“No,” I said, “it was possible they’d done it. But we know the demon was there—and felt her magic. Even Claudia said she only felt the demon’s magic; no one else’s.”

“She might have lied,” Lulu said, but weakly.

“And even if the fairies wanted to make Cadogan disappear,” I continued, rolling over her objection, “that would start another war in Chicago they couldn’t win. They wouldn’t do that, much less use portal magic to do it. It’s too obvious.”

Lulu opened her mouth, but closed it again, swallowing whatever sarcasm she’d intended to serve.

“You are my sister in all the ways that matter,” I said. “But I swear to god, Lulu, if you pull a stunt like this again”—I groped for an appropriate punishment—“I will tell my dad you wrecked his Mercedes.”

“That was in was the ninth grade,” Lulu said, but with fear in her voice. He’d loved that car.

“Wait,” Connor called out. “That was her?”

“That was her.” We’d blamed it on the weather. “And he still talks about it.” I pointed back at the castle. “How the hell did you even get in there?”

She swallowed, made an effort to straighten her shoulders, but embarrassment or guilt still weighed them down. “I charmed the fairies.”

I just stared at her. “You charmed the fairies.”

“I’ve been here before, so I knew my way around. It was a pretty simple spell.”

“Was it now?” My voice was dry as day-old toast.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was just . . . I felt desperate.”

“And you didn’t trust me to do my job.”

She opened her mouth, closed it again.

I put my hands on her cheeks, waited until she met my gaze. “I’m going to get them back, and I’m going to fix it. I swear to you.” And I hoped she didn’t see my own fear that we’d run out of time first. “But we’re going to have to talk about the magic.”

“Yeah,” Lulu said. “I know.”

“Like, tonight. And no magic in the meantime.”

She nodded.

Thinking we’d worked out our mad, or at least some of it, Alexei and Connor walked back.

“You,” Lulu said, narrowing her eyes at Alexei, “are a traitor. Did you follow me?”

“Yes,” he said, without even a hint of apology in his face. “You needed to be followed. You’ve barely eaten. You haven’t slept. But you run off to attack the fae.”

“You aren’t my keeper.”

Alexei just lifted his brows. “Aren’t I?”

Entertaining as it would have been to watch them keep fighting, this wasn’t the time or the place. “Focus,” I said, and they both snapped to attention. “Claudia says there’s a time limit here. When the moon goes full, the magic will be irreversible. That’s all the time we have.”

They all looked at the sky, the glowing moon mirrored in their eyes, and calculated.

Lulu was the first to meet my gaze again. I saw the panic flare in her eyes, watched her work to control it. “That’s, like, a few days.”