied her friends from behind the shield of the sunglasses. Their unexpected journey to the Ghostlands may have strengthened unsettling, innate qualities within them, but all Finn saw was their fragility and the precarious disruption of their lives. For a mad moment, she actually thought of asking Phouka to cast a forgetfulness spell over the two of them. But that would only leave them more vulnerable. And if it wore off, they'd never forgive her. She watched Christie nibble around a piece of omelet and Sylvie check her phone, her tongue between her teeth. If they were killed . . .

Finn said, in a very faint voice, "Please . . . leave me."

Christie looked up. Sylvie blinked at her distractedly. "Did you say something, Finn? I'm checking when the sun sets."

The moment was past. They wouldn't leave her anyway. Finn sighed. "Reiko killed Sophia Avaline's sister, but I think Avaline blames Jack."

"Avaline didn't like the idea of an eighteen-year-old girl being sent into a world of monsters. She didn't want you to go, Finn. Jane Emory did," Christie pointed out.

"Christie, Jane gave me the Ghostlands key with Rowan Cruithnear's permission. She knew I'd get there somehow-and she cared that Lily was a captive of Seth Lot. I trust her. Unless she's an award-winning actress, she's for real. How was your trip home?"

"Marvin-Dead Bird-took us onto the train and informed the three Fatas in the car that he would turn them inside out if we didn't reach our destination. He told us what botched Sylvie's and my entrance into the Spooklands-there was interference, he said, from the dead. He didn't say the Black Scissors was an asshole, but I think we all silently reached that conclusion. Then Sylvie asked him if he was really a . . . Tengu?-and he got an attitude. With his help, we found our way back to StarDust Studios. We stepped through the door-and here we are."

Sylvie's eyes were shadowy. "Are the Fatas going to slay the Wolf?"

"They tried, once." Jack sat down in the booth next to Finn. "It didn't work. I believe Lot recruited some of the Fatas to his side and ate the rest."

Finn finally set aside her sunglasses to look at Jack. He was all in black, the fake fur that lined his coat making his skin even paler. In the sunlight, his eyes ghosting silver, he scarcely looked human.

"Finn." Christie's voice sounded shaky and Sylvie was staring at her, a glass of milk halfway to her mouth. Jack somberly said, "Your eyes, Finn."

Finn fumbled in her small backpack, pulled out the compact mirror Sylvie had given her, and opened it. Her brown eyes were sheened with silver.