gray wood carved with images of snarling wolves. She strode forward and gripped the doorknob, tried to twist it. When it didn’t turn, she slammed both fists against the wood. “Stop playing games! I don’t like your damn house and where is Lily?”
The door opened.
Finn peered into a girly, Victorian bedroom that was all creams and ivories, the large bed veiled by gossamer curtains patterned with butterflies, the open windows revealing a Ghostlands night. A girl sat on a sofa of white velvet, her head bowed, long dark hair concealing her face.
“Lily?” Finn stepped in, hope tearing at her.
The girl raised her head—and it was Reiko Fata who smiled at her.
The door slammed shut behind Finn. She backed against it, slid down. Reiko laughed, rising with serpentine grace. “Oh, he said it would be entertaining, your reaction. Who do you think I am?”
Finn wanted to push herself through the door’s wood as Reiko sauntered toward her, speaking. “You’re the queen killer, a little thing like you . . . He won’t tell me which queen you’ve slain. Did you do it alone, little mayfly?”
Finn couldn’t believe how vivid this trick was. “You can’t . . . be here . . .”
Reiko leaned close. “Seth said you did it to save a lover. A Jack.”
As the Fata queen stepped back, Finn understood what was happening . . . Absalom had said Seth Lot had stolen this house from a creature of dreams, so it held memories, phantoms. This was a Reiko from the past, a memory, trapped here . . . This Reiko wouldn’t remember the child Finn she’d nearly drowned, because they hadn’t met. This Reiko hadn’t yet decided to sacrifice eighteen-year-old Finn at the Teind.
“I have a Jack.” Reiko fixed Finn with a playful look. “And I would murder kings and queens for him. You do seem familiar.” Reiko approached again. Her green eyes glinted as she reached out—
—and gently pulled Finn away from the door to open it. “I don’t know what you are, little mayfly, but you belong to the Wolf now. You may roam the house. But you will never leave it.”
As the door closed, Finn sank down onto the sofa and began to scheme.
JACK AND MOTH LEFT THEIR MOTORCYCLES in the forest surrounding Lot’s house, a looming, hollowed wreck that stank of toadstools and the iron taint of blood that meant mortals had died there. As they slipped closer to the house, reaching the border of the sinister garden, a figure in a grimy, white suit moved from the darkness.
Although Jack had his kris at Leander Cyrus’s throat in a heartbeat and Moth had drawn a dagger, Leander calmly said, “You can’t take Lily Rose out of the Ghostlands.”
“And why is that, Leander?”
“This house, Jack . . . the Wolf’s house . . . it once belonged to someone else. This house is a tomb for memories and parts of the past. Ghosts.”
A cold despair cut through Jack. “I know that.”
“Do you understand why Lily can leave the Wolf’s house, but not the Ghostlands?”
“What is he saying?” Moth demanded of Jack. “Lily isn’t a ghost. She’s real—”
“Listen,” Leander’s voice broke. “Lily isn’t ali—”
“Stop.” Jack felt as if everything was collapsing around him. What they had risked to come here . . . He stepped close to Leander. “You are not to tell Finn. And if you betray us, I’ll rip out your flower stuffing. Do you understand?”
“I understand”—Leander was somber—“that you are truly Jack Daw again.”
“Jack,” Moth said quietly, “shall we stick to the plan?”
Jack sheathed his kris and said to Leander, “So Jill Scarlet got my message to you, did she?”
Leander nodded, his eyes silvery and rimmed with shadows. “I’ve been waiting . . . I saw Finn . . . she’s in there now.”
Jack’s black heart pulsed and he almost snarled. “Get us in, Cyrus.”
Leander turned and led them down a tunnel of briars that clung to their skin and hair. Jack, silent as the night itself, felt a predator thriving within him. They pushed through a decaying door into a courtyard where a tower rose at the back of the mansion over which a lavish glamour had fallen. The tower’s stained-glass windows glowed with light, its walls covered with wickedly thorned briars and roses as pale and perfumed as a Fata queen’s false skin.
“That’s Lot’s room”—Leander indicated—“at the top. It’s the last place he’ll expect anyone to attempt.”
“Grab a vine. We’re going up.”
“Jack?”
The voice caused Moth and Leander to whirl around, but