Ballad

I stopped walking so fast that Nuala's hand twisted out of mine and she stumbled.

"What?" Nuala rubbed the skin on her hand and returned to my side.

"Sorry," I said, without feeling. I looked down. "I ran into something."

At my feet was a pile of something. A pile of someone. It was sprawled in a sort of strung-out way that I didn't think a living someone could manage. For one-fourth of a breath, my brain thought: Dee. But then I realized it was a guy. In a tunic jacket, leggings, and leather bootie-things. Either a very lost reenactor or someone who'd been messing around with fairies.

Nuala gave the shoulder an experimental shove with her foot, and the body slumped wetly onto its back.

"Oh, vomit," I said, to keep from actually throwing up.

Nuala gave a little sigh. "Eleanor's consort. He was at the dance last night."

"Who do you think killed him?"

She touched the hilt still sticking out of his heart with her toe.

"This is a bone dagger. It was Them. I've seen Eleanor carry these around all the time. He told me he was going to be a king when I first met him. King of corpses, maybe."

I was sort of shocked-horrified-fascinated. I'd never seen a really properly dead body before, aside from on TV, and this was a pretty gruesome example for my first time. I wondered if we ought to report it to the police or something. I mean, it seemed pretty careless of the faeries, to just stab someone and leave them lying around.

"What did you do to get yourself killed, human?" Nuala asked the body.

I looked at her. It seemed like an awfully compassionate thing for her to say. And then I realized that the thorn king's song was in my head and I had no idea how long it had been there.

"Nuala, the song. He's--"

She grabbed my arm and jerked me round. "There!"

And there he was, massive antlers echoing the shape of the naked branches behind him. He was striding past us, several yards away already. Somehow I'd never thought that I'd have to chase him. I'd thought something that terrifying would be the sort of thing you ran from.

Nuala and I both started after him, but we weren't getting any closer. In fact, the gap between us was growing, an immense sea of red-gold grass. And then I realized he had begun to run, the slow, graceful lope of a massive animal. The antlers rocked to and fro with each loping stride.

I broke into a run too, and I heard Nuala's footfalls land faster and harder. The antlered king left a beaten path in the grass that sprang back up almost before we could get to it. The cold air tore the hell out of my throat and I was about to give it up when I saw that a long, black cloak fluttered out behind him.

I threw myself into the pursuit like my life depended on it. I stretched out as far as I could, and my fingers caught the fabric, coarse and cold as death in my grip. With my other hand, I reached out for Nuala. I felt her fingers seize mine a second before the thorn king began to drag us.

I didn't know if I was running or flying. The grass was flattening faster and faster below us, and the sun vanished below the hills behind us. The air froze solid in my mouth and nose, escaping only in frosted gusts in the darkness. Above us, the stars came out, millions and millions, more stars than I'd ever seen before, and I heard Nuala gasp with delight or fear. Maybe both.

And still we ran. Comets raced above us and the wind buffeted below us and the hills went on forever. The night grew deeper and darker, and suddenly, between the hills, there was a huge black river. And we were going straight for it.

My brain screamed let go.

Or maybe it was Nuala.

I don't know why I hung onto the shroud that flowed from the king's shoulders. Death glittered below me, black and filled with stars like the sky above us. Something I'd never seen before.

Maybe glimpsed around the edges, a dark promise of the end.

But never plunged into face-first, eyes open.

Someone was laughing, right as our bodies met the surface of the river.

--from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter

It was dark. No, it wasn't dark. It was nothing. James' hand was supposed to be in my hand, but I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't feel the sweater hanging on my shoulders or the breath coming from my mouth. Or my mouth.

I reached my hand up for my lips, to prove to myself that they were there, and there wasn't anything. No lips. No hand. Just swallowing darkness--because of course, I had no body, so I had no eyes to see anything.

There was no time.

Nothing stretched out in front of me and behind me, without beginning or end.

I had stopped existing.

I started to scream, but without any mouth or vocal chords or anyone to hear, did it matter?

Then I had an arm, because someone was grabbing it. And ears, because I heard James say, "Nuala! Why can't she hear me?"

Something gritty was being rubbed on my skin, pressed into my hand, traced on my mouth. Salt, like the potato chips.

"Welcome to your death," said another voice, and this one was low, earthy, organic, thundering from under our feet or inside me.

My eyes flew open. I was suddenly aware of the ordinary magic of them; the way the lids fit over my eyeballs, the curve of the upper and lower lashes touching as I blinked, the effortless way my gaze slid over to James beside me. There was still nothingness around us, but James was here in it with me, his red sweatshirt glowing like a sunset.

I gripped onto the hand he offered me, gritty salt pressed between our palms. What I could glimpse of his arms was covered with goose bumps.

"You see your death," the voice continued, and I realized it was the massive antlered king, appearing in the nothingness before me. "And she sees hers. What do you see, James Antioch

Morgan?"

Beside me, James turned his head this way and that, as if there were more to see than nothingness. "It's a garden. All the flowers are white and green. Everything's white and green.

There's music. I think--I think it's coming from the ground. Or maybe from the flowers."

"What do you see, Amhrán-Liath-na-Méine?" Cernunnos asked me, voice even deeper than before.

I flinched. "How do you know my name?"

"I know the names of all creatures that come through my realm," the thorn king said. "But yours I know because I gave it to you, daughter."

James' hand gripped mine tighter, or maybe I gripped his tighter. I snapped, "I am no one's daughter." But maybe I was. I would've said I was no one's sister, earlier.

"What do you see, Amhrán-Liath-na-Méine?" the thorn king asked again.

"Trees," I lied. "Big trees."

Cernunnos stepped closer to us, a dark mass in dark nothing, visible because he was something and the nothing was not.

"What do you see, Amhrán-Liath-na-Méine?" he asked, a third time.

I couldn't see his face. He was too tall for me to see it, and that scared me almost as much as my answer. "Nothing," I whispered. And I knew that was what I would get when I died, because I had no soul.

The void swallowed my word until I doubted whether I'd said it.

"Nothing has its pleasures," Cernunnos said finally. His antlers stretched above him into the blackness. Blackness so black that

I longed for stars. "You have no consequences. You have life eternal. You have unbridled hedonism at your feet, if it sings to you. Nothing is a small price to pay for such a life, when you lay your head down on the cold ground at the end."

James' fingers tightened and released around mine. He was trying to tell me something. Cernunnos inclined his head toward me. He, too, was trying to tell me something, to get me to say something, but I didn't understand what. I wasn't used to words being so important.

"Yes," I said finally. "And I have a host of faeries to mock me.

And a pile of bodies behind me, all used up to give me life. And what do I do with it? Use my life to suck life out of more bodies.

Until I wear out, and I burn, and I do it all over again." I sounded ungrateful. But I felt ungrateful.

Cernunnos folded his hands, which were not beast-like at all, in front of him. They were lined and sturdy and ghostly white. "It is I that has given you this existence, daughter. It is my poisoned blood in yours that drives you to the bonfire every ten and six years. My blood that means you have but half a life, and must pilfer the rest from those with souls, trading their breath for your inspiration. I thought only that you would find pleasure in years of self-indulgence, dancing, and adoration. I did not mean this life to cause you pain, though I see that it has."

"My sister," I said, and bitterness sharpened my voice despite myself. "Does she find pleasure in such a life?"

"She did," Cernunnos said. "She is dead, now." He made an odd gesture toward James, holding his palm up toward him, and

James jerked as if he saw something displayed in the lines of the thorn king's hand.

"The girl in my dream," James said. "The one who was stabbed with the iron. I thought it was Nuala--I thought it was her future."

"Like me, you see future and past both." The antlered king turned his head, looking into nothing as if something was calling to him. "She was not meant to die this year. I will have my revenge, even from where I stand."

He was fearsome when he said it; I heard nothing but the undeniable truth of his words and felt a shard of pity for whoever had killed my sister.

In the silence between our voices, the nothing pulled at me, threatening to rob me of my body again. I shivered, thinking of the sister I'd never known. She was nothing now--like she'd never existed. Which meant everyone who'd given her life had died for nothing. I realized suddenly, in this darkness, that even if I felt human now, I wasn't. I knew, with a sudden, urgent clarity, that I was still a faerie, just slowly stripped of my powers by eating human food. This was still how it would end for me, this staggering emptiness.

"I don't want to be nothing," I pleaded, suddenly. I wasn't sure if I was talking to James or Cernunnos.

"What do you want then, Amhrán-Liath-na-Méine? And when

Cernunnos asked it this time, I saw what he had been waiting for me to say before. The words were right there in my mouth, waiting to be said. But before I said them, memories flashed in my head. Lying in water, utterly invisible, completely safe.

Flying through the air on the thoughts of humans, light and free. The wave of a hand toward a movie screen, calling up any movie I wanted to watch. The devastating sweetness of the melody I'd inspired in James. The safety of eternal youth. All of the faerie pleasures that were mine.

"I want to be human," I said.

Cernunnos held his arms out on either side of him, and light trickled down from his fingers, green and white, bleeding into the nothing. The color grew and rose around us until we stood in a twilight garden, the half-light tinted green as it filtered down between massive leaves the size of my body. Heavy white blossoms shaped like trumpets hung on the plants closest to us, and pale white lilies tipped their throats up toward the sky beyond them. They looked hungry to me.

"You can choose," Cernunnos said. "When you burn, you can choose to be born human. I made such an offer to your sister, but she scoffed. I looked into the future, and I saw that you would do the same."

"I wouldn't," I demanded. "What you saw was wrong."

The antlered king walked slowly toward James. James' chin was lifted, unafraid. I was terrified of the fascination in James' expression. There was an unspoken choice James could make too. "This was before the piper. Piper, know that humans who wish to leave my realm do not."

James didn't flinch. He held up his left hand, the one I wasn't holding, so that Cernunnos could see the writing on it; a bit that hadn't been washed off or newly added. It said bonfire. "But I will. Won't I?"

He sounded a little disappointed.

Cernunnos looked at James, and I didn't like the nature of the expression; appraising and hungry.

James continued, "You and I know it. Because I will be there on

Halloween with her. I know you don't feel like I do, like a human, but I know you care for Nuala. You can't want her to be there alone."

The antlers turned slightly. "You don't fear me, piper. And you do not care whether you leave this place. And that is why you will."

James turned his face away from both of us. With both his thoughts and expressions hidden from me, he seemed very far away. His hand in my hand was cold and still. I had forgotten, over the last few days, that he had been chasing death when I met him.

Cernunnos came close to me then, the tips of his antlers brushing away fragile-looking green tendrils of leaves overhead, and I felt young and powerless in his shadow. "Daughter, do you understand what I am telling you?"

I nodded, just barely.

"Wear black, daughter, to your bonfire. You and the piper both.

Cover your bodies with black garments so that my hungry dead will not see you." Cernunnos took James' shoulder in one of his ordinary-looking hands, and James jerked as if he'd forgotten we were there.

"James Antioch Morgan," the king of the dead said, and when he sang out James' name, it sounded like music. "You will be called to make a choice. Make the right one."

James' eyes glittered in the darkness. "Which is the right one?"

"The one that hurts," Cernunnos said.

James

Death smells like birthday cake. That was the conclusion I came to, anyway, because Nuala and I reeked the morning after we met Cernunnos. Not really like birthday cake, but like candles, I guess. Like the smell after you blow them out. We stank of it, our clothing and hair.

"James Morgan, I'm not losing my job because of you. Wake up."

The first thing I saw after being dead was Sullivan, his face a silhouette in front of a light, cloud-streaked sky. The first thing I felt was the side of my face, hot and ringing.

"Did you just slap me?" I demanded.

"Did you just die?" Sullivan shot back. "I've been trying to wake you up for the past five minutes. The slap was me losing my patience."

"Nuala," I said, and sat up, hurriedly.

"She's fine," Sullivan said, his voice accusing, just as I saw her sitting a few feet away. "She wasn't the one who found death appealing."

I ignored that part. "Why are we all sitting on the fountain?"

I looked past the satyr's butt and saw Paul sitting on the other side of the fountain, eating a donut.

"Now do you want to tell me where you've been for the past two days?" Sullivan demanded. "Paul, you want to go first, since you're eating my breakfast?"

Nuala and I exchanged looks. I said, "Paul went to see him too?

Wait, it was two days ago?"

"It's Halloween!" Sullivan said. "October thirty-first, seven fortyone am." When we all stared at him, he added, "I'd give you more specifics, but my watch doesn't do picoseconds."

I waited for Nuala's expression to change when she heard

"Halloween," but it didn't.

Instead, she just said, "Will there be bonfires on campus?

Sullivan nodded. "The staff lights them as soon as it's dark.

There will be several." His eyes narrowed. "What did he say?

Cernunnos?"

I waited for Paul or Nuala to say something, but they were all looking at me like I was the ringleader. So I went over what had happened while Sullivan ran his tongue back and forth over his teeth.

"Paul, what did he tell you?" Sullivan asked.

Paul swallowed the last of the donut. "He showed me stuff I'm not allowed to talk about."

Sullivan frowned at him, but Paul didn't say anything more.

"Go get cleaned up," Sullivan said to us. "You all stink. Then, "And James, I need you again. Normandy wants to see you."

"Goodie," I said.

Halloween. It was finally here. I sort of wished I could disappear.

James

I'd assumed we were going back to Normandy's office for our little talking to, but instead, Sullivan made a giant pot of coffee in his room and sat me at his kitchen table with a mug. The coffee was very black, and I said so.

"We'll both need to be awake tonight," Sullivan said. "The bonfires don't even start until nine."

When he said bonfire, my stomach pinched for a second, sick and raw. I only had a second to wonder at the sensation--when was the last time I'd been nervous?--when Gregory Normandy pushed open the door and came into the room. Like the last time I saw him, he was in a button-down and tie, only this time everything he wore looked a little rumpled, like he'd been wearing it awhile. He didn't say anything to Sullivan, just pulled out a chair and settled down opposite me.

"Hello, James," he said.

I looked at Sullivan.

"Coffee?" Sullivan asked Normandy.

"Yes." Normandy accepted a cup and turned his attention on me. He looked huge at the table, his elbows resting on the surface and dwarfing it. "I need you to tell me everything you know about Deirdre Monaghan."

Something about the way he said it, just assuming or something, made me bristle. I held up my hand. "She's about this tall, dark hair, gray eyes, pretty hot in jeans."

"James." Sullivan's voice held a warning tone. "Not really the time. Just answer the question."

That pissed me off too. I didn't really care for Sullivan pulling rank on me now, not after everything we'd been through.

"Why?"

If I'd known how he would answer the question, I don't know if

I would've asked it.

In response, Sullivan pulled a slender phone out of his pocket and slid it across the table to me, sans introduction. I looked at him questioningly and he just gestured with his chin to it. "Read the unsent texts."

I clicked past the stock photograph on the wallpaper and through the menu until I got to the unread text section. Fifteen unread texts. Every one to me. My mouth felt dry as I scanned the words. i miss talking like we used to i saw more faeries. luke was here everything isn't ok i killed someone i can hear them coming now

And finally, the worst, because it was exactly the same as the text message I'd sent before school started. i love u.

I just stared at the screen for a long moment before slowly closing the phone. I was aware of a bird singing a repetitive, ugly song outside the window and of a misshapen P on my left hand and of the minute pause between when I exhaled and when I began to inhale again.

Normandy said, "So I think you can see why it's time for you to confide in us."

"No, how about this," I said. I heard how my voice sounded, flat and not like me, but I didn't try to change it as I kept staring at the screen of the phone. "How about you guys tell me what we're all doing here. Here at Thornking-Ash, I mean. Not in wishy-washy 'we're watching out for you to make sure nothing happens' terms. Like in, 'why the hell did you bring us here when you don't even know what's going on under your own noses' terms. Like you told me that you knew something was up with Dee, right at the very beginning, and now she's obviously totally screwed, and you should've done something--"

I stopped speaking then, because Normandy was saying something and I was realizing that I wasn't angry at him at all. I was angry at me.

I stared at my hands.

"James," Sullivan said. I heard the sound of Dee's cell phone scraping across the table as he picked it up.

"Look. You're not an idiot," Normandy said. "I thought I was pretty clear when we met. We--we being myself and a few of the other staff members here--founded Thornking-Ash after we realized that They were more likely to harass or kidnap teens with incredible musical talent. Like my son."

I dimly remembered hearing something about this, back when

I'd first applied to the school with Dee. I just stopped myself from saying "the one who killed himself." It sounded too tactless, even for me.

"He was stolen," Normandy said, his voice very even. "That was before I knew about Them. I knew I couldn't let that happen to anyone else. So we created the school to find at-risk students and keep them under a watchful eye."

"And the thorn king?" I asked. "Obviously his trekking about behind the school isn't a coincidence, given the name of the school."

"He's a canary," Normandy said, with a sort of flat-lipped smile as if the statement was supposed to be funny, or had been funny once. "A supernatural canary."

I looked at him.

He explained, "Miners used to keep a canary down in the mines, to let them know when the oxygen was getting low. If the canary died, the miners knew to get out of the mine shaft.

Cernunnos is our canary. If one of our students can see or hear him, we know they're particularly susceptible to supernatural interference."

Sullivan's eyes bored holes in the side of my head.

"Well, obviously your system worked out great," I said.

Normandy ignored the sarcasm. "Yeah, actually, it did. We haven't actually had any notable incidents with the Good

Neighbors"--he said this last bit with a glance at Sullivan, making me wonder if there was a story there, or if he just knew about Sullivan's history with Eleanor--"for years. In fact, we've just been a premier music school for several years. Until this year--when we've had more of Them show up on campus than in all of the other years combined. Patrick tells me it's because we have a cloverhand here, though I didn't think they existed anymore. And my instinct is telling me that Deirdre is that cloverhand. Now, I've told you everything about the school, so maybe you can tell me this: am I right?"

There wasn't any reason to lie. "Yes. I think it started this summer for her."

Sullivan and Normandy exchanged looks. "So she's been drawing every single one of Them to the campus," Normandy said.

"What does that mean tonight's going to look like? Are They satisfied now that They have Deirdre? Or is she part of something bigger?" Sullivan asked.

"Bigger," I said immediately. I didn't say anything about Nuala; I didn't think Normandy knew about her.

Sullivan said, "I think the other staff need to be notified. There's ways to get her back, but we have to be prepared."

"They'll be resistant. It's been years since we've had to do anything like this." Normandy used the table to push himself to his feet. "Patrick, come with me."

Sullivan hesitated, letting Normandy start off without him.

After Normandy was out of earshot, he turned to me. "Keep

Nuala out of the way and try not to do anything stupid. Just stay inside. In Brigid, maybe. If I don't see you beforehand, meet me by the fountain when the bonfires are starting."

I'm left sitting at the table, goose bumps crawling up and down my arms. "What about Dee?" I asked.

"We're handling it. Worry about Nuala."

He didn't have to mention that last part. I already had it covered.

--from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter

James pushed open the red door to Brigid Hall and stepped aside so I could walk in first. "Nope," I said. "Ladies first."

He gave me a withering look, which was a welcome change from his previously strained expression. "Charming." But he went in before me anyway. The folding chairs were set up exactly the same as last time we'd been in here, and James walked down the aisle between them, his arms held out wide.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen," he said, his face flatteringly lit by the half-light through the frosted glass windows. He kept walking down the aisle; I imagined a cloak billowing out behind him. "I'm Ian Everett Johan Campbell, the third and the last."

"Spotlight following you up the aisle," I interrupted, falling into step behind him.

"I hope I can hold your attention," James continued. He pretended to pause and kiss someone's hand sitting along the aisle. "I must tell you that what you see tonight is completely real."

"Run up the stairs," I said. "Music starts once you hit the bottom stair."

James leapt up the stairs onto the stage, the recessed lighting onstage turning his hair redder than it really was. He spoke as he walked to his mark. "It might not be amazing, it might not be shocking, it might not be scandalizing, but I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt: it is real. For that--" He paused.

"Music stops," I said.

James closed his eyes. "I am deeply sorry."

I joined him on the stage. "When you do the scene where they call you out, when they say what you really are, someone will have to cue the music to go with the sentence. Don't forget that part."

There was a pause then--just a tiny second too long-- before

James said, "You'll cue it." The pause told me he wasn't sure.

He didn't know if tonight was going to work. I didn't either.

The fact was, I didn't know if I was built for happy endings.

"Right," I said, after a space big enough to drop a semi-truck into. "Yeah, of course." I was tired again. It was a heavy sort of tired, like if I went to sleep this time, I wouldn't wake up. James was looking out the window at the late afternoon sun, his eyes narrowed and far away. I knew he was feeling the press of

Halloween as strongly as I was. "Would you play my song?" I asked.

"Will you heckle me if I do it wrong?" But he sat down at the piano bench without waiting for my answer. Not like a proper pianist, but with his shoulders slouched over and his wrists resting on the keys of the piano. "I'm afraid I just can't do it without you here."

"Liar," I said. But I joined him, ducking under his arms like I had that first day at the piano. His arms made a circle around me as

I sat on the edge of the bench, pressing my body into the same shape as his. Like before, my arms matched the line of his arms as my hands rested on his hands. And my spine curved into the same curve of his hunched-over chest. But this time, there weren't any goose bumps on his skin. And this time, he pressed the side of his face into my hair and inhaled sharply, a gesture that so agonizingly spelled desire that I didn't have to read his mind.

And this time, he pulled his hands from beneath mine and rested them on top of my fingers instead. The piano keys were warm from his touch, like they were living things.

"James," I said.

He took one of my hands in one of his inked-up ones and pressed one of my fingers on a key.

I wanted it to make a sound so badly that it hurt.

The key whispered as it depressed, and then hissed again as it came back up again under my finger. No music.

"Soon," James said. "Soon you'll be able to play this as badly as

I can."

I stared at his fingers on my fingers on the keys for a long time, leaning back against him, and then I closed my eyes.

"They're going to do something to Dee tonight," I said, finally.

"That's why Eleanor told you how to save my memories. She wants you at my bonfire instead of finding Dee."

James didn't reply. I wondered if I'd even said it out loud.

"James, did you hear me?"

His voice was flat. "Why did you tell me?"

Of all the things I thought he'd say, this wasn't one of them.

"What?"

He said each word distinctly, as if they were painful. "Why--did-you--tell--me?"

"Because you love her," I said miserably.

He dropped his forehead onto my shoulder. "Nuala," he said.

But he didn't say anything else.

We sat there so long that the bar of sun slanting in from the high windows shifted across the piano, moving from the highest notes to where our hands still rested on the keys.

"What does your name mean?" James asked, finally, his forehead still resting on my shoulder.

I jerked at the sound of his voice. "Gray song of desire."

James turned his face and kissed my neck. It scared me, the way he kissed me, because it was so sad. I don't know why I thought it was, but I could feel it. He sat up straight and let me lean back on his chest. Closing my heavy eyes, I let him cradle me against him and breathed in time to the thud of his heart.

"Don't go to sleep, Izzy," James said, and I opened my eyes. "I don't think you should go to sleep."

"I wasn't sleeping," I protested, but my eyes had a sticky feeling, and I couldn't remember how long they'd been closed.

James' hands were clasped over my breastbone, holding me to him. "Your heart's going a million miles an hour. Like a rabbit."

Animals with fast hearts always lived shorter lives. Rabbits and mice and birds. Their hearts racing as fast as they could toward the end. Maybe we all just got a finite number of heartbeats, and if your heart beat twice as fast, you used them up in half the time as a normal person.

"Let's go," I said.

"Are you ready?"

"Let's go," I repeated. I just wanted to get it over with.

"Whoa. Night of the living dead," I said as we walked W across the overgrown yard in front of Brigid Hall. "Or rather, night of the living geek. I had no idea music geeks danced."

The campus was transformed. From the yard outside Brigid, it looked like a happening party. There were tons of black-clad bodies, gyrating to some sort of pounding bass, which I could just barely make out from where we were. As we got closer, however, I realized that the thumping bass was some trendy pop band. You'd think a music school could at least have scraped up a couple of live musicians, even if it had to be topforty crappola, but there was a DJ up there between the speakers. And what had looked like sexy, coordinated dancing from far away was really a sidewalk full of writhing teens with dubious coordination. Some were wearing masks and others had actually bothered to work up real costumes. But mostly, it was just a bunch of music geeks wiggling to bad music. Sort of what I would've expected from Halloween at Thornking-Ash.

"It's at moments like this"--Nuala paused and watched a chubby guy walk by wearing a fake set of boobs--"that I question whether or not I really want to be human."

I guided her away from a girl in what was supposed to be a sexy cat costume. "Me too. How are you feeling?"

"If you ask me that again, I'll kill you, is how I'm feeling," Nuala said mildly.

"Roger that." I stood on my tiptoes and looked for anyone useful. Or at least anyone I recognized. It seemed like the school population had multiplied by at least five or ten while I'd had my back turned. I tried to keep my voice light. "Sullivan wanted us to meet him by the perv satyr. We should find him first, right?"

"I have no freaking clue. Why would I know?"

"Because you've done this before?" I suggested. She gave me a dark look. "Fine. Let's find Sullivan."

"Or Paul," Nuala said quickly.

I wondered what Cernunnos had told Paul. "Or Paul."

We shouldered through the crowd, a solid black mass in the dull orange light from the bonfires. I still stank like whatever

Cernunnos' perfume was, but despite that, I could smell a weird scent hanging over the students. Herb-ish. Sort of bitter/sweet/earthy. It reminded me of this summer and it made me wonder if some of the faces behind these masks weren't human.

Nuala voiced what I was thinking, "Whose party is this, anyway?"

I'd figured that the faeries would be out on Halloween, but for some reason I'd thought they'd stay on their hills. "Sullivan!"

barked Nuala behind me. And there he was, looking grimly efficient. He made a beeline straight toward us. "Where the hell have you been?" he asked pleasantly.

"We were just looking for you. Have you found Dee yet?" I replied.

"No."

Nuala gestured around at the dancers. "Is something funny going on here?"

"Yes," Sullivan said. "All you need to know is that the school is very much an occupied territory at the moment, and it's only going to get worse as the night goes on."

"And Dee?" I insisted. "What if something is happening to her tonight? What if something awful is going to happen?"

Sullivan glanced around at the dancing bodies. "Dee is somewhere with Them. We're still looking for her. If you want to help, you'll steer clear of trouble tonight so she's the only student we have to worry about."

He looked at Nuala. "The staff's lighting bonfires all over the campus. To keep out the dead. Wherever you are, whenever you're ready, there'll be a fire nearby."

Nuala didn't flinch. "Thanks."

"And James?" Sullivan was staring past us; as he turned, I saw that he was wearing a long black coat that fluttered out behind him. For a second, I remembered Cernunnos and his long black shroud; then I was back in the present moment again. Sullivan finished, "Find Paul. He's smarter than he looks."

The bonfire went up behind Seward. First there was the reek of gasoline, some shouts, and then flames were clawing the sky.

Students--at least I thought they were students-- leaped around the base of the fire, black silhouettes against the brilliant white core.

I looked at Nuala, waiting for her to--I don't know-- scream or something, but she just made a strange little face. Screwed up her nose. I'd have been wigging out by then if I was her, but she just looked vaguely perplexed. Like she didn't quite agree with their method of bonfire lighting, not like she was about to throw herself willingly into one.

I shivered, though I wasn't cold. The bonfire was big enough for me to feel the heat of it from where we stood.

"Nervous?" Nuala asked ironically.

"Just wishing your name was shorter," I said. "Saying it seven times is going to make my mouth tired."

"You should shut up then and save your strength." She reached for my hand, though, as she craned her neck, looking over the crowd. "Is it just me, or are there more people here than before?"

I frowned at the crowd on the sidewalk. Not just the sidewalk, now--they were in the parking lot, on the patio, around the fountain. They were better dancers, too. What word had

Sullivan used? Invasion? I couldn't remember, but "invasion" felt right. I showed Nuala the goose bumps on my arms before tugging down the sleeves of my sweatshirt--my body warning me of the faeries surrounding us.

"And these are just the ones I can see," I said. "We need to find

Paul." I wanted to ask her when she had to burn, but I didn't want her to feel like I was rushing her. And I kind of wanted to put it off for as long as possible. I didn't care what kind of faerie she was--being burnt alive sounded risky to me. Especially if you were making the decision to be human partway through the burning. Faerie skin suddenly turning into human skin, suddenly feeling every bit of that scorching heat, peeling away at her flesh... I felt like throwing up.

I was only spared from hurling by Paul, making his way toward us.

"Dude," he said. "What the hell."

I clapped a hand on his shoulder. "That phrase applies to so many things at the moment that I'm not sure which you're referring to in particular."

"What are They trying to distract us from?" Paul said. "Hi Nuala.

Are you privy to what's going on here tonight? I learned that from James--do you like it? Are you privy?"

"It's awesome," Nuala replied. "I know that something is going on between Them and the dead, something to link them together. Some sort of ritual, maybe. We thought you might know something."

I watched someone throw a chair on the bonfire. "Oh, that can't be good. So yes, Paul, what do you know about tonight?"

Paul pointed. "Man, that guy just threw an end table on the bonfire. What the crap! I think that's from the lobby!" He shook his head and pushed up his glasses. "I know that when we hear

Cernunnos"--he said it very carefully, KER-NUNNNN-OHS, like it was an unfamiliar spice in a recipe--"sing tonight, it's going to be bad. All the dead will come out. Well, the dead he rules."

"The ones who aren't in heaven and hell, yeah, we got that from his song," Nuala said. She glanced around as a knot of students pushed past us, but no one was paying attention to us.

Paul scratched his head. "Well, I've discovered that these newly walking dead will be a bit--what was the word you said the other day, James? When we were talking about the Red Bull and the Doritos?"

"Peckish."

"Yeah. That. Peckish. The dead are a bit peckish. Soooo. I guess they're lighting all these bonfires to keep the dead out. As long as we stay in the light of one of the bonfires, we're cool. If not, we're snack."

"Soul snack, sounds great," I observed. "So a bunch of wellmeaning adults built a school to protect the supernaturally aware right in the path of the walking dead. Brilliant plan. I understand the idea that those of us who hear him are bigger security risks, but seriously. The dead?"

"I know, dude, seriously," Paul said. "But you know, I think that it used to be that the fey--whoops, I mean Them"--he corrected himself as some onlookers looked up at us--"I think They used to be afraid of the dead. So in the old days, you know, the '70s, it was a protection against Them."

There was another shout, across campus, as another bonfire was lit. Nuala narrowed her eyes.

"This is Patrick Sullivan, one of your friendly teachers and resident advisors!" Sullivan had availed himself of a microphone and was using the massive speakers for a public service announcement. "I'd like to interrupt the music to urge everyone to stay on campus grounds! Halloween is not a good time to wander off for a make-out session in the hills, boys and girls! Remember the horror movies? Something bad always happens to the couple making out! Stay within view of the bonfires and have a nice evening!"

Paul and I exchanged glances.

"What I want to know, dude," Paul said thoughtfully, "is what

They're trying to hide. Don't you? They're keeping all the staff and students that know anything about anything running around making sure nobody gets pixy-led by all of Them that are here dancing with us."

"It's something about the ritual," Nuala insisted. "Something about linking the dead to Them."

"But you can't just go out into a bunch of dead spirits with the munchies to try to find out what's going on," I said. My stomach twisted, sick with the idea of Nuala burning, sick with the idea of Dee with the faeries, sick with the premonition of loss.

And then I heard the first strains of Cernunnos' song.

Paul winced. "Here he comes."

And he wasn't alone.

--from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter

I heard the rush of wings first. Flapping and whispering and shimmering overhead, they wheeled away from the light of the bonfire, back into the growing night. I squinted into the darkness. It was moving, shifting, reflecting the moonlight in places.

James whispered in my ear, "And to think I ever thought you were scary."

I couldn't say anything back; my words were stuck in my throat.

The thorn king's song cried out grow rise follow and his horrors fled before him and dragged themselves behind him. As terrifying as the unhallowed dead were, faintly visible beyond the light of the bonfire, what was worse was the cold knot of certainty that was growing in my gut. The bonfires were all lit.

The dead were walking. My knees were locked to keep my weak legs from trembling. I was running out of time.

"Paul!" Sullivan shouted from near us. "Paul, I need you to tell me who's on the list tonight! Has it changed? Come here! Hurry up!"

Paul, who'd seemed frozen by Cernunnos' song, jerked to life.

He exchanged a look with James and pushed past a group of green-clad dancers (too tall and willowy to be students) to get to Sullivan.

My legs wanted to buckle so bad; I felt light-headed. I hated to tell James that it was time. Saying it would make it real.

"Izzy," James said, and he grabbed me clumsily under my armpits before I even realized I was falling. He lowered me to the ground with a bit more gentleness.

I'd been an idiot. I should've gone sooner. I was just a coward, after all. My eyes felt so heavy; I had to tilt my head back to look at James. "I love that you call me that."

James half-closed his eyes in pain. "Don't get all sentimental on me now. The only way I'm making it through this right now is because you're so bad ass."

"Grow a set," I suggested, and he laughed weakly. "Help me up."

He hauled on my arms, but my legs just gave out again. Nobody seemed to notice us; they were all dazzled and glamored by the faeries dancing in their midst. That was okay. I couldn't afford to get pulled out of the fire by some well-meaning bystander.

"You'll really need those balls," I said, "because I think you're going to have to carry me."

I watched his throat move as he swallowed wordlessly and awkwardly picked me up, arms under my knees and looped around my back and armpit. I held on and resisted the temptation to bury my face into his sweater. It would've been nice to take his smell, pipes and leather and soap, with me, but he only stank of Cernunnos right now anyway. I was going to have to go it alone.

James silently carried me around the back of the bonfire. It was huge now, shooting forty or fifty feet into the air with toxiclooking flames from whatever upholstery was currently fueling it. On this side, the farthest away from the buildings, we were alone. Just us and the yawning darkness of the hills beyond the firelight.

Even twenty feet away from the fire, the heat of it seared my face. James didn't so much kneel as crumple to the ground with me, and suddenly he hugged me, hard.

"Nuala," he said. "I have the most awful feeling about this."

My chest was bursting with the effort of keeping my heart beating. "There's no other way," I whispered. "Help me stand."

"You can't stand."

It was desperately important that I walk into the fire under my own power. I didn't know if it was a real reason, or just one of principle, but I just felt like I had to do it myself. "Get me close, then help me up."

He carried me a few steps closer to the fire and halted.

"Now say my name back to me," I whispered. "So I know you won't screw it up and I won't forget you."

James said it into my ear. Perfectly. Then he lowered me to my feet, and I stood.

There was no time for anything else. No time to stretch my hand up to the white flames to get used to the idea. No time to worry about whether or not he would stay here with me or leave to find Dee. No time to wonder if saying my name would really work. No time to think that if it didn't, it really would be like I was dying. Because the girl that got a new body from the flames wouldn't be me. Not anymore.

I should've told James I loved him before I went. But there wasn't time for that either.

I stumbled into the fire.

This was hell. Hell was waiting for her to scream. Hell was watching her fists ball, her hair singe, her mouth make the shape of tears even though the heat stole the drops before they could run down her face.

She fell to her knees.

I couldn't move. I just stood there, my hands clenched at my sides, the fire searing my cheeks. I couldn't stop shaking.

Hell was seeing that it was going to take a long time to burn Nuala to nothing.

Human.

Please, please, human.

It took me too long to find my voice, and for a horrible second I thought I'd forgotten how to say her name, even though I'd just said it to her. However long ago that was. Seconds? Minutes?

Hours?

"Amhrán-Liath-na-Méine," I said. Softly. In case anyone was listening. Nuala screamed. Shit.

The scream trailed off, thin and wet-sounding, but I couldn't stop hearing it. Worse, I couldn't stop seeing the shape of her face when she did it. My brain just kept playing it over and over again, imposing it over her dark form in the flames, twisting and shaking.

I folded my arms over my chest, my fists white-knuckled against my body, and I said, "Amhrán-Liath-na-Méine."

She screamed again.

Goose bumps burst along my skin. Maybe Eleanor could lie.

Maybe she could bend the truth. I didn't know what my words were doing to Nuala, but I was scared shitless to say her name a third time.

"Piper!"

I jerked at the sound of the voice. At first I couldn't tell where it was coming from, and then I realized it was coming from behind me. How far behind, I couldn't tell. Somewhere out in that hungry darkness.

"Piper! James Morgan!"

I squinted into the blackness, relieved for the second's rest from watching Nuala burn.

"Piper, if you love the cloverhand, you will come here."

My stomach flipped over, unpleasantly, as I turned and saw a faerie crouched in the darkness, about forty feet from the bonfire. His skin was tinged greenish, making him look like a corpse in the moving firelight. "What do you want?"

"Didn't the leanan sidhe tell you? To watch the cloverhand tonight?" The faerie stood up, a long, elegant gesture that somehow seemed inhuman. "They're going to kill her, and make a new king of the dead from her heart, piper. He'll control us and the dead, with the cloverhand's powers. For us, it will be ignoble. For you and every other human, it will be hell."

I looked over my shoulder at the bonfire. I could still see Nuala, a dark form in the voracious flames, and on the other side, the figures of dancing students.

"Why should I trust you?" I asked him, but really, what I wanted to know was why I should leave Nuala in those flames by herself when I promised her I would watch her and say her name. And now I had to start all over again --seven times uninterrupted, Eleanor had said, and watch her burn from beginning to end.

The faerie smiled a thin smile, white teeth in the darkness. "We saved your life once, don't you remember, piper? When she asked us, we saved your life. She traded Luke Dillon's life for yours."

My heart stopped beating. I couldn't breathe.

"I don't think you understand, human. They're taking her cloverhand powers. They'll be able to go anywhere, do anything. And they're killing her for it. I thought you loved her."

Now I heard another scream, this time from beyond where the faerie stood, and I knew that voice too. It was too like her singing voice to be anyone else's. The faerie didn't flinch.

"Piper, I would not be here talking to you if you were not what was needed."

"I need--I need a second," I demanded. I turned back to the bonfire. Nuala was on her knees, hands covering her face, her hair and fingertips black, her shoulders shaking. It wasn't fair.

Wasn't she supposed to pass out--get some sort of mercy?

"Amhrán-Liath-na-Méine," I said. Nuala shuddered, hard enough for me to see it. "Amhrán-Liath-na-Méine." She balled up her broken fingers against her face. "Amhrán-Liath-naMéine." I whispered her name four more times, and each time, Nuala wailed, agonized and awful.

If only I could do both. How could it take so long for her to burn?

And behind me, another scream sounded, and this one echoed

Nuala's, full of pain. Dee's voice. I had to decide.

In my head, I knew I had to try to save Dee. She was the more important. Even if she hadn't been Dee, she was powerful and she could make the fey powerful. There wasn't any question-this was why Eleanor had told me how to keep Nuala's memories. Because she was betting that I would stay by Nuala's side to watch her burn from beginning to end instead of interfering with whatever they were doing.

And she was right. I wanted Nuala. God, I wanted Nuala. It made my stupid crush on Dee so inane in comparison. But to have Nuala, I had to stay until the last bit of Nuala was gone.

And by then it would be too late for Dee.

Save Nuala or save the world?

If only I'd just been screwing myself over, instead of me and

Nuala.

The worst part was that the last thing I saw Nuala do was take her hands down from her face. Just in time to see me leave her behind.

In the movies, they have a plan. They know the odds are terrible, but they also know where they're going, they have large guns with lots of bullets, and they have an insane plan that involves martial arts and a pulley system. In real life, you have a sick feeling in your stomach, a pile of adrenalin, and a general idea of where shit is going down. And the universe is laughing and saying well, go to it, bucko. Life sucked.

The faerie at the bonfire had looked back in the direction of

Brigid Hall, so that was where I ran. "Words were starting to crowd in my head, begging to be written down on my hands--fire and betrayal and go back to her--but I pushed them away and tried to concentrate on the rasp of my breath as I sucked in the cold night air.

I found Sullivan by the bonfire they'd built in the parking lot beside Yancey. He was tying some little twigs together with red ribbon by the orange light of the flames. Sparks spat out toward us. "James. I thought you were with--" He stopped, which made me eternally grateful to him.

I was badly out of breath. "I--you--have--to--come-- with me."

He didn't ask. "Where are we going?"

I gulped air. "Brigid. Something's going down in Brigid."

"Brigid's empty." Sullivan gestured at it. The windows were dark; the building was beyond the reach of any of the bonfires.

It looked even more shabby and desolate behind its shaggy, unmowed grass. "They lock it every Halloween night."

I shook my head. "I have it on the word of someone green. Do you know if They can make kings of the dead?"

Sullivan stared at me for a long, blank moment, and then he said, "Let's go."

He shoved the twigs into my hand and started to run, coat flapping out behind him. I took off after him, feet pounding on the sidewalk and then on the autumn-crisp mowed grass as we left the bonfires behind. I felt the exact second that we outstripped the light of the bonfire. The air froze around us and the ground shifted out of our way.

"It's a ward, don't drop it!" Sullivan shouted back at me, and I realized he meant the twigs. "Hurry up!"

I pelted into the unmowed grass. Close beside me, something screamed, and I saw huge, velvety black eyes rising before me. I sort of shook the twigs at it and it screamed again, sounding a lot like Nuala, before shrinking away. In front of me, I saw shapes of bodies dancing around Sullivan, bobbing toward him and then away.

I was a few feet from the building when a form loomed right up in front of me, forcing me to wheel my arms back to keep my balance. It was small, light, hungry.

Linnet.

"God," I said, staggering back. "You're dead."

She was hovering just off the ground. Looking at her again, after the first shock of discovery, I don't know how I had known it was Linnet. Because she didn't really look at all like herself.

She was a cloud of pale, noxious gas, grasping and foul.

"Stay back from things you don't understand," hissed Linnet.

"Go back to the bonfires. Leave this to those who know."

This from the woman who wanted to fail me in English. "You're pissing me off," I said, and stretched out the ward.

She had no real face, not anymore, but she made a sound like a derisive laugh. "You're just a pretender."

Sullivan jerked my shoulder around and pushed me under his coat. "But I'm not. This explains a lot, Linnet. I sincerely hope you rot in hell." He pushed me the last few feet to the door and gestured toward his coat. "You're supposed to be wearing black, James."

The building still seemed unoccupied--dark and silent. We stood before the red door. The only red door on campus. And for some reason, I was transported back to that movie theater with Nuala, where she told me that every red item in The Sixth

Sense warned of a supernatural presence in the scene.

I shook off the edge of Sullivan's coat and put my hand on the door. My skin tightened with goose bumps. I pushed the door open.

"James," Eleanor called out. "I'm very disappointed to see you here. I was hoping true love would prevail."

It took me a moment to find her in the room; it was full of faeries. The folding chairs had been knocked into disarray, and there were piles of flowers along one of the walls. Two bodies lay in front of us, hands and face tinted green. Eleanor stood next to the stage in a dress made of peacock feathers. She smiled pleasantly at me. Her sleeves were rolled up; thick red rivulets ran down one of her arms from her hand, staining the edge of her cuff.

In her hand was a heart.

And it was beating.

I forgot that Sullivan was behind me. I forgot everything but the sound of Dee's scream.

"If that's Dee's heart," I said, stepping over one of the green bodies, "I'm going to be very upset." The faeries, several of them wearing bone knives at their waists, parted for me as I walked up the aisle, watching me with curious eyes. Some of them smiled at me and exchanged looks with each other.

"Don't be silly," Eleanor said. "It's his." She made a flippant gesture to the stage behind her. On it, her consort --the dead one--lay in the middle of a dark, dusty-looking circle on the stage, moaning and arcing his back. A gaping wound in the center of his chest oozed black-blood.

I wasn't going to give Eleanor the satisfaction of showing my disgust, so I just set my jaw and looked back at her. "Yeah. He looks like he's having a great time. Where's Dee?"

Eleanor smiled so prettily that the edge of my vision shimmered a little. She brushed her pale hair from her face, leaving a red smear on her cheek, and pointed to her feet. I recognized the curl of Dee's shoulders and her clunky shoes. Eleanor shrugged.

"We're really doing her a favor. She doesn't handle stress very well, does she? Right after Siobhan took out Karre's heart, Deirdre threw up all over my shoes"--Eleanor gestured with the heart to a pair of green slippers piled underneath a chair--"and

I'm afraid I had to have Padraic knock her on the head to calm her down a little."

A faerie with white curls all over her head looked at me and said, "Do I kill him now, my queen?"

"Siobhan, so bloodthirsty. We are a gentle race," Eleanor said.

She turned her attention toward me. A bit of blood bubbled out of the heart in her hand. "My dear piper, why don't you go back to the bonfire and be with your love? I am very eager to see how that works out for you."

"Me too," I said. "Just as soon as I have Dee, that's exactly what

I intend to do."

On stage, her consort made a sound of excruciating pain. His bloody fingers covered his face.

"It'll be over soon, lovely. Cernunnos will be here soon,"

Eleanor told him. To me, she said, "If you'll wait a moment, I'm nearly done with her. Siobhan, I need that knife again."

At her feet, Dee groaned and rolled onto her back, putting her hand to her head. Eleanor, heart in one hand, knife in the other, nodded toward Siobhan, and the white-headed faerie placed a foot on one of Dee's shoulders.

I lunged to the faerie next to me, grabbing the knife from the sheath at his side. Before Siobhan had time to react, I was beside Eleanor, the knife pressed against her throat My skin rippled painfully with goose bumps.

"That was stupid," Eleanor said. "What are you going to do now?"

The faeries whispered to each other, low, melodic songs beneath their breaths.

"Better question is"--I held the knife as steady as I could as I started to shiver--"what are you going to do now?"

"I'm trying to decide if I should kill you quickly or kill you slowly," Eleanor hissed. "I'd prefer the latter, but I really don't have much time to cut out lovely Deirdre's heart before

Cernunnos arrives. So I think the first."

There was a weird, sucking feeling happening in my throat that made me think she wasn't bluffing.

"And if I ask that you spare him?"

Every single faerie in the room became silent. Eleanor looked toward the door as Sullivan walked up the aisle and halted a few yards away from us. Took him long enough.

When Sullivan had told us he'd been Eleanor's consort, I'd always assumed he'd escaped from her. I never thought she might have let him go.

"Patrick," Eleanor said, and her voice had completely changed.

"Please leave."

"I'm afraid I can't do that. As annoying as James is, I'm loath to watch him die."

"He is annoying," admitted Eleanor. It was as if I didn't have a knife stuck at her throat. As if her current consort-- was he still current if he had a hole in his chest?--weren't writhing on the stage. "And very cocky."

Sullivan inclined his head in agreement. "That being said, I'll need my other student as well."

Eleanor frowned gently; the most beautiful frown the world had ever seen. My chest heaved with the pain of it. "Do not ask me for her. I will give you this idiot. And I'll let you leave. But do not ask me for things I can't give."

"Won't give," Sullivan said, and his voice had changed too. "It's always won't, not can't. It's priorities."

It was like Eleanor and Sullivan were the only ones in the room.

"My subjects come first. Don't tell me you don't understand, Patrick Sullivan. Because you came storming in here not for you, but for your students. I will have freedom for my fey."

"Cheap at the price of two humans," Sullivan said mildly.

Eleanor's voice crackled with ice. "You cannot preach at me. Did you think twice about the two bodies you stepped over to stand before me? I think not--because they were only fey, yes?"

I looked down at Dee. She lay on her back, a bruise darkening her right cheek, and her eyes were on me. Totally unfathomable. I knew what she was capable of. She could blast us out of here, if she wanted.

"If I think that way, Eleanor, it was only because I learned from the best," Sullivan said. "For an endangered species, you are very casual about killing your own."

"They are not the easiest race to govern," snapped Eleanor. "I would like to see you try it."

"As I recall, I had some suggestions that worked nicely."

Eleanor backed away from my knife to better glare at Sullivan.

"Would have worked nicely. If I'd had an extra set of hands to implement them."

"I was more than willing to fill that role. I knew the dangers."

Eleanor looked away, her expression furious. "That was not a price I was willing to pay."

"And this is?" Sullivan asked.

Eleanor looked back at him.

And then there was an unremarkable pop.

I didn't understand what the pop meant until, behind Sullivan, I saw Delia, Dee's damn, ever-present evil aunt, step over the two faerie bodies by the door. In her hand was a very small, fake-looking gun.

Sullivan very carefully laid a hand on his stomach, and then stumbled in slow-motion against one of the folding chairs. I closed my eyes, but I saw what happened anyway. He fell to his hands and knees and threw up, flowers and blood.

"I can't believe I'm going to have to be the one with the backbone here," Delia said. "I've been staying in a hotel for two weeks and spending every single evening up to my elbows in dead fey. Cut her heart out before I get pissed off."

Eleanor's voice was below zero. "My finest horse to whichever faerie in this room brings me that woman's left eye."

My thoughts exactly.

"Wait!" snapped Delia, as every hand in the room reached for a knife. "You can cut out my damn eye if you like, but what you should be cutting out is her heart. It's nearly eleven. What will you do if he's here and her heart's not in him?" She gestured to the consort on the stage.

I crouched down and, seizing Dee's arm, hauled her to her feet.

Eleanor and Delia just looked at me. Delia and a gun were between me and the door. Eleanor and her damn voodoo were between me and everything.

"Why don't you save yourself?" I hissed at Dee. This summer, there'd been more faeries, and I'd been mostly dead, and she'd still gotten out of it. Now, Nuala was burning by herself, Sullivan was bleeding on the floor, and Dee wasn't doing a thing to stop it.

But Dee turned to Delia instead of to me. "What did I ever do to you, anyway?" Her voice sounded hoarse, like she'd been screaming or singing.

Delia shook her head and made a face that was like a caricature of disbelief, like she couldn't believe Dee even thought the question worth asking. "I just want your voice when you're done with it."

Siobhan said, "My queen--there's no time. Cut out her heart, put it in him, and make Karre a king."

In my head, I heard the thorn king's song as he approached.

Only, instead of singing grow rise follow, the words were follow feast devour.

Eleanor looked at Siobhan and nodded shortly.

It all happened in a blur then. Siobhan leapt toward Dee, one hand stretched as if to seize Dee's shoulder, the other gripping the knife. Dee frowned at the blade, pointed unerringly at her heart. And I flung out my arm, smashing the back of my arm and my wrist against Siobhan's face.

Siobhan squealed--strangely high-pitched--and stumbled backwards, the knife clattering to the floor. Flowers were pouring from her face. Or her face was falling into flowers.

Eleanor stepped back just as Siobhan, a blanket of petals, flopped to the ground at her feet. She looked pissed.

I looked at my arm. The sleeve of my sweatshirt had pulled down to reveal the iron bracelet on my wrist; a single yellow petal was still stuck to the edge of it. So the damn thing had turned out to be useful for something.

I held my wrist out toward Eleanor. "Will this do the same thing to you?"

She looked really pissed.

"James," Sullivan called from the aisle. His voice sounded wet. I tried not to pay attention to that. "Stage left."

Of course. The exit at the back of the stage. I grabbed Dee's hand and pulled her up the stairs, going sideways so I could keep watching Eleanor. Cernunnos' song was deafening in my ears. It was time to get out.

"I wouldn't do that," Delia snapped, staring at us. "This thing has a lot of bullets in it. And I'm not above shooting someone at the moment."

Eleanor folded her hands gently before her and said coldly, "Someone else." She looked away, at something in the aisle, and said, "Patrick, pull your coat over your head."

I just had time to realize what she was saying when the back door busted open.

For a moment, there was nothing but silence and sheer, absolute cold, our breaths clouded in front of us.

And then the dead came pouring in. They ran along the walls, fluttered around the lights like moths, cast crazy shadows on the floor and the chairs. They stank of sulphur and damp earth.

With them came noise: shrill screams, gurgling calls, guttural singing. They ricocheted off the faeries as if they were nothing more than stones, but when they saw Delia, their noises changed to something more urgent.

Delia spun and let off a shot, right before they fell on her. She disappeared under the weight of intangible darkness, and if she made a sound, I couldn't hear it over the sounds of them screaming over her.

And then the dead noticed us.

"Dee," I said, "Do something. I know you can."

Dee looked at me, her eyes wide. I recognized the look. It was like her system was flashing a little warning sign at me that read overload overload overload. Seeing it now, I realized that she'd been working toward this moment--this moment of utter giving up--for a long time, and I wondered that I hadn't recognized it until now, when it was too late.

The dead rushed over the chairs, crawled up the windows, sank claws into the edge of the stage. Delia was a rustling, kicking pile on the floor. I gripped Dee's shoulders and looked right in her eyes. "Dee. Do this for me. You owe me. You know you owe me."

Dee's eyes were locked right on mine, and I could almost see her processing my words. I waited for her to do something-blast the dead to the back of the room, call down heaven's wrath, anything.

But all she did was take my hands and step backwards.

Just as the dead broached the stage, I looked down and realized that, with that one step, we now stood inside the dark circle with Eleanor's consort. The dead swirled around the circle, rushing past us, making strange shapes that I didn't think I'd ever seen before. Dee tugged my hands to make me step forward a little, farther away from the circle's dusty edge.

Below us, Eleanor's consort lay still. His eyes were open and glassy. I thought he'd died, but then he blinked. Very slowly.

There was nothing in the world but this dusky circle.

Population: three. Three people broken in three totally different ways.

Our world was silent.

The dead swirled around our circle, not getting any closer, but not getting any farther away. They were dark as a storm cloud.

Cernunnos stepped out from amongst them.

"Eleanor-of-the-skies, you did not speak truth to me."

Cernunnos paced around the edge of our circle. Like the dead, he was getting no closer, but no further away either. He was somehow even scarier in this context--standing on the stage where I'd read my lines, pacing past the piano bench where

Nuala and I had sat. He didn't belong here. Cernunnos turned his antlered head toward the circle, and with a shock, I saw his eyes for the first time. Hollow black irises ringed with a smoldering red line, all future and past and present mixed up in them. It was like drowning, looking at them. Like falling. Like looking in a mirror. I closed my eyes for a second.

"I only speak truth," Eleanor said. She sounded a little testy. "It is all I can speak."

"You promised me a successor." Cernunnos looked into the circle. It felt like he was only looking at me. "Not three."

Eleanor held up the consort's heart. "Well, things got a bit out of hand." She looked at me and pursed her lips. "I don't suppose you'd let us have a moment to put things right?"

"Things are as they are," Cernunnos said. "The circle's drawn. I am here. There are three inside and nothing shall change until a successor is chosen."

Eleanor closed her eyes and then opened them. "So be it."

Cernunnos called, "I am the king of the dead. I keep the dead, and they keep me. I have earned my place here. I swelled the ranks of the dead before I joined them. Are these three worthy? Who amongst the dead can vouch for them?"

The dead stirred, swirled, arranged themselves.

A dark smudge grew in front of us, like a smear in our vision, and a voice came from it. Siobhan's. "I died by the piper's hand."

A winged thing crab-walked over the chairs, its eyes luminous red lamps in its dark skull. "I died by the Consort's hand."

Dee closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against my shoulder.

The noxious cloud that was Linnet floated forward. "The cloverhand murdered me."

I seriously thought it had to be a lie. But it seemed like a dumb idea, even for someone who was already dead, to lie to

Cernunnos. I whispered to Dee, "Is it true?"

She shook her head against me. "They tricked me. They knew I had to kill someone for this to work. All They wanted was my heart for him."

I looked at Karre, at the bright beads of sweat on his forehead, and I realized what Eleanor had meant to accomplish. I imagined a consort who was at once a cloverhand and the king of the dead--the faeries would be allies with that ravenous force that had destroyed Delia; they would be able to go anywhere they wanted to. Suddenly I saw what force had driven the faerie to come to the bonfire where I was.

"So all of you are worthy," Cernunnos said. "But there can be only one." His eyes lingered on Dee and a chill seeped through me.

I said, suddenly, "Why do you need a successor?"

The antlered head turned slowly toward me. "I am tired, piper. I would lay this down. It has been centuries since I stood in that same circle."

"And this is how you choose who follows you?" I demanded.

"Whoever is pushed or falls into this circle is powerful enough to control them?" I pointed out at the seething forms.

"My successor will learn," Cernunnos replied, and his voice was no angrier nor more passionate than before I spoke out. "As I did. And there will be many lifetimes for my successor to discover what I have."

"So you think any of us can do what you do?" I pointed down at

Karre. "Him? How smart can he be, that he arrives in the circle already dead? And Dee?" I stood back from her, looked at her.

"She can't even stand the idea that she's killed someone."

"And you?" Cernunnos said.

"Me?" I showed him my hands, covered with words. "I can't even keep myself together, much less a legion of dead people.

And I'm a cocky little shit who doesn't care about anybody but myself. Ask anybody. They'll tell you."

Cernunnos inclined his thorny head toward me. "That is not truth, piper. I know what is in your heart. And that is why I choose you as my successor."

There was silence. Nothing.

I lowered my hands to my sides. His song was humming in my head. I could feel the deadness of him, the strangeness of him, the old and dark and bitterness of him, flowing around me.

"No," Dee whispered. "Not you, James. You've done enough for me." She looked at Cernunnos. "Take me instead."

Cernunnos shook his head. "No, cloverhand. The piper spoke the truth of you."

"Then take me," Sullivan said. I spun to see him shuffle slowly into the circle, hand still pressed on his side and covered with blood.

"The number in the circle cannot change," Cernunnos said.

"Not until a successor is chosen," Sullivan said. I stepped hurriedly over the consort to offer Sullivan my shoulder. I expected him to refuse it, but he leaned on me, heavy. The movement made more blood run between his fingers, over his iron ring. "You've chosen, and I'm here. And there's nothing to say that once you choose a successor, you can't change your mind. So change it. Take me."

The red-rimmed eyes took in both of us. "Why would I change my mind, Paladin?"

"Because I am everything that James is, but I'm dying."

"Is there any amongst the dead to vouch for you?"

Sullivan paused a long moment, and then he nodded. Outside of the circle, a form slowly rose, a dark, bent shape still crackling with fury. On the other side of the consort, Dee winced.

"I will vouch for him," snarled Delia. "He stole my ward. I died by his hand."

Sullivan reached into his pocket with a shaky hand and withdrew three twigs tied with red ribbon, identical to the one he'd given me. He turned it back and forth before Cernunnos, as if to prove that it really was Delia's.

I didn't really know if I wanted Cernunnos to change his mind. I didn't want Sullivan to die, but I didn't want this for him either.

I wanted this to be over and for him to go back to a normal life despite being touched by faeries. I wanted him to prove it could be done.

Beside me, Sullivan jerked, staggering, leaning on me. I struggled to stay upright and turned my face to the thorn king.

"Cernunnos. Please. Do something."

"Paladin," Cernunnos said, addressing Sullivan. "You are my successor. I name you king of the dead. You keep the dead and the dead keep you. You--"

As Cernunnos spoke, Dee dragged me backwards, away from

Sullivan. I had to jump to keep from stepping on Karre.

"Let go," I said, furious, but then I saw why she was pulling me.

Sullivan was darkening, sucking light into himself. He stretched his arms out on either side of himself, his dark coat swirling and spreading. He bowed his head. I heard Cernunnos' song wailing sickly in my head, and my stomach turned over. I didn't want to see thorny antlers grow out of Sullivan's hair.

But they didn't. We all kept backing away from him, even

Cernunnos, giving him more room, watching him stand there with his arms spread out and his head down. Then, between the blink of one eye and the next, massive dark wings spread behind him. He lifted his head and opened his eyes.

They were still his eyes.

I let out a breath that I didn't realize I'd been holding.

On the other side of Sullivan, Cernunnos broke the circle with a scuff of his foot through the ashes. The second the ashes scattered, the dead rushed at us. Every dark form in the room crawled or flew or scrambled toward the gap in the circle. Delia first of all.

Sullivan said, very quietly, "Stop."

And they did.

He turned toward me. I tried not to stare at the wings. Freaking hell. "James," he said, and his voice was strange and gravelly.

"Take Deirdre and go back to the bonfires. No one will touch you."

He looked at Eleanor when he said this last part. Her mouth was making a small, upside-down "U," her lips pressed together. "As you say."

Behind Sullivan, Cernunnos climbed down the stairs and began to walk down the aisle toward the door. He had laid his burden down, I guess, and that was it for him. Who knew where he was going. Or where he'd come from. Maybe he'd been just a guy, like me or Sullivan.

"Sullivan--" I said, looking from the wings to his face.

"Hurry up," he snapped, and he sounded more like the Sullivan

I knew. "It's Halloween and I'm king of the dead. I don't want to kill you. Go."

"Thanks," I said, and this time, it didn't feel so weird to say it.

I took Dee's hand and we ran.

James

When we emerged from the building, I saw that time glowed faintly at the horizon over the parking lots, though the rest of the sky was still dark. The night of the dead only had a few more hours to go. My eyes turned immediately toward Seward, toward the bonfire that Nuala had stood in.

Her bonfire scarred the sky. I couldn't see the base, but I could see the golden streaks from the top of it, reaching so high up into the air that they reflected on the clouds. And the fire was singing.

If just for a moment to belong

The golden light shooting above the roofs of the dorms was like neon, burning the pattern of its dancing into my eyes.

Beautiful cacophony, sugar upon lips, dancing to exhaustion

Words flew into the air like sparks. I didn't know if everyone could hear them, or just me. I didn't understand what they meant; they were all tangled up in the music.

The promise of dawn had slid away from us again.

Tearing my body asunder

The music was a thousand tunes at once, all beautifully sad, transcendent, as golden as the streaks in the sky.

This is how I want everything

I dropped Dees hand. I heard our song--the song Nuala and I had written together in the movie theater. And then I heard her song. The one I'd played for her at the piano.

I'm so far from where I began

I fall, I fall

And I forget that I am

Everything that made Nuala herself was shooting up into the sky, a towering, gorgeous cacophony of color and words and music. It was flying up, faster and faster, brighter and brighter, and I was running as fast as I could, leaving Dee by the first bonfire. I didn't know what I was going to do. All I could think was that I had to get there in time to save something of what remained of her.

I pushed through students--just students after all, not faeries, nothing magical--and shoved past the fountain. I couldn't see the sky above the bonfire now; it was blocked by the looming dorm. I ran around the edge of the dorm, my sides splitting, breath short, and stopped short.

I don't know what I expected. Nuala. Or a body. Or something.

Not... nothing.

The coals of the very center of the bonfire behind Seward still smoldered, but most of what had been flames before was dry gray ash. There was no sign of the massive golden explosion I'd seen from Brigid Hall.

Where Nuala had stood was just charred silt.

The wind picked up the topmost layer and whirled it into the air, throwing it into my face and drawing patterns in the grains.

There was nothing. There was absolutely nothing.

All I could see was her face when she saw me leaving. She must've thought I had chosen Dee over her. She must've-I slowly sank down in the ash, onto my knees, watching the way it stuck to the legs of my jeans and feeling my toes sink into it behind me.

On the other side of the bonfire, wavy from the heat still rising from the smoldering coals, I saw Paul. He stood by the columns behind Seward, watching me. Dee joined him, her eyes on me, and they exchanged some words. Neither looked away from me.

I knew they were talking about me. I didn't care. I knew they were watching me, but I didn't care about that either.

I pressed my hands over my face.

I stayed there for a long time.

Then I heard footsteps, and someone crouched down in front of me.

"James," Paul said. "Do you want to know what Cernunnos told me?"

I didn't open my eyes; I just sighed.

"He told me that Nuala was going to have to burn in this fire."

I took my hands away from my face. Morning light illuminated

Paul's features. "He told you that? Did he mention how I was going to screw it up?"

Paul smiled ruefully. "Yeah. He said you would leave, no matter how much you wanted to stay, that you'd make the choice that hurt. And then he told me that no matter what happened, when she walked into that fire, I had to stay here. And watch it.

So I stood there on the patio and, dude, there was all kinds of crap going down, but I stayed there the whole time. And I watched her."

I licked my dry lips; they tasted like ash. "And?"

"Beginning to end," Paul said.

I stared at him. I had to force my words to sound even. "But there's nothing."

Paul looked at his feet. "He told me to dig." Dee said, "I'll help."

I hadn't even realized she'd been standing there behind Paul. I looked at her eyes and nodded, because I couldn't say anything.

We started to dig. We scraped away the topmost layer of white ash, which was dry and cold and dead, and burned our fingers on the still-hot coals buried deeper. We dug until Dee gave up because of the heat. And then we dug until Paul gave up too.

And I kept digging into the still-hot core of the bonfire beneath all the ashes. My skin stung and blistered as I moved crumbling, smoking pieces of ash and wood aside.

I felt fingertips. And fingers, long and graceful, and then her hand was gripping my hand. Paul grabbed my arm, pulling me, and Dee pulled him, and together, we pulled her up.

And it was Nuala.

"Holy crap," said Paul, and then turned around, because she was smeared with ash and naked.

She just looked at me. I didn't want to say "Nuala," because if she didn't respond, then I'd know for sure she'd forgotten me.

It was better to hang in this moment of not-knowing than to know for sure.

I tugged my sweatshirt over my head and offered it to her. "It's cold," I said.

"How heroic of you," said Nuala, sarcastically. But she took it and pulled it on. On her, it came down to the middle of her thighs. I saw goose bumps on the rest of her legs.

I realized she was looking at Dee, who stood beside Paul, watching us. When Dee saw me look at her, she turned around and put her back to us like Paul had, as if for privacy.

Nuala whispered, "I thought you'd left me behind."

"I'm so sorry," I said. I rubbed my eye to fight the sudden urge to cry and felt stupid for it. I muttered, "I've got some damn ash in my eye."

"Me too," said Nuala, and we wrapped our arms around each other.

Behind us, I heard Dee's voice--and then I heard Paul, hesitant, reply, "It's a long road, but it's the only one we've got, right?"

He was right.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Ian Everett Johan

Campbell, the third and the last. I hope I can hold your attention. I must tell you that what you see tonight is completely real. It might not be amazing, it might not be shocking, it might not be scandalizing, but I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt: it is real. For that--lam deeply sorry.

Brigid Hall was full. It was more than full. Each chair had a butt in it. Some laps had people sitting on them. There was a row of people by the back door, standing. The red door was open so that a few people could lean in and watch. It wasn't too long to lean--it was only a half-hour play.

And this time, it felt more real than usual, because clouds had made the night come early. So the audience sat in pitch blackness. The stage was the only solid ground in the world, and we were the only people in it. Life out there was the metaphor, and we were the real ones.

I stood before the audience on the stage, Ian Everett Johan

Campbell, and I made Eric/Francis vanish. The audience gasped.

It was only a trick of the stage lights, but it was still amazing.

After all, it was real. They all knew magic was real.

Paul played Nuala's theme on the oboe as Wesley/Blakeley called me out.

"You have sold your soul," Wesley said.

I smiled at him. "You're guessing."

"You're the devil."

"You flatter me," I said.

"What man can do what you do? What man with his soul?"

Wesley asked. "Make men disappear? Make flowers spring from a rock? Tears fall from a painting?"

I paced around Wesley. Sullivan had told me to do that, back when we had rehearsed with him as Blakeley--told me it made me look arrogant and restless, which Campbell was. Paul's oboe paced and twisted as well, winding up toward the cue that invariably he always missed, the one Nuala had said was so important.

"You know the answer. You don't want to say it," I sneered. "It is too frightening. No one wants to know. It's right in front of you all."

Dee sat in her usual seat by the wall. I'd convinced her not to go back home--to give Thornking-Ash a real chance. She still had so far to go, but Paul and I were doing what we could for her.

And how could I let her go home by herself, when I knew the faeries were still watching her?

"You mock me," Wesley said. His eyes slid away from me, toward the audience, for just a moment. He wasn't supposed to do that; he flicked them back to me. "What is it that can perform these deeds? What is it that is so obvious that it is in front of me? Who--"

Nuala signaled wildly for Paul to stop. Paul stopped on his cue so perfectly that I almost missed mine.

"Everyone," I said, a little hurried.

"Wesley made an irritated gesture with his hand. "And I thought you'd tell the truth. As if you have been burdened with the truth a single day of your life."

"It is the truth, Blakeley! The most magical, sinister, deadly, fabulous creature alive is a--" I stopped. A movement at the edge of door in the very back of the hall had caught my eye.

Just another person leaning in, trying to catch the play.

Only this person had massive black wings behind him, disappearing on either side of the door. And nobody else seemed to notice him, which was good, because he was mouthing my line at me--"a human--and giving me a look like you're making an idiot of yourself.

The audience was watching and waiting, and I was just standing there, staring at Sullivan with a half-smile on my face.

My arms were covered with goose bumps.

"I'll see you again," Sullivan said, and no one else seemed to hear. "I'm sorry for that. Be ready."

"Wesley prompted me. "... is a what?"

"A human," I said. "The most dangerous and wonderful creature alive is a human."

There are many people without whom this book would be physically impossible:

1. Andrew Karre, my first editor, who is my Yoda. There are not enough languages to say "thank you" in.

2. Laura Rennert, my incredible agent, whose superpowers allow me to write professionally without getting an ulcer.

3. Brian Farrey, my second editor at Flux, who let dead characters stay dead and finally found a name for "The

Stiefvater Gambit."

4. My critique partners, Tessa Gratton, because she loved

Sullivan so much I had to love him too, and Brenna Yovanoff, because she makes me do it right.

5. My friend Naish, for keeping large parts of my sanity intact.

6. Cassie, for keeping me from saying rude, incomprehensible things in Irish. Mostly.

7. A bunch of folks who helped me with the facts of life: Carrie

Ryan, Steve Porter of Phillips Academy, and Maeghan

Passafume of Interlochen Arts Academy.

8. My sister Kate, as ever, for being the first and last reader.

9. My parents, for tolerating me when I got kicked out of preschool, and for helping me get through deadlines.

10. Nannie, who stayed up until 2 am reading Lament and did so much for me.

11. My husband Ed: love you, babe.