eventually, Donna. You understand that, don’t you? When things get back to normal, I mean.”
“Sure,” Donna replied, not smiling anymore. She thought her mom was being a little too optimistic that they’d somehow overcome the massive odds against them and all go back to “normal.”
Demian clapped his hands together, making her jump. “It seems we have come to an agreement. Excellent!”
She scowled at him. “How can you say that? Nobody has agreed on anything.”
“You have agreed to my terms, I believe … ”
“Only because we don’t have a choice,” she snapped.
Demian stood up with inhuman speed and grace. “I will see you again shortly, Donna Underwood.”
Donna stood and faced him across the table. She ignored Miranda’s restraining hand on her arm. “Nobody is going to give us their ingredients. You knew that all along, didn’t you?”
He didn’t reply, but that awful smile twitched at the corner of his hard mouth.
She frowned, trying to understand him. “Do you want us to fail—so that you can watch us struggle and try to save ourselves before you destroy us anyway? Is that it?”
Demian’s head tilted to one side and he examined her with an intensity that made her feel angry and uncomfortable, all at the same time. “Why would I want you to fail, young alchemist? I want the Philosopher’s Stone so that I can rebuild my own realm, and you will deliver it to me.”
“But you can’t even get me into the Underworld without killing me!” she shouted, suddenly furious. “You’re expecting us to solve an impossible riddle in forty-eight hours.”
Demian glanced at the expensive-looking watch she hadn’t even noticed he was wearing. “Not even that many,” he said, his voice both silky and threatening. “You’d better get started, hadn’t you?”
She sat down quietly while Demian made arrangements to transport everyone back to their own worlds, and wondered just how much longer they all had left to live. The sand was slipping through the glass, and she didn’t know how to stop it.
Nine
Xan knocked on the heavy door of Maker’s workshop
and waited, shivering in the freezing early morning air. February had not been kind to their little corner of Massachusetts.
He reached out a hesitant hand, wondering whether he should knock again or—
The door opened and the alchemist stood on the other side, leaning on his cane. He looked fairly good, given his advanced years and the fact that he often needed to use his personally designed wheelchair when his legs wouldn’t hold him.
“Well, don’t just stand there, come in,” Maker said, then suddenly glared at Xan. “And put that damn thing out before you do!”
Xan hastily dropped his cigarette to the ground and stubbed it out, making sure to kick it as far away from the door as he could. He watched the old man’s back as he retreated into the workshop. He hesitated. If he went through with this, nothing would ever be the same again. He thought about Donna—and what she would say if she knew that he intended to do this.
Well, he was at least considering it. That was all it was. No guarantees, that’s what Maker had said to him.
Xan was used to a life with “no guarantees.”
He took a deep breath and followed the alchemist inside.
Donna found herself sitting once again in the familiar surroundings of the Frost Estate, less than a month after leaving Ironbridge. She couldn’t believe she was back, curled up in one of the richly upholstered armchairs in the Blue Room—Quentin’s favorite library—with the comforting sound of his polished grandfather clock ticking in the background, soothing her nerves. Even knowing that the clock hid the entrance to Simon Gaunt’s creepy laboratory couldn’t spoil the fact that she was here.
Everything had happened so fast: they’d walked through the door that Demian and his demon shadows had opened in Halfway, and found themselves on the grounds of the Frost Estate. If anybody had seen their arrival, it would have looked like the strange group appeared quite literally out of thin air, the winter trees behind them and the mansion ahead. They’d still been dressed in their masquerade finery, which made it all the weirder.
Luckily, the only possible witnesses to this materialization would have been the Estate groundspeople. But since it was still pretty early in the morning, even they weren’t out and about yet, and there were no awkward questions to answer. Oddly, Donna felt like she’d caught a few hours of sleep, too—she wasn’t sure if that was due to demon magic or the