She should have anticipated this, should have found a way to warn Jack of the risks—but then, it was so unpredictable, who’d be called and who wouldn’t be, when they tumbled through the doors. The Master had called the Wolcott girls to him through the sheer force of his wanting, plucking the twin foundlings out of their uncertainty when either one of them could have been his beloved little girl. Dr. Bleak had stolen Jack away, but only because Jill would never have been able to walk away from the Master alive. Christopher’s heart was sworn to a girl with fingers of bone and butterflies where her heart belonged. Kade was … well, based on what Jack had said about him, Kade was sworn to the school.

This girl, though, this girl, with the ocean in her hair and the scales melting under her skin, she’d been vulnerable from the start.

Alexis opened her eyes in time to watch Cora turn away from the windmill, toward the ancient, swallowing sea, and break into a run. She moved faster than seemed possible, legs devouring distance the way a storm devoured ships. In a moment, she’d be gone.

Alexis whirled and ran, not after Cora, but after the others. She caught up with Kade first, grabbing him by the arm and yanking him to a halt. He turned to stare at her, startled and a little angry, only to pale when he realized Cora wasn’t with her.

“What—” he began.

“The Drowned Gods are singing a song that only your friend can hear,” she said. “I’d never make it to the shore. Someone has to go with her.”

Kade’s expression faded into blankness. “The Drowned Gods,” he repeated. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that sometimes, the Moors claim their own,” said Alexis. “Please. She’s getting away.” She pointed toward the horizon, where a flicker of blue-green hair was still visible against the washed-out colors of the field.

Kade hadn’t been as loud or as flashy in his heroism as Sumi, but he was still the Goblin Prince in Waiting; he had still saved his share of lives. He nodded, once.

“Tell Jack I’ll find her,” he said, and then he was gone, running after Cora, leaving Alexis standing alone in the middle of the Moors.

Slowly, the girl with the lightning-powered heart turned and trudged toward the windmill, and the inevitability of what she knew she’d find there.

8 EVERYONE HAS A MASK

SEEN UP CLOSE, the windmill was surprisingly pastoral. The walls were half-covered in trellises that dripped with bean runners and massive white flowers, their petals edged in lurid red. A low stone wall surrounded the gardens, and a cobblestone path led from the gate to the open door. The stones had been gray when they were pressed into place, each chosen for the precision of its fit with its neighbors.