the betwixt and between.” Lulu’s eyes, for a moment, pooled to an unsettling black before she smiled like a movie star.
“Witch,” Moth muttered.
“The polite term is ban dorchadas. Woman of darkness.” Lulu winked at Moth.
Jack turned on him. “Exactly what have you got against witches?”
“The polite term is ‘woman of darkness,’” Finn reminded him.
“I don’t trust them,” Moth said, defiant.
“That may be a problem where you’re going.” Lulu led them through a pair of scarlet doors, into a courtyard shimmering with snow and scattered with slender trees. In the center was a stone arch carved into images of eyes, hands, and feet tangled in vines, flowers, and fruit. There was a black door in the center with a golden lock-plate, but no handle. Finn, gazing at the door, felt a breathless anticipation.
“Isn’t it pretty?” Lulu smiled. “Phouka’s idea, to center it in that, after she shut up all those wonderful old houses.”
“Lulu, Moth,” Jack said, “I need to speak with Finn alone.”
As Jack drew Finn a little ways down the path, he took from his coat pocket a tiny box of carved wood. “Merry Holidays.”
She fumbled in her backpack, produced his gift wrapped in gold paper. “Same here.”
He unwrapped it as she lifted the lid of the box, revealing a pendant—two lions clasping a ruby heart. It matched the ring she’d given him, only it was made of white gold.
“For my lionheart,” he told her, lifting from his box a small golden phoenix on a leather thong. His teeth flashed. “I’d rather be a phoenix than a jackal.”
“Merry Christmas.” She kissed him, quick, because Moth and Lulu were watching.
Wearing their gifts, they walked, hand in hand, back to the door to the Ghostlands. Finn wasn’t scared anymore, which was probably crazy. As Jack fit together the pieces of the key and a butterfly-winged woman with a skull head formed, Finn was a little disappointed at the lack of special effects.
Lulu said, “After you pass through the arch, you’ll be at the train station near Rowan Cruithnear’s home. Rowan will send someone for you.”
“Train station?” Finn’s eyes widened as Lulu continued, “Rowan plans to get the elixir—which loses its potency here—from the Blue Lady while you wait, safely, in his house.”
Finn said, “What ‘elixir’?”
Lulu explained: “Phouka told you your blood will be like a beacon to the Unseelie. The elixir will make you seem like one of us. Jack may need to take it, too.” She looked at Moth. “I don’t know about you.”
“We’ll see.” Moth was watching her. “After Rowan Cruithnear, what then?”
“Rowan wants you to have guides—Fata ones—and the Grindylow heart, the compass Absalom Askew gave you, can be used if you’re ever lost. Remember, the roads in the Ghostlands will run parallel to those in the true world. Sometimes, the true world breaks through. You’re not to interact with such breaks, because it will take you out of the Ghostlands and you’ll end up somewhere in Tennessee or Alaska or something.”
She stepped forward. “Now for the rules. Rule one: Don’t eat or drink anything that isn’t from the true world—that includes fruit you haven’t picked yourself. Two: In the Ghostlands, beauty often conceals danger. Three: Poetry can be a weapon—heka—spells in the voice. Four: You’re going to drink an elixir . . . take one dose only, no matter how tempted you might be to take more. As for your tech—your cell phones—don’t bother. They won’t work. And Fata mechanicals can only be operated by Fatas. Spirit energy.”
Finn’s eyes grew wider with each warning cited. Beyond the arch and the door she could see the streets of Fair Hollow and the winking lights of an electric tower—it didn’t seem possible that there was another reality. She said, “Is that all?”
“That’s all.” Lulu stepped back and saluted. “Good luck.”
Jack inserted the key into the lock and the door fell open.
CHAPTER 8
For neither Death nor Change comes near us,
And all listless hours fear us,
And we fear no dawning morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.
—THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN, W. B. YEATS
As Finn stepped into the Ghostlands, it was as if she’d passed through an electric current. Her breath was swept away and her entire body tingled and went numb. She thought she was falling—
When she opened her eyes, staggering a little, she saw a field without snow, without power lines or electric towers, only a cascade of stars across a sapphire-black sky. The silence around her was alien. Her first breath shot adrenaline to her brain. As terror sheared her nerves,