The Moon seemed to have grown closer while they were inside the windmill. It loomed low and crimson and terrible, like a vast infected eye looking down from above. Sumi stared up at it like she was issuing a challenge, or maybe like she was answering one. If the Moon noticed, it gave no sign, and perhaps that was the greatest mercy the Moors had yet to show.

“This is a horror movie,” she said, in a dreamy, thoughtful tone. “Did you know? We walked into a horror movie on purpose, and not everybody makes it out alive.”

“Jill won’t.” Jack’s voice was soft and implacable. She didn’t take her eyes off the fields ahead of them. “I can’t leave her alive, not if I want to have any confidence in waking up each morning in the shell of my own skin. She’s the one who decided to escalate our conflicts into a war, not me. This isn’t my fault.”

“That sounds like a little bit of lying to yourself,” said Sumi.

“It sounds like making certain I’ll be able to sleep at night—something which is not, at present, guaranteed,” said Jack. “Ah, well. The best scientists have grappled with insomnia.”

“Couldn’t you just … banish her?” asked Christopher. “The way Dr. Bleak did, when you both wound up at the school?”

“Banishment, of course,” said Jack. “Remind me, how many people did she kill? How many more would she have slaughtered in her effort to reclaim what she thought was hers by right? I could send her back to the world of our birth, and when she carved a path through the bodies of its innocents, looking for a door to bring her home, would that blood be on her hands or my own? I have trouble enough staying clean. I would prefer not to make things worse.”

Silence fell over the wagon, broken by the rattle of wheels against the ground, the hammering of hooves, and Pony—only Pony, not Bones—breathing. Finally, Sumi leaned over and patted Jack on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, we’ll still love you after you kill your sister.”

“How delightful for me,” said Jack, and urged the horses on.

The smell of the sea reached the wagon moments before the sound of the water itself crashing against the unseen beach. It drowned out the thudding of the horses’ hooves, growing louder with every passing second.