Then Christie recognized the young man in a fur-lined coat and jeans. "Micah? Micah Govannon . . . ?"

The last of the sun faded in a streak behind the clouds. As if a protective bubble had burst, chaos broke out around them.

Shouting Fatas pushed past Moth, Christie, and Sylvie, loping across the snow toward Christie's friend, to help him. Christie turned in the midst of the mayhem to see the lobby filling with more grim-faced Fatas and Phouka Banrion striding toward him.

"Get inside," she said. "The wolves are coming."

NATHAN'S REVENANT HAD VANISHED when Caliban appeared. Kitted out in black leather that resembled armor, and a long coat, the crooked dog stood on the threshold, his eyes a malefic silver. He said, "Jack's busy with a wolf at the moment."

Finn retreated as he sauntered toward her. "Who were you talking to, darling?"

She sneaked one hand into her coat and gripped the hilt of Eve's silver knife. He halted, cocked his head to one side. "Are you going to do it? Go on. See if you can get past me after putting that knife in me. If you fail, I get to make the next move."

She tensed to make a run for it. He braced himself like a goalie in front of the doors and curled one hand at her. She took a deep breath- She spun and raced for the glass doors in the back.

But he had a Fata's predatory speed-he caught her and shoved her against a wall. She cried out as the dagger clattered to the floor. He let her go. She backed away.

As if pushed by an invisible hand, a dusty bottle of wine scraped across a table near her-she saw it out of the corner of one eye. Nathan? She wondered how a bottle of wine would save her- She grabbed the bottle. She swung it at Caliban's head. He clamped a hand around her wrist and pried the bottle from her, studied the label. He shoved her back into a chair and hooked a table leg with one foot, dragged the table between them. "Nineteen twenty-three. Shame to waste this-don't run, Finn. If I have to chase you, I'll be angry."

He wiped the dust from two wineglasses, set the glasses between them, and sprawled in another chair. He uncorked the wine. As he poured it, Finn carefully reached for one of the vials in her pocket and loosened the cap with her thumb.

Then she went for the dagger on the floor.

"Oh, Finn." He seized her by her coat collar and yanked her back. She hit the table, wincing as he pressed her against it. "What an exciting girl you are. Sit down."

"How old are you?"

He stepped back, confused, a predator who didn't understand a weird reaction from his prey. He decided to play along. "Older than most of your ancestors, leannan. Why this sudden desire to be sociable?" His eyes became glittering slits. "Stalling until your lover finds you? He doesn't even know where you are."

"What were you like when you were human?"

He stared at her. He bared his teeth. "Say that again and I'll slice a bit off you with your pretty knife."

"Well, you'll need it, won't you? Because I'm going to say it again: What were you when you were human?"

Caliban spun to snatch up Eve's silver dagger by its ebony hilt.

Finn dumped the contents of the vial from her pocket into both glasses before he whirled back around.

"Think you're clever, do you?" He backed her up against the table and she flinched as his body contacted hers. He whispered into her ear, "You're braver than most. I'm almost beginning to feel a bit romantically inclined toward you."

After this nauseating statement, he picked up his glass. "Drink, leannan."

She reached for her own glass.

"Ah, no." He snatched it from her and forced his glass against her lips. "You drink from this one."

She met his gaze and drank. If she'd dumped the elixir into the wine-well, it didn't work in this world and she'd already taken a few drops. If it had been the Tamasgi'po-that only had something to do with restoring memory. She didn't know if either would have any effect on the crom cu. She was gambling.

Caliban stepped back and drank from the same glass, emptying it. He flung her glass across the room. It smashed against a mirror as his hungry gaze slid to her. "So, Miss Clever, what kind of poison did you drop into the glass we didn't drink from?"

SYLVIE AND CHRISTIE STOOD IN TIRNAGOTH'S LOBBY, surrounded by Fatas preparing for war. Sylvie could now identify with the people on the Titanic-the ship was going down; the crew was in a panic; and she couldn't see any way out.

Christie turned to Phouka. "Finn and Jack are out there."

The doors were still open, revealing the snow-patched grounds and Phouka's Fatas, young women and men in black suits, waiting, armed with small crossbows and beautiful, engraved pistols. Phouka said, "If Finn is with Jack, I believe she'll be safe."

Christie spoke through clenched teeth. "Why does everyone keep saying that?"

Sylvie reached into her backpack and drew out the two knives she'd bought from a real blacksmith at a medieval fair. She handed one to Christie, who sighed. "Have you ever killed anyone, Sylv?"

"No."

"Well, I have." He scowled when she, Phouka, and Moth glanced at him in surprise. "A Green Lady. A siren. I told you."

Sylvie wondered if he'd killed the siren by accident.

"It was traumatic and not something I'm proud of." He lowered his voice. "It's not like picking things off in a video game, Sylv. It's really disturbing and messy."

"But you get used to it." Moth tugged the jackal-hilted sword from the walking stick strapped over one shoulder and stalked toward the open doors.

Christie said sourly, "Well, he's come a long way from being the confused innocent he once was."

"Christie. Sylvie." Leander Cyrus, still resembling a golden-haired bridegroom in his grubby white suit, came striding toward them. He held a pistol of ornate metal. He glanced at Phouka. "Banrion, isn't there a safe place for them?"

"Too late." Sylvie's gaze was on the night beyond the doors, where tall, glowing-eyed shadows had begun moving across the snow. Tirnagoth's light glistened on jewels and fur, teeth and nails.

The wolves had arrived.

FINN BACKED AWAY as Caliban prowled toward her. He grinned, revealing unnervingly perfect teeth. "Don't be shy, darling. Let me see what's in your pockets."

She snatched up a lamp and swung it toward his head. He knocked it from her hand and it flew across the room, smashing to pieces against one of the pillars. She fell back over a table, kicked out as he lunged at her. She grabbed a crystal sphere paperweight and flung it. He caught it and gazed into it as if he could see his future.

Then he staggered. The crystal orb fell, rolled away. Finn, bruised and aching, straightened, watching as his eyes darkened. He stumbled toward her, caught himself against a moldering chaise. He croaked out, "What . . . the wine . . . ?"

His snarl shouldn't have come from a human throat. He leaped at her, his teeth sharp- He was wrenched back by a force that slammed him against a rusting spotlight and Eve's dagger fell from his hand.

As the crom cu straightened awkwardly, Finn took a breath and looked at Jack, who watched Caliban. Defensively, she said, "I had it."

Jack cast a disbelieving glance at her. "You had it?"

"Charming." Caliban stepped back, almost drunkenly. "Having defeated the villain, they think, the hero and heroine embrace before the cameras."

"We're not embracing." Jack's voice was flat.

"Jack." Finn frowned at him. "Are the wolves at Tirnagoth?"

"Phouka and her people will be there, too." Jack didn't take his attention from Caliban as the crooked dog reeled, hunched over, and spat out black liquid. Jack said, "Finn? What did you do?"

She fumbled the vial out of her pocket. "I dumped this into his wine."

"The elixir?"

" . . . poisoned me." Caliban's eyes had darkened. He hunched over and coughed up a slimy knot of black petals. He took a halting step forward, before falling to one knee.

"It shouldn't be effective in this world." Jack drew Finn away. "Not to mortals . . . I don't know what it'll do to a Fata."

Without taking their gazes from Caliban, Finn and Jack backed toward the doors. Caliban rasped out, "What did you do to me?"

Jack raised a revolver-Finn realized he must have gotten it out of Caliban's coat, because Caliban had had it in the Ghostlands. Let him do it, something savage inside of her urged.

"Jack . . ." She remembered how, together, they had stabbed Seth Lot with the wooden dagger, an act of desperate self-defense. This was different- "Remember the ones he's slaughtered." Jack aimed at Caliban and fired.

AFTER FINN AND JACK LEFT STARDUST STUDIOS, a voice drifted from the dark, saying, "It's him."

"The crooked dog."

"Hyena. Killer."

"Poor little doggie. Is he dying?"

Two shadowy girl figures crouched beside the body of Caliban Ariel'Pan, which had begun to bleed from a wound in the head. A third shadow girl stood watching. "Beatrice. Abigail. Leave him."

"Oh no, Evie. He doesn't deserve to go on so easily. Ooh, look . . . is that real blood?"

"This is a border place and he drank a border potion."

One of the girls smiled, and it was a slash of white in her shadow face. "We'll fix him. We'll fix him good."

FINN AND JACK SPRINTED THROUGH THE WOODS.

Tirnagoth's windows radiated saffron, crimson, and viridian light. The snow on the ground in front of the stairs was trampled and a trail of red led through the slush, up the stairs, to the closed doors. The silence was worse than the blood.

Thinking only of Christie and Sylvie, Finn raced up the stairs, Jack at her side as the doors swept open and two Fatas in dark suits appeared, one armed with a handheld crossbow, the other with a dragon-shaped brass revolver.

"Come in." Phouka stepped into view. Sleek in leather and a fur-lined aviator's jacket, she looked at Jack. "You missed the wolves, but your friends are mostly safe."

"What do you mean 'mostly'?" Finn frantically surveyed the wrecked lobby. She skirted a pool of water and shied away from a pile of ichor-streaked leaves, glimpsing a fossilized animal skull that had rolled beneath one table. The lobby desk was splintered. The floor was littered with bits of stained glass. "Whose blood is on the steps?"

"They took Leander."

Shocked, Finn glanced at Jack, who said to Phouka, "Took him alive?"

"Finn!" Sylvie appeared and ran to Finn and hugged her, hard. Then she turned and threw her arms around Jack. When Sylvie faced Finn again, her eyes were rimmed with red, as if she'd been crying. "They took Leander."

"I know." Finn's voice shook. She watched a black-haired Fata in a dark suit stride past, his eyes flashing. A girl in brown velvet knelt mournfully beside a pile of ivory wands and pearls wound with red seaweed.

"Fatas." Sylvie followed Finn's gaze. "Some of them died."

Moth strode toward them, Christie at his side. Christie had a black eye and there were scratches across Moth's face.

"Finn, where were you?" Christie looked as if he wanted to shake her.

"With Jack. Are you all right?"

"Moth saved Christie." Sylvie threw a comradely arm around Christie's shoulders.

Christie, who also had a rip in his T-shirt, forced a smile, but his gaze was harrowed as he said, "I didn't get to kill anyone though."

"Why would they take Leander?" Jack asked Phouka, who shrugged.

"Because they thought Leander knew where you hid Lily Rose Sullivan. Yes, Serafina, I know that your sister is in the world. You shouldn't have brought her back here."

Finn felt something snap. "Jack and I were supposed to play assassin for you and get rid of Lot. My sister was the lure you used to get me into the Ghostlands. And now Leander is in the hands of that monster and some of your people are dead. Happy?"

"That's what happens in war." Phouka turned and moved away. "There is someone I want you to listen to."

As they followed Phouka, Finn wound a hand around one of Jack's and whispered, "Lily."

"She's safe where she is. How could the Wolf know?"

THE SNOW HAD TURNED TO FREEZING RAIN, a dreary and relentless veil of it drenching Fair Hollow. Across the street from Hecate's Attic, the New Age shop owned by the Weavers, two figures stood. The tall one, his jeweled hand resting on a wolf-headed walking stick, didn't seem to mind the rain that scarcely touched his hair or fur-lined coat. The other figure stood beneath an orange umbrella that sheltered his slim body and citrus-bright mane.

"I know how Jack thinks," the slight figure said. "He brought your queen of briars here. Oh, and look, there's a light on in the attic. I bet that's where she's hiding. The oracle is mine, so let her be."

"I don't trust you, Fool, considering your habit of switching sides." Seth Lot sauntered toward Hecate's Attic. "So I'll be taking your oracle girl as insurance."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Absalom called out as the Wolf moved across the street, followed by three shadowy shapes from his pack. Seth Lot ignored him and Absalom turned, twirling his umbrella and humming softly. Walking away, he lightly said, "It's your funeral."

AS FINN AND JACK FOLLOWED Phouka, Moth, Christie, and Sylvie down a hall in Tirnagoth, Jack said to Finn, his voice low, "I need you to give me the elixir."

She tried not to flinch. "It's all gone."

"Your eyes are silver, you're pale as the dead, and you're not casting a shadow-and you kept up with me as I ran. The elixir shouldn't affect you in the true world. That stuff was supposed to leave you and it hasn't. Which means you're still taking it."

"I dumped all of it into Caliban's glass."

Jack gazed at her with despair ghosting his silver eyes. "Do you think it's going to make you invulnerable? It won't. It will kill you."

"I'm not dead. I won't let him take Lily again. I don't have any more of it."

"Are you even aware of what a terrible liar you are?"

They reached the parlor where Phouka's guest waited.

"I'm not dead-" Finn halted. "Micah?"

Micah Govannon, her coworker from BrambleBerry Books, sat on the sofa, a large bruise on his face, bandages white beneath his bloody, ripped T-shirt.