the aisling’s hand and was hauled to his feet. He turned to Dead Bird, who wondered, “Why did I not sense that thing at once?”
“Yes.” Jack felt silken menace threading his voice. “Why didn’t you?”
“It was well hidden behind that girl’s form. It was a trickier glamour than I am used to. Are you going to stand here and threaten me or fetch Serafina Sullivan back from the Wolf?”
Moth was snatching up their backpacks and weapons. “Why do you care?”
“Because I am responsible for this Way, and the Wolf has become a menace with that house he stole from the prince of dreams. I’m taking Serafina Sullivan’s friends, by train, back to their original entry point and the true world, because, at the moment, that is the least I can do for her without risking my neutrality with the light and the dark.” He gestured toward the barrier, which ceased to exist. “Find your brave girl, Jack—but do not take her sister from the Ghostlands. They won’t allow it.”
“Jack.” Christie’s voice broke. “We need to come with you.”
“You can’t.” Dead Bird spoke gently. “You’re not prepared. You and Sylvie Whitethorn would only be detrimental.”
Sylvie pleaded, “We can help.”
Jack accepted the jackal-headed walking stick Moth handed to him and said, to Sylvie and Christie, “If you love her, go back. Tell Phouka and Absalom what has happened.”
“Isn’t there any way we can—” The hope faded from Sylvie’s face as Dead Bird indicated the path to the train station and Moth and Jack stepped away.
“Wait.” Christie walked to Moth and held out the wooden knife Jack had given him. Moth took it. Sylvie whispered, “Please, please save her.”
Christie returned to her and they trudged after Dead Bird, their arms around each other.
Moth said, “I’ve still got the Grindylow’s heart—we can use it to find the Wolf’s house.”
“Lot wants us to find him. He’ll make it easy.” Jack stalked forward, with Moth, into the night.
LILY SAT ON THE LOWEST BRANCH of the big myrtle tree in their San Francisco yard. She still wore the filmy lavender gown she’d chosen for the Spring Fling, and her feet, in purple Keds, dangled above Finn, who lay beneath the tree, listening to her sister delete all evidence of Leander Cyrus from her phone.
“Lily. I like Leander. You better not ditch him for that guy.”
Lily stopped playing with her phone. Her gown, like a sugarplum fairy’s wings, trailed in the breeze. “What guy?”
“The one who looks like a prince and has blue eyes. That guy.”
Lily tilted her head and smiled dreamily. “You mean the Wolf?”
Finn inhaled and opened her eyes as her body convulsed with the shock of waking.
She lay on a black road shimmering with mist and lined with a stark wood. The night sky was without stars. A birch tree loomed nearby, the hollows in its trunk resembling eye sockets and a gaping mouth. Curling up on the ice, her arms over her head, Finn ached to cry, but that hateful elixir was turning her into a Snow Queen. She didn’t even feel exhausted, only lonely and angry and distantly afraid. They had tricked her and she’d naively let them.
Lily! she screamed silently and slammed a hand against the blacktop.
The sudden glare of headlights moved her into a crouch. She fumbled in her pocket and drew out the bottle of elixir from Goblin Market, drank most of what was left, and tucked the second vial labeled ELIXIR into her right boot, the Tamasgi’po into her other. She left Jack’s mysterious potion in one pocket, along with the bottle containing what remained of the Goblin Market elixir.
She rose to face the ice-blue Rolls-Royce gliding toward her, mist drifting away from a pewter hood ornament that was not a wolf, but a ballerina.
The Rolls-Royce halted, waited.
Finn walked toward the car on rubbery legs. The rear passenger door clicked open. She slid into the dark interior and sat with her hands in her lap and faced the Wolf.
Seth Lot was sprawled in the opposite seat. He wasn’t smiling. Shadows and light moved across a face that might have belonged to a young saint, one who had decided that wearing Tom Ford suits and corrupting innocents was more to his liking. As the Rolls-Royce glided forward, the chauffeur a silhouette, Finn defiantly met the Wolf’s black-rimmed, blue gaze.
“Well.” His voice was gentle, his hands folded on the wolf-head handle of a walking stick. “I apologize, Serafina Sullivan, for that rather elaborate and cruel trick that dumped you here. The