“Oh, full names, now? Are you trying to remind me of the time when everyone thought you were the pretty one, and I was the useless extra?” Jill finally pushed away from the wall, taking a step toward the group. “He took you away. He deserved to suffer.”

“Where is his head?”

“Where you’ll never find it!” Jill balled her hands. “I’m going to be a vampire! I’m going to be happy! You’ve always taken everything from me! You don’t get to take this, too!”

“Christopher,” said Jack, “this is the sort of confrontation that always plays out better with a bit of musical accompaniment. If you’d be so kind?”

Christopher blinked. “But my flute—”

“Please,” she hissed, through gritted teeth.

Christopher hesitated before he raised his flute to his mouth and began to play.

It didn’t look like a functional instrument to the casual viewer. The “holes” were merely slight indentations in the surface of the bone; the chamber, while hollow, was neither regular nor polished. It was a Halloween decoration, a toy, and no matter how hard Christopher blew, it never made a sound.

Far below them, around the foundations of the castle, the bones of those who’d fallen from the windows trying to escape began to stir, pulling themselves together and rising on legs that lacked flesh or tendon, yet functioned all the same.

In nooks and crannies and sheltered spots throughout the castle proper, the Master’s victims began to wake and rise, clattering through the building, heading for the parapets. Some were caught in the fighting that had broken into the ballroom from the entry hall, and they fell to pieces under swords and the furious thrusts of the servants, dying for a second time. Their unintentional sacrifices bought the attackers a few precious seconds, and they turned them to good use, cutting down the Master’s faithful like so much poisoned wheat.

Christopher played and the skeletons marched, as Jack walked toward her sister beneath the shattered, stormy sky.

“I never tried to take anything from you, Jill,” said Jack. “We were children. We didn’t ask for any of this; we never did anything to deserve it. I left you here to protect you. The Master would have chosen me, and you would never have been safe.”

“Because I needed your castoffs? Your charity?”