She closed her eyes. Otto, she thought, and reached out her hand. She felt his hand close around hers, as if they stood side by side. Pip, she thought, and there she was, too. In the middle of all the chaos, they existed in a still, perfect moment.

We can do this, Eleanor thought.

The three of us, she heard Otto’s voice say.

Together, Pip’s voice chimed in.

Eleanor opened her eyes. Her hands were empty, but she could still feel them, all the same.

She could feel Katie, too. Thea. A slight and trembling thread.

Rag-a-bone sailed toward Eleanor, teeth bared and snapping. Eleanor reached. She felt a hole in the world open right behind her. She stepped backward, letting it close as soon as she was through.

Thirty feet away, Rag-a-bone leaped through empty air and landed with a startled yelp. And Eleanor stood in front of Katie Rhodes. Only one of her now—ink and quill in one hand, the book in the other. Her eyes widened as Eleanor appeared.

“Impressive,” she noted. “But it’s not going to be enough. You can’t fight your way out of your fate.”

“We’ll see,” Eleanor said, and she lunged. Katie lifted a hand to defend herself, but Eleanor wasn’t attacking. She closed both hands around the book and kept moving. She let herself fall forward, using all of her weight to tear the book out of Katie’s hands.

Katie let out a cry of startled anger. Eleanor didn’t look back at her. On her knees in the churned-up mud, she pressed one palm flat against the cover of The Small, Cursed Town of Eden Eld and reached into her bag with the other, closing her hand around the spine of the thickest book. The original, unedited version.

The Story of Eden Eld flowed through her. The small, cursed town nestled among the pines. Founded by people who had been so afraid of the world they would do anything to protect themselves from it—including sacrificing their children to Mr. January’s schemes.

The words raced over her skin as they passed through her, into the book on the ground, leaving only scraps of the Story lingering in her mind. She glimpsed the names and faces of the children who had been lost to the curse before them. Some had tried to escape. Some hadn’t ever realized what was coming for them. All of them were lost.

And every time they were, the same words repeated. The three children were lost to the curse of Eden Eld. But perhaps the next three would be the ones to end it.

And then, finally, after twelve repetitions, twelve sets of children sacrificed: The three children had survived the curse, for now. But more trials were to come, and only time would tell whether they could end the curse for good.