kiss, how her bare skin had felt against his as they’d rolled around in the grass. He’d never done it outside before. He’d never been with a Fata girl.
She said, “I’m going to free you from this ridiculous fear. Close your eyes. Repeat my words: ‘Light as a feather, my bones made of air. I free myself from all mortal care. Upon the air I gently rise, my breath my power, my soul to fly.’”
As he reluctantly recited the words, he felt as if a hallucinogenic venom had spilled into his blood. Something dark and old, coiled in his brain, his heart, his spine, woke. Her hands tightened around his. “Open your eyes, Christie Hart.”
When he did, he sucked in a breath.
They spun in a slow circle—two feet above the grass. As his heart began its march toward a stroke, the Fata witch laughed softly and twirled him like a child in the air. The waves of shock and dizziness passed. He dared to look down again at the grass far below his feet. The panic began to return—
“Talk to me, Christie. It’ll calm you.”
He blurted, “The fox knight—who made him to replace me? Who made you to replace Sylvie?”
“I’ve no idea. My first memory is of being a child and playing with dolls made of flowers and bones.” When she kissed him, her lips were soft and sweet.
“Goddamn it.” The annoyed—and annoying—voice sent them plummeting to the grass. Sylph recovered with a neat twist, and Christie scrambled up to face Jill Scarlet and Jack, who continued, “I might have known you’d turn out to be the woman of darkness.”
“The term,” Christie said haughtily, “is fear dorchadas, man of darkness.”
“Man? More like buachaill dorchadas.”
“That’s ‘boy of darkness,’” Sylph said helpfully.
“Yes. I guessed that. So, Jack, are we done here? Can we move on and stop Finn and Sylvie from getting to the Mockingbird monsters?”
“I’m going to take the Mockingbirds up on their earlier invitation to tea.” Jack’s smile made Christie wonder if Sylph’s Jack-illusion was becoming a reality. He guiltily hoped it was. Because there was no way they were going to survive the Ghostlands without badass Jack.
JACK’S FIRST WARNING that they were in Mockingbird territory was the sight of a human skull on a pillar, with the skeleton of a bird arrowing out of one eye socket. Standing beside his reindeer motorcycle, Jack regarded the gruesome totem with narrowed eyes as Christie walked to his side and stared up at the skull.
“It’s a terror tactic.” Sylph Dragonfly was disdainful as she wheeled her motorcycle through the ferns.
“It works.” Christie glanced at Jack, the whites showing around his irises. “They’ve got Finn and Sylvie, don’t they? We’re too late.”
“It’s never too late.” Jack turned and gazed down the steep ravine, at the fin de siècle–style hotel in the mountain forest wreathed with mist. Even from this distance, he could feel the dark energy of the place buzzing at his eardrums. It was the same Go-away-don’t-come-here-Bad-Things-will-happen-to-you glamour Reiko had used to keep people away from Tirnagoth. “Neither of you can come with me.”
“I can help—”
“How?” Jack didn’t even look at Christie. “Get hurt and distract them by bleeding all over the place?”
“Was that one of your plans?” Christie sounded tired. Sylph was silent beside them, her black hair and gown drifting in a wind that reeked of rust and rotting leaves. Christie continued, “They’re my friends, Jack. I’m going with you. And I did knife that siren that would have mummified you. And I’m a . . . witch.”
Jack studied the boy with the tangled curls and goatlike stubbornness. “I need to go in there alone. This isn’t pretend, Christopher.”
Sylph’s eyes caught the last of the light. “You need to convince the Mockingbirds that you’ve gone dark. So, Jack, what would make you go dark?”
“I’d rather not say.” At Jill Scarlet’s, Jack had exchanged his clothes for a black suit and a dark coat lined with fur. His fingers were once again decorated with old rings.
Shadows uncurled from Sylph’s black hair, her fingertips, enveloped her, and fell away.
Reiko Fata stood where Sylph Dragonfly had been, her hair writhing, her gown as red as wallpaper in hell. Jack felt as if someone had put an ax into his heart. He didn’t move as she glided to him, cupped his face in her hands, and whispered, “Come back to me.”
He felt the darkness constrict around the illusion of his fossil heart—then Christie was shouting, “Let the mask drop and the true spirit rise.