"I've done so."

Christie tossed Jack a foil. Jack caught it with one hand and stepped forward. With a flick of the wrist, he neatly disarmed Christie, caught Christie's foil, and tapped Christie three times-"Tierce, quarte, septime-"

-before sliding both foils into their holders. "I won't fight you, Christopher."

"You can't take her." Christie's voice startled them both-it was in pieces. "You can't take her, Jack, to find her sister. Finn, you don't even know if she's alive or where the hell she is. What if it's a trap?"

Jack said, "Do you think I haven't thought of that?" He reached out a hand to Finn, who clasped it. "I can't change her mind."

Finn looked at Christie. "What if it was one of your brothers?"

Christie grabbed his backpack. "He's going to get you killed," he said, before he stalked out of the room.

When he'd gone, Finn turned to Jack. His eyes, one of which was always darker than the other, now seemed inky with secrets. "Did Moth tell you? Where Lily is?"

He said softly, "She's in the betwixt and between. Neither here nor there, second star to the right and straight on till morning. Down the rabbit hole. She's in the Ghostlands, Finn."

She whispered, "I was afraid you'd say something like that."

"CHRISTIE'S A VERY PASSIONATE PERSON." Sylvie wandered around Finn's room after Finn told her about the incident in fencing class. Sylvie grinned. "I feel fiendish, tricking Christie and Jack like that. What do you think they'll do when we don't show up for dinner?"

Finn looked up from her laptop. "Christie wanted to poke Jack with a sharp stick today. Maybe putting them at a table with pointy utensils wasn't such a good idea. But they will be in public."

Sylvie's impish mood faded. "Finn . . . where is Jack taking you?"

"I don't know what that . . . place is, Sylv. There are a lot of different names for it, in every myth I've read. Only it's real. And I'm going. Because that's where Lily is . . . the birthplace of Seth Lot and Reiko Fata."

Sylvie frowned down at her stockinged feet. "Do you ever think of Reiko? Like, wonder what she was before she became the queen of hell?"

On Halloween night, Reiko Fata had followed her consort David Ryder into the sacrificial fire, not only because he carried the heart she'd grown for love of Jack, but because that heart-even cut out of her-that heart had made her human. And David Ryder, a cold and soulless elf knight, had loved her, had bled for her. At the last moment of their long lives, two terrifying rulers of faery had become human and died for each other. And Finn did feel guilt, and angrily thought that she shouldn't-Reiko Fata had no right to get that from her. "Sometimes," Finn said, "I wonder if Reiko was ever a real girl, like us."

"She murdered Jack to keep him. And she was going to kill you. Burning to death was too easy an end for her. So don't you feel bad about it."

"I don't," Finn lied, and she thought again of the words Reiko had spoken on Halloween night: I can bring back your sister. "Sylv, I think Reiko knew Lily was still alive."

"Of course she knew. Let us go with you, me and Christie."

"No. Jack said he'll have a hard enough time keeping me safe, let alone two others."

"Is that gorgeous train wreck you call Moth going with you?"

"I don't know."

"How will you get your sister away? You told us Seth Lot's a killer, and I've got the feeling you left out some of his story. He's a real monster, isn't he?" Sylvie's voice was small. "Aren't you scared?"

"I'm scared . . . beyond scared. But if he took Lily, I'm going to get her back." Her hands curled into fists against her rib cage. No matter what.

Sylvie gazed at a framed photograph on one wall. "Your sister was so pretty. Is that Leander-"

The photograph flew from the wall and struck the floor. Glass shattered.

Sylvie's mouth fell open.

Finn jumped up and strode to the photo in its mosaic of broken glass. Shot in stylish black-and-white, Lily and Leander smiled up at her. She murmured, "I meant to tell you. I have a ghost. I thought it was Lily."

Sylvie's voice dropped to a whisper. "You think your sister is haunting you?"

Finn picked up the black-and-white photograph and the pieces of glass. "I don't think it's Lily anymore. I don't know what's doing this."

Sylvie stood up. "Do you have a Ouija board?"

Finn stared at her. Then she walked to the closet, opened the door, and stood on tiptoe to reach the shelf stacked with board games. She pulled down a rectangular box, turned, and offered it to Sylvie. "I've got this."

Sylvie came over and looked doubtfully at the box. "I didn't even know they made 'Hello Kitty' Ouija boards."

"It was a gift," Finn said defensively.

"Well." Sylvie accepted the box, opened it, and unfolded the board on Finn's bed. "It's a very Gothic 'Hello Kitty,' so I suppose it'll work."

Finn hesitated, watching Sylvie place the pink planchette on the board decorated with pink and black letters.

"She's your sister, Finn." Sylvie patted the bed. "Come on. Let's talk to her. She might be communicating from wherever they've taken her."

Finn pictured Lily lying broken and bleeding in glass shards on a night street sluiced with rain, saw Lily in the hospital, connected to plastic breathing tubes. She felt the poisonous sleepiness begin to return- She sat on the bed, placed her hand on the planchette. Sylvie laid one hand over hers and whispered, "Okay. Ask the name first."

"How do you know about this?"

"My gran is Shinto. And her gran was a yamabushi, someone who speaks to spirits. I learned some stuff."

"What about your mom-"

Sylvie shrugged. "My mom is an actress, nothing else."

Finn sidestepped that one. "I just ask a name? All right . . . who is here?"

The planchette jerked. Sylvie breathed out. Finn watched the piece of plastic slide to the letter D, not what she'd expected. The planchette circled, pushing toward the E, before veering sharply to the A.

"Finn." Sylvie's voice shook a little. "Maybe it isn't your sis-"

The planchette shot across the board, became airborne, and hit one of the photos on Finn's desk. Finn scrambled back as the plastic thing ricocheted against another photograph on the wall, before dropping to the floor.

Finn grabbed the framed photo the planchette had knocked over on her desk. In the photo, Lily Rose and Leander grinned into the camera he was holding. Turning, Finn studied the photograph on the wall, its glass cracked by the planchette: Lily and Leander, elegantly dressed and seated on a divan of red velvet. She felt a horrible ache in her throat, for Leander, who'd once been human and who had been transformed into a stitched-together creature that couldn't endure the sun. She whispered, "Whoever it is, Sylv, this ghost . . . whoever it is knows what Leander is. Help me take these photos down, would you?"

WHEN CHRISTIE ARRIVED at the Antlered Moon Pub and was shown to the booth where he expected Finn and Sylvie, he instead found only the prince of darkness hunched over a cup of coffee. Jack looked up at him and said, "The ladies aren't coming. We've been set up. You might as well sit down."

"I'm not going to."

"They've already ordered and paid, Christopher. Dinner's on its way." Jack pushed a coffeepot across the table. "Coffee?"

Christie slouched opposite him. "I already had my five cups. Is there any liquor on the bill?"

"I wish."

Christie leaned forward, squinting. "Are you ever gonna age?"

"It's inevitable, isn't it?" Jack sat back as their plates arrived. Sylvie knew Christie well; she'd ordered a giant venison burger and sweet potato fries. The same for Jack.

"Is it inevitable, Jack?" Christie poured ketchup on his burger. "Because it doesn't seem inevitable, around you, that Finn will ever turn nineteen."

"Christopher. This world holds as many bad things as the world of the Fatas."

"I'd say your bad things are worse. Take Caliban, for example. And that . . . kelpie that was in our well. And the Rooks, threatening Finn. And there's even worse on its way, isn't there?"

"Phouka and Absalom will deal with what's coming. As for the Rooks, their allegiance has idiotically switched to someone else."

"You sure those three scavengers haven't switched to the winning team?"

"Don't underestimate Phouka and Absalom."

"I don't trust them and I don't trust you, because you're two hundred years old and there's no way you're not messed up in the head."

"What happened to the poetry, Christopher?"

"You think her sister's really alive?"

"I think the evidence is distressingly clear. And Lily Rose fits the profile of what Seth Lot prefers."

"Shit," Christie said raggedly. "Where are you taking Finn?"

"It's a place-places-hidden from the true world."

"Another dimension?"

"Another perception. And if I don't take her, she'll find a way on her own. You know her, Christopher, how stubborn she is . . . reckless, headstrong . . ."

"I know she would die for her sister. And I've read enough mythology to know she can't bring Lily Rose back from wherever she is without a sacrifice. A sacrifice, Jack."

"She won't be making any sacrifices," Jack said evenly.

"How do you-" Christie broke off as he met Jack's gaze. Suddenly, grudgingly, he felt admiration, and hated it.

JACK CAME FOR FINN IN THE LATE AFTERNOON. She couldn't help but smile when she saw him. With his dark hair tucked behind his ears and his hands in the pockets of a parka lined with fake fur, he looked so beautifully ordinary. He said in that voice that made her skin warm, "Are you and Sylvie proud of your little trick?"

At first, she thought he meant the Ouija board, then realized he was talking about the peace dinner she and Sylvie had set up. "Did it go well? Christie's still alive?"

"We're going to run away together. Let's walk to LeafStruck."

As they began strolling down the street, Finn considered Jack: valiant, self-possessed, mysterious. "You know, you'd be a pretty sexy old guy."

He glanced at her with amusement. "Your trains of thought completely escape me sometimes."

"Only sometimes?"

The sun began to set. She watched her boots kick up dirty snow. Jack had delivered Moth to Colleen Olive, the Fata girl who haunted the neglected Leaf Struck Mansion like the spooky old bride in Dickens's Great Expectations. If Moth went off the rails, Colleen Olive could take care of herself. Jack said, "I've been dreaming about Nathan."

Finn's stomach dropped when she thought of Nathan Clare, the innocent boy who'd once shared LeafStruck with Jack and Colleen Olive. "Okay."

"I went looking for him a few nights ago." He handed her a pewter locket shaped like a book. With unsteady fingers, she opened it and found a picture of a girl with dandelion hair and a freckled face.

"Mary Booke," she whispered. "This was Nathan's."

"There were other things near it." Jack didn't look at her.

She gripped the locket so tightly, its edges bit into her skin. She felt the ache of grief in her throat. "You think Caliban . . . killed him?"

"Caliban," he said in a low voice scarier than a snarl, "has a lot to answer for."

They reached LeafStruck Mansion on its hill. Even winter-bared, the elder trees around it seemed to create a dark cavern. As they trudged up the steep stairway toward the house, Finn thought of the other mansions in Fair Hollow, abandoned, closed up, and utilized by the Fatas.

"Jack"-she looked at him as they stood before the front door-"do you need to have that knife in your hand?"

"It's a misericorde, beloved, and, yes, I need it. I'm feeling very vulnerable right now." He pushed open the door and entered. She followed, breathing in the clotted, sepia warmth of the hall. A lamp of orange glass glowed on top of a black wardrobe. LeafStruck's interior reminded her of taxidermy and sinister grandmothers.

"Colleen?" Jack moved to the staircase that led to the second floor. "Cailleach Oidche!"

No one answered. He glanced back at Finn, who pulled from her backpack the silver dagger Eve Avaline had given her. He frowned at it. She said, "It's a knife, beloved."

"Put that away before you fall on it."

"I don't think so."

As he led her up the stairs, she glanced at the portraits of yellow-eyed, elaborately costumed people on the walls. When they reached the upper hall with its velvet wallpaper and clunky furniture, they found it illuminated only by a beam of light from a door left ajar. The other doors were shut. Jack motioned for Finn to wait as he approached the open door cautiously. He stepped into the room. She heard him speak to someone before he opened the door all the way. "It's okay."

She moved into the room, which looked the same as before, cluttered with ornamental eggs of wood, metal, glass, and clay. There was a bed in the alcove now, an oversized thing draped with gossamer and covered with Pier 1 pillows.

The owl girl, veiled as usual, sat in a chair, her hands gloved in pale satin, her ivory cocktail dress a little more fashionable than the gauzy tea gown she'd worn the last time Finn had seen her.

Colleen Olive's voice was a husk: "Moth the lovely has gone down to make coffee and fetch the cakes."

"We didn't see him. How are you?" Jack dropped onto a dusty love seat. Finn sat beside him and didn't take her attention from the figure the Fatas called the Cailleach Oidche. She'd read up on her Celtic mythology and knew what owl girls were capable of.

"I am well. And you, Jack? How are the pains and pleasures of being mortal?"

"It's because of Finn that I'm not one of the shadows any longer."

The veiled head and its blurred face slowly turned toward Finn, who had to brace herself against the uneasiness that spidered up her backbone. "Serafina Sullivan. Braveheart. I cannot thank you enough for ridding us of the white snake."

"You mean Reiko-"