"So"-Christie dropped into a chair and stared at his friend-"it turns out Micah, here, is secretly a wolf slayer."

"I haven't actually slain any-"

Christie continued, "He works for Jill Scarlet."

Finn sat down, because she needed to. "Who is Jill Scarlet?"

"Red Riding Hood," Jack told her, perfectly serious.

"Sit. All of you." Phouka gestured. "Micah has a story to tell."

THE MICAH SEATED ON THE RED VELVET SOFA across from Finn was not the shy, harmless boy Finn worked with at BrambleBerry Books. This was a warrior, graceful and strong, and he didn't wear his glasses; his scars were explained now. There were talismans braided into his brown hair, on a leather thong around his neck.

"Seth Lot declared war when his house found its way back to the Ghostlands from whatever void you sent it to. He has more allies than we thought. He went after the guardians first, the ones you, my lady"-Micah inclined his head to Phouka-"set up at the border stations."

Phouka swore in something that sounded like Latin. Finn said faintly, "Did he kill them all? The guardians?"

"Most of them are dead. He can do damage with his Grindylow, his Jacks and Jills."

Finn looked at Phouka. "Do you do that?"

"There are no Jacks or Jills in my court, other than what has already been. I don't practice stitchery." Phouka studied Micah. "What about Rowan Cruithnear and the Dearh Cota?"

"I think Rowan Cruithnear and Jill Scarlet are still in the Ghostlands. For now, no one can come in or out-I got away. The crom cu found me." He shuddered.

"We've encountered the crom cu," Jack said, "in the woods. He's dead."

There was a moment of disbelieving silence. Then Christie hunched forward. "If the Wolf is searching for Finn and Lily, won't he go to Finn's house? Her dad-"

Finn said, "My da's with Sylvie's dad, playing poker at the Antlered Moon."

"No, he isn't," Sylvie breathed. "Poker night was canceled."

Finn snatched Lily's phone from her backpack and hit Home, standing as the phone buzzed. She strode out of the parlor. Jack followed with Christie and Sylvie hurrying after.

Outside, in the driveway, Finn felt as if she was falling to pieces. The phone went to her da's voice mail.

Moth strode toward them. He had the jackal walking stick over one shoulder and held a set of jangling keys in one hand. "Phouka gave me the keys to her vehicle-it'll apparently be faster than yours, Jack. She and some of the others will follow."

Jack guided Finn to Phouka's Cadillac as Finn said, into the phone, "Da. Da? When you get this message, get out of the house. Just drive somewhere. Please . . ."

Jack turned to Christie and Sylvie. "You two stay here. You're safe here. The Wolf has already made his move on Tirnagoth."

"Don't argue," Sylvie said to Christie, who shut his mouth. "We'll stay. Finn, call me the minute you know your dad's okay."

AS THE CADILLAC TORE AWAY DOWN THE DRIVE, Sylvie drew Christie back up the stairs. He said forlornly, "She's always leaving us."

"Remember what happened the last time we followed her? We both, individually, almost got eaten?"

"Point taken." He looked determined suddenly. "But we're her backup. Let's make sure Phouka follows."

JACK DROVE LIKE A MADMAN as Finn attempted again and again to reach her father by phone. Moth said, "What if the Wolf's waiting for us there?"

"Moth." Jack spoke lightly, which meant he was in a dangerous mood. "You need to be the strong, silent type now."

"Have you told her about the sword?"

"The one the Black Scissors gave us? Sylvie told me." Finn looked over her shoulder at Moth.

Moth pulled the jackal-hilted blade from the walking stick, horizontally, revealing that the sword was razor-sharp steel. He said, "Iron, beneath the steel."

Jack said, "For decapitating the Wolf. That's what I had it made for, way back when. I remember it now. And it's sheathed in enchanted elder wood so the Ghostlands wouldn't ruin the iron."

Finn breathed out and faced the front window. Even with the sword, she didn't know how they'd kill Seth Lot.

When the Cadillac swerved around a corner, onto her street, she wanted, irrationally, to scream at Jack to hurry. Then they were pulling into the driveway of her house. Before Jack could hit the brakes, she was out.

Jack caught up to her on the veranda and grabbed her wrist. "He's not here."

"There's no car in the garage." Moth strode toward them.

Headlights glowed down the street and Finn turned, thinking Phouka.

But it was a dark limousine that appeared.

Moth vanished into a shimmering light. His form diminished. As the insect he'd become fluttered into the collar of Finn's coat, she whispered, "Phouka isn't coming, is she?"

Jack gripped her hand as the limousine halted at the curb.

"Did we break a rule"-Finn didn't look away from the limousine-"when we brought Lily back?"

"Well, there've been so many rules broken, it's a bit late to start worrying about them now."

The passenger door opened and Finn whispered, "No . . ."

Anna Weaver emerged from the limousine. Dressed in a pale coat, white dress, and boots, the fifteen-year-old opened her Alice in Wonderland umbrella and held it over her head against the rain as she said solemnly, "The Wolf has Lily Rose. He sent me for you."

CHAPTER 21.

Black the town yonder, Black those that are in it; I am the White Swan, Queen of them all.

-CARMINA GADELICA, ALEXANDER CARMICHAEL Finn had known this confrontation was inevitable. It had lain like a shadow over the brightness of her first day back in the world. Now, in the limousine, she felt naked, defenseless, almost unbearably afraid for Jack, Lily, and Anna. Only horror awaited them, and it came at her in such a thorny rush, she found herself slipping into a dreamlike stillness.

"Finn." Jack's voice, calm and velvety, made her turn her head to gaze at him. His eyes were dark as he said, "Remember what you are."

And what am I? she thought. Just a girl about to face down a monster.

As the limousine Lot had sent for them coasted up the road into the Blackbird Mountains, Anna whispered to Finn and Jack, "The Wolf came in through the attic window. Lily tried to hurt him. He got hold of her. He made me follow. There were others with him."

Finn began, "Anna, I didn't mean to-"

"It's okay." Anna folded her hands over the painted umbrella Absalom had given her. "This was meant to be. Just like Christie and Sylvie were supposed to go with you to the Ghostlands, I was meant to be here with you."

She was trembling. Finn said to the two wolves in front, "Let her go. She's only-"

"-an oracle who knows too much." The shaven-headed Fata girl seated next to the driver smiled-Finn recognized her as the one from the Wolf's house, Antoinette, glamorous and sinister in a silver silk gown and fur coat. "Naughty children."

The rakish wolf driving didn't look back at them, but the rearview mirror revealed his smile, the gold of one tooth. Beneath his hair, gold hoops glinted in his earlobes.

Finn took the vial of Tamasgi'po from her pocket, opened it, and traced the liquid over her lips. The Fata girl, watching in the rearview, smirked. "Our little mayfly is making herself lovely for the Madadh aillaid. How charming. What kind of lip gloss is that, sweetmeat?"

Jack said, idly, to the wolves, "You can stop smiling."

"Is that a threat?" the male wolf mocked. "What can you do, pretty boy? You've still got a mortal taint."

"I won't do anything." Jack indicated Finn with a tilt of his head. "She might, being the queen killer."

The male Fata muttered something in French.

Antoinette turned and held out a hand to Finn. "Give it to me. Your bottle."

Finn dropped the vial of Tamasgi'po on the floor.

"Clumsy child. You're a threat?" Antoinette's lips curled.

Finn, pretending to scrabble for the fallen vial-which was clearly labeled Tamasgi'po-furtively switched it under the seat with the nearly empty vial of elixir in her other hand.

"Got it." She straightened and set the elixir vial into the wolf girl's palm. She didn't dare look at Jack as he wound one of his hands with her other.

"Elixir, girl? It won't help you." Antoinette opened her window and tossed the bottle out.

The limousine detoured into the woods, down a road that had appeared out of nowhere. The rain was coming down in sheets by now, and the sound of it battering the car was accompanied by the hiss of the windshield wipers and the crunch of tires on gravel. The headlights illuminated nothing but endless corridors of trees. Finn whispered to Jack, "We're not going to die tonight."

"I know."

Anna, to Finn's dismay, remained silent.

The limousine broke from the giant trees, its headlights blazing over what seemed to be a medieval cathedral that resembled one of those Gothic ruins from a Turner painting. The stone walls were barbed with briars. Roses as crimson as though they'd been dipped in blood bloomed as if winter had no hold here. Graceful angel figures carved from obsidian framed the arched entrance, but the angels had the faces of wolves.

The limousine halted. The female Fata exited the car, opened the back door, and bowed mockingly. Jack slid out. He turned, extending a hand to assist Finn, then Anna. Anna handed him her umbrella and he opened it and held it over their heads.

As they approached the massive ruin of stained glass and mottled stone, its more sinister aspects became apparent. A chiaroscuro of candlelight and shadows flickered beyond a screen of spiky briars draped over the entrance. A large pale snake moved among the briars as if it was some true-world embodiment of a guardian dragon. Living eyeballs nestled in the centers of the roses-Finn didn't flinch from the snake, but she winced when she saw the eyeballs. A skull-headed gargoyle with a female body turned its head to regard them with malice. This was the true shape of the Wolf's house, a piece of the Ghostlands wrecked on the shores of reality, now infecting the world around it.

Finn and Jack moved forward, hands clasped, with Anna following. As they passed beneath the arch, pollen swept over them, whirling around Finn and falling away. She looked down at herself and inhaled sharply-she now wore a summer dress of silver silk and gossamer, but she still had the lionheart pendant and her Doc Martens. She could smell the roses that had appeared in her hair and touched them to make sure they didn't have eyes. She checked to see that Moth was still fluttering against her neck, hidden by her hair.

Jack and Anna hadn't been changed.

"It's psychological warfare," Jack said gently.

"I know." She ducked as he lifted the curtain of briars for her and Anna to pass beneath.

They stepped into the cavernous nave, where a cracked ceiling failed to prevent flecks of rain from entering and a rectangular table of old oak was set with a grotesque feast of roasted meats, tiered cakes, and goblets of black glass. Morning glories tumbled from vases of dark crystal. Seated at the table was Seth Lot's pack in their modern finery of fur, velvet, and leather, their faces concealed by elaborate half masks. The Rooks were there, in the beaked visages of medieval plague doctors. Hip Hop wore a cowled coat of crimson crushed velvet.

Lot sat at the other end of the table behind a roasted, skinned swan with a gilt crown on its skull. The candles' glow highlighted the ivory scar snaking along his cheekbone and shone in the glass eyes of the jawless wolf's head he wore as a headdress. One jeweled hand rested on his walking stick. His fur-lined coat was open, revealing a bare, muscled torso decorated with a golden torque and tribal-looking tattoos.

"Well, Serafina Sullivan. Here we are." The gentleman Wolf's black-rimmed eyes glittered with amusement. "And Jack. Thank you, Anna."

Anna looked warily around at the wolves. Finn felt the elixir shimmering coldly through her blood and slid an arm around Anna's shoulders as Jack snapped shut the umbrella and handed it back to Anna.

"You see, Finn, Anna," Jack said, his voice sultry, "the Madadh aillaid doesn't like to play with his victims unless he has an audience."

"Jack knows me well." Seth Lot didn't smile. "Once, we were very alike."

"We were never"-Jack watched Seth Lot from beneath lowered lashes-"alike."

"You were a killer, Jack." Seth Lot spoke gently. "You enjoyed it-sending those Fatas to their deaths . . . White Bee and Mr. Bones and that idiot carnival giant."

The wind drifted Jack's rain-glittering hair over his face as he said quietly, "I never killed innocents."

Lot continued, "And what about the Lily Girls?"

There was a bitter twist to Jack's mouth. "They were tricked-"

"But you knew, Jack, that by making those three girls fall in love with you you'd be putting them in danger. You grew a heart for each, but they were selfish hearts-especially the last one, seeded by the girl who would have taken your place as a sacrifice, the girl standing beside you right now."

Finn, who did not care that Jack had once loved the three Lily Girls, and who reasonably knew she hadn't been Jack's only love-he'd been around for nearly two hundred years, after all-withdrew her hand from Jack's and took a step back, pretending that the news hurt her, when it did not. She turned and walked to one of the empty chairs. Tracking her with his gaze, Jack moved along the other side of the table.

As Anna sat beside Finn, the masked wolves began talking among themselves, reaching for wine goblets, slicing meat from the ornately posed roadkill on the table.

Finn spoke as if the words were shards of glass in her throat. "Where is Lily?"

Lot curled his fingers. "Here."

Two female Fatas glided from the shadows with Lily between them like a young queen in a gown of sleeveless black with a high, ruffled collar. Lily lurched toward Finn, was yanked back by one of the wolf girls.

Finn began to rise, but Lot's jeweled fingers closed over hers and she sat back, watching as her sister was escorted to the chair next to Jack. The wolves continued to revel as if mortal pain and fear were exquisite appetizers. Seth Lot said to Finn, in a voice luxurious with hate, "You stole her from me. With me, she was a queen. Now she is nothing."

Lily's eyes, inked around with elaborate designs, widened as she leaned toward Lot and smiled fiercely. "I faked all of it. Every minute with you."

He stared at her and the beast flickered beneath his skin but was swiftly concealed. Civility returned to his manner. "Here is my offer, Serafina Sullivan. You take your sister's place at my side and I'll allow your loved ones to leave. Alive."