Tamsin’s never liked a scary story. Tell me one of those.

  I pushed Cabell’s voice out of my mind and continued.

  “It was said to devour anyone who tried to pass through the city’s walls. It killed so many people, in fact, legend had it that blood flowed through the streets like waves. Very few escaped.”

  “Oh, wicked,” Neve breathed out.

  “It’s going to be significantly less cool if that monster eats us, too,” I told her.

  “Do you really believe it’s still alive?” Caitriona asked. “It’s been centuries.”

  “If you believe the worst of the rumors, the thing has had a steady diet in that time,” I said. “I’ve read that sorceresses have a way in, and they’re fond of dumping the monsters they can’t kill there.”

  Caitriona let out a huff and stood, slipping out from under both the blanket and Neve’s arm. She began pacing, doing laps around our small camp. “Go on.”

  “With King Arthur and his best knights dead, the so-called age of heroes was at an end,” I said. “And no one was brave—or foolish—enough to hunt the beast again.”

  “The priestesses of Avalon were the ones who splintered Lyonesse from the mortal world, using high magic,” Caitriona said. “It was one of their final acts before the druid uprising.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Then, later, the sorceresses encouraged the tales of the city succumbing to a wave sent by some wrathful deity, repeating again and again that the kingdom had been dragged beneath the icy sea, until the story became legend.”

  With the story at its end, we settled back into tense silence.

  Neve craned her neck, searching the sky. “It has to be midnight by now.”

  The stars seemed sharper tonight, glittering with cold fire as the moon climbed the vault of the sky. Based on the moon’s position, I guessed there was still an hour before midnight, that liminal hour between one day and the next.

  “Nearly there,” I told them.

  “Nearly where?” a warbling voice asked.

  My stomach bottomed out.

  Caitriona spun around, lunging for her spear. Slowly, with every curse in every language I knew streaming through my head, I looked back over my shoulder.

  Rosydd, the Hag of the Moors, was floating lazily at the boundary of the protective wards, her head propped up on one hand. She was still wearing that disconcerting blend of all our faces.

  Neve rose to her feet, shivering. “Hello, Rosydd, you’re looking lovely this evening.”

  The hag preened. “Thank you. You’re looking delectable yourself.”

  I glanced between them, holding my breath as the hag floated closer to the wards. They repelled her with a hard snap of light and pressure.

  “Ouch! That was mean!” She scowled at us, rubbing her sore arm. “Take those down immediately!”

  “How many days do you have left of not eating people?” Neve asked.

  Rosydd smiled, baring all of her many pointed teeth. “None.”

  “Thirteen,” I corrected. “At least.”

  “You couldn’t have asked for longer than two weeks, huh?” Neve muttered to me.

  The hag drifted over to her, inspecting her as closely as the wards would allow. Neve drew back a step, recoiling as the hag shifted her features again, mimicking the sorceress’s wide, luminous eyes.

  “Stop it,” Neve ordered.

  “Stop what?” the hag asked innocently, shifting out of her white velvet gown and into a replica of Neve’s plum-colored coat. She seemed to prefer my boots and copied them down to the way I’d tied the laces. And, weirdly, I was flattered.

  “Why can’t you just look like yourself?” Neve asked her. “What’s so wrong with who you are?”

  “What’s so wrong with wanting to look the way I want to look?” the hag asked.

  “It’s one thing to change your appearance,” Neve said, “and something else to try to become another person. Do you even remember what you originally looked like?”

  The hag stared at her, her lips—Olwen’s lips—parting. “You’re mean.”

  “It’s okay to change yourself to your liking, but it’s also okay to be yourself as you are,” Neve said. “You don’t have to look or be a certain way for others to like you.”

  The hag glowered at her. “You don’t like me?”

  “That’s not—” Neve threw up her hands. “Never mind.”

  “What are we doing here, anyway, meaty-pie?” Rosydd asked me.

  My mind couldn’t decide what to process first, that we, or meaty-pie.

  “We’re here to see the Hag of the Mist,” I said. “Any relation?”

  Rosydd drew herself upright, allowing her bare feet to settle onto the crust of hoarfrost covering the ground. If I’d thought she was capable of it, I would have said she looked hurt—as if we’d committed some grave, mortal offense.

  “But why…her?” she whined. “You like me best, don’t you? And to think, we had such fun.”

  “If by fun, you mean we witnessed unyielding horrors and you tried to turn us over to the Wild Hunt, then sure,” I said. “Listen, Ros—can I call you Ros?”

  “Can I call you Supper?”

  I paused. “Touché.”

  She nudged at the wards again, just hard enough to spark a little jolt. Caitriona drew closer, her expression enough to send Rosydd gliding back a step. “What do you want with that batty old creature, anyway? I thought we were friends.”

  “Do friends eat their friends?” I asked her.

  “When hungry, yes,” Rosydd said. “Well, all right, no. But they do eat disappointing acquaintances.”

  “Important distinction,” Neve said.

  “We need the Hag of the Mist to open a path between this world and Lyonesse,” I told her. “She was able to get us into Avalon before.”

  The hag’s nose wrinkled. “Is that it? All of my sisters and I can do that.”

  “Really?” I asked. “I thought she was the only one who could manipulate the mists that border the Otherlands.”

  Rosydd put her hands on her hips. “Of course she’d want you to believe that. So conceited. She’s not any more powerful than the rest of us just because some soggy corner of the earth coughed her up first.”

  “So…,” I began. “You’d be willing to open a path for us?”

  “It depends…,” the hag said. One of her curved fangs poked out as she bit her lip. “What did my sister ask for?”

  “An offering, and a few strands of my hair,” I said.

  “Your hair?” Rosydd looked just as puzzled as Neve and Caitriona did.

  “What’s wrong with my hair?” I asked, tucking a strand behind my ear.

  “She’s always been the odd one in the family,” Rosydd told us. “Never met a cave she didn’t want to skulk around in, likes to be as slimy as a frog. She’s probably sniffing those strands as we speak.”

  A small part of me died at that thought. “What do you want, then?”

  “A good question…,” Rosydd said, sounding eminently reasonable. “What about your toenails? Surely they’re easy enough to pluck out.”

  “What if,” Neve cut in, before I could say something I regretted, “she gives you three eyelashes? They’re what mortals use to make wishes on.”

  Rosydd looked intrigued. “Go on.”

  I’d never been more grateful for Neve’s love of whimsy.

  “Three eyelashes, for three wishes a god may answer,” Neve said. She held out the bottle, letting the contents slosh around. “And this wonderful offering.”

  “Is that what smells like ruptured warts?” Rosydd asked, wrinkling her nose. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

  “Whatever hags do with weird bottled mixtures,” I told her. “You’re the one with centuries of mystic knowledge.”

  “Well…all right,” she said. “Maybe I’ll throw it at an unsuspecting mortal and have a laugh.”

  Neve gave a pained smile as she passed the bottle over the wards. “Try not to aim for their heads, please.”

  “But it never shatters right when it strikes their flanks.”

  “In a moment, we will give you the eyelashes and the bottle,” I said, careful to lay out the full deal, “and you vow you will open a portal to Lyonesse there for us right now, and keep it open to allow us to return when we are ready.”

  The hag pouted, and I knew then my instinct had been right. She would have turned my own trick back on me if I hadn’t worded it as a vow.

  “I’m going to take the wards down now,” I told her. “And you’re going to keep your vow moving forward, right?”

  Caitriona took that as her cue to smother the fire, and Neve to gather our things. Rosydd held out her hand eagerly.

  “I swear it,” the hag said.

  At the vow, I unwound the garland of wards from around the camp. Then, with some effort, I managed to pluck three eyelashes from my right eye. “Don’t spend them all on one wish.”

  Her hand was shockingly cold as I wiped the pale lashes into her palm. The hag closed her fist around them, bringing them close to her mouth to whisper her wishes.

  “Now blow on them, or let the wind carry them away,” Neve said, handing me Dyrnwyn. I draped the strap of the hilt we’d made for it over one shoulder, and my loaded workbag over the other.

  The hag did as she was told, releasing the lashes with childish pleasure. In that unguarded moment, her false face slipped, just for a second, revealing her true one. The blue-gray tint of her skin, the rugged planes of her face so like the nearby cliffs, the golden glow of her bulging eyes—and there was nothing frightening about her. Except, maybe, the razored teeth.

  “The passage?” I reminded her.

  Her mask slipped back into place as she turned to me. “Oh, all right, yes. You’ll bring me back something tasty, won’t you?”

  “We’ll certainly try,” Neve said. “Do you have any preferences?”

  I tried not to groan as the hag took her time deliberating.

  “Something that isn’t too hairy, or dead longer than a day,” Rosydd said, finally. “Too much fur gets stuck in the teeth, and too-dead meat is tough to chew.”

  “Well, that’s a mental image I’ll never get rid of,” Neve said.

  “I can’t leave the portal open willy-nilly,” Rosydd said. “One of the big meanies might get out, and as much as it disappoints me, my jaws simply aren’t big enough for some of them.”

  “Oh…dear,” Neve managed.

  “When you’re ready for me, call out, Dark the night, dark the moor, part the mist, open the door,” Rosydd said, beginning to spin her hands in front of her, as if winding string.

  “Why that?” I asked.

  “Because it’s amusing,” the hag snapped.

  I held up my hands. “Dark the night, got it. Can you really hear us across worlds?”

  “I can if you say my name first,” Rosydd said. “Give it a nice big shout. Make it sound lovely and scrumptious, won’t you?”

  The hag raised her hands, then lowered them again, then raised them once more—only to stop and stroke the point of her chin.

  “Is there a problem?” Caitriona asked.

  “Grant me a moment, will you?” Rosydd said, cracking her neck. “It’s been a while. I don’t want to send you to the wrong place—believe me, you wouldn’t like any of the forgotten worlds. Though I suppose you might like the one if you’ve ever wanted to bathe in the mouth of a god.”

  “Lyonesse will be just fine,” I said quickly. “The castle, please.”

  “Really, take your time,” Neve added.

  Rosydd returned to her work with a satisfied snort. Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply, and her body rose, hovering above the ground.

  I hadn’t been able to bring myself to watch her sister, the Hag of the Mist, open the pathway to Avalon. Now, I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

  Black threads appeared in the night air, braiding together, then slithering around and around like an ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail. Mist spiraled out of the darkness gathering at its center. As the portal opened, the smell of fir trees bled into the air like a promise.

  “There,” Rosydd said, sounding satisfied with herself. “Off you go, then. And don’t forget—” She pointed at her mouth, chattering her teeth to mime eating.

  “Believe me,” Neve said, “we couldn’t if we tried.”

  Caitriona gripped her pale spear as she made her way toward the door between the worlds. A breeze pushed the loose strands of silver hair away from her face. Dark tendrils of magic drifted out, wrapping around her, drawing her in. She didn’t look back—she simply surrendered to it, and was drawn into its depths.

  Neve followed, reaching into her fanny pack for her wand, pointing the knife end out in front of her as she stepped through. Remembering the first unpleasant trip, I hung back, trying to settle my nerves.

  Go, Tamsin, I told myself. Go.

  Squaring my shoulders, I stepped forward, waiting for the darkness to take me. One by one, its fingers stretched out, sliding around my throat, my wrists, my hips. I felt my hair lift from the back of my neck, and loud sniffing filled my ears.

  The doorway tugged me forward, but Rosydd let out a shrill noise of panic, trying to grip the fistful of my hair again.

  “No,” she said, “wait—!”

  But the passage had me, and I was already gone.

  Greenwich, Connecticut

  The sound of crashing glass and bellowing laughter rose from the floor below. Another moment blurring into the next in a tide of endless hours.

  He’d been on benders before, but they were child’s play compared to the way the riders of the Wild Hunt had unleashed themselves on Summerland House. They drank liquor, cackling as it ran through their immaterial bodies. They knocked candles over, hoping something interesting might catch and turn into an amusing blaze. They sang bawdy songs and retold stories of the kills they’d claimed—the way one sorceress had pled for her life, or how one had tried to hide within the walls of her decrepit house, the old one they’d run down in Wales who’d really thought she might escape.

  Each hunt only sent them deeper into the frenzy. Even Endymion Dye had become something of an animal, eagerly clawing at the walls of his ancestral home as if to destroy that last tie to his humanity.

  He turned over on the narrow bed, drawing his knees up toward his center, listening as they hacked at the chandelier in the entry. The roar of shattering crystal against marble made him curl his fists against his ears.

  As the only living member of the horde aside from his master, he was the only one who required rest, a fact the hunters never allowed him to forget. Rather than take one of the stuffy guest rooms, he’d found a bare-walled room off the main corridor, barely bigger than a closet. It was clearly meant for a servant, which suited him fine. That was what he was. That was what he was meant to be.

  But he had half a mind to find Emrys Dye’s room and take a piss in his bed after what had happened at Rivenoak. When he hadn’t appeared at the merging of the worlds, the seneschal had assumed the kid had died.

  He’d said nothing about seeing Emrys to the others, especially Endymion. He was coming to appreciate that secrets were their own currency. Their own type of power. But as always in his life, he was barely scraping by. The hunters were circling ever closer to Lord Death, trying to bend his ear, trying to win his favor; he would have to work harder now to ensure that his place at his lord’s side wasn’t wrested away from him by another.

  His hesitation to relinquish that final piece of Cabell in the library had cost him.

  The pit of his stomach turned sour. Tremors crawled up and down his body and wouldn’t stop, not when the sweat broke out across his neck and chest, not even as he heaved himself upright, setting his feet on the floor.

  He doubled over, bracing his elbows against his knees, and his forehead against his fists. As the heat spread, his bones shifted, snapped, slipped like snakes under his skin. His lungs struggled for breath.

  His hands reeked of metal, but it was the scattering of ash on the sleeve of his shirt that made him rear back, rip it off him, throw it into the shadowy corner of the room.

  The house leaned in around him, creaking—he’d had the feeling it had been watching him this whole time, learning his ways.

  “What are ye doing?”

  The girl watched him from across the room, scowling. He could see through her translucent shape to the mirror behind her. She had no reflection, but his own face was chalk white.

  He closed his eyes, rubbing at his temples, and when he risked another look, she was still standing there. Still eyeing him like he was scum to be scraped off her boot.

  “You’re not real,” he said hoarsely.

  He was exhausted. The nonstop raids, Rivenoak, and then—

  The memory was a snake coiling around his throat. He flexed his hands over his knees, remembering the weight of his sword, the strength it had taken to drive the steel through the automaton’s body.

  Young Lark…?

  He growled, furious with himself. That wasn’t his name. That had never been his true name.

  “You’re not real,” he repeated, feeling suddenly feverish. An infection of unwanted emotion swelled in him.

  “What did ye do?” she asked, her voice fluttering around the room like the frantic wings of a baby bird.

  “Nothing,” he whispered. “Leave me alone.”

  “Yer the one calling me,” the girl sniped back.

  “I’m not,” he said. “You’re not real.”

  He ran his hands back through his hair, ripping his fingers through painful knots. Like all of the others in Avalon, this girl had needed to die. His lord saw no other option.