We can, Eleanor thought, as the last of the story swept out of her and into the book. We will.

Katie grabbed her by the hair, hauling her up. The book fell from her hands to the ground.

For a moment, Eleanor thought it hadn’t worked. It was still dark as night.

And then she realized that the moon was shining overhead. It wasn’t dark as night. It was night. Halloween night. Any signs of spring withered and vanished. The apples on the trees swelled, some falling rotten to the ground. The January Society dissipated like so much fog, their fates restored as the timeline reverted.

The mucks fell back. The umbral hounds retreated with quizzical growls.

The air filled with the familiar tick-tock-tick of the grandfather clock—and in the house, a baby began to cry.

Eleanor twisted to smile triumphantly at Katie. Katie released her grip and fell back a step with a shocked expression, eyes roving over the rapidly changing scene.

Otto, Pip, if you can hear me, I have an idea, she thought, sending the words along the connections between them. She felt their understanding on the other side.

The world-walker Story was still flowing in Eleanor’s veins, its words written on her very soul. She stretched out her senses and turned. Mr. January and Mrs. Prosper looked about in rage and confusion as they guarded the door. Pip and Otto were running across the muddy, torn-up battlefield. Elsewhere, Wander was helping Jack to his feet, and the hedgewitch leaned against a tree, panting heavily with mud splattered across her body.

Otto crashed into Mrs. Prosper, and the elegant woman toppled backward. Pip drove Mr. January backward, retreating from her slashing blade. And Eleanor reached out in that instant, nicking tiny holes in the fabric of the world for the two villains to fall through. They stumbled through one portal and out of another—straight through the door to the gray. Pip leaped through the portal after Mr. January even as he regained his balance. He lunged for the doorway—but Pip slammed the door shut right in his face.

She spun and put her back to the door, digging her feet into the ground to brace it. Wander hurried toward her, unspooling the moonlight thread.

Eleanor turned to Katie, who stared at her with a weary kind of anger. “So you did have a plan after all,” Katie said, contempt in her voice. “You won’t put me through that door.”

“I don’t have to,” Eleanor said. “I can make my own.”

The tiny portals zipping across the battlefield had been easy. Opening a door to the gray world was harder—but the world-walker whispered, and Eleanor listened, and the portal stitched itself together behind Katie.