“I’ll take that,” Eleanor said. She reached out, grabbing hold of the strap of Katie’s bag, and with the other hand she shoved her hard in the chest, throwing all of her anger and sorrow and fear and triumph behind it.

Katie fell back. The strap of the bag snagged for a moment, and then came free, and she fell backward. Into the portal. Into the gray.

Now close! Eleanor thought, and the portal sealed shut. The gray—and Katie—vanished. Eleanor grabbed the moonlight thread from her bag, a needle already affixed to the end, and began stitching up the air where it had been. A moment later and Wander was beside her, her stitches elegant next to Eleanor’s haphazard zigzag.

“Almost,” Wander whispered. “Almost—”

Eleanor could sense the connections between the worlds cinching shut. A gap, a crack, a sliver, barely a whisper—

Just as the opening between the worlds shut, something wrenched it open. The door opened—just a bit. Just enough for Katie Rhodes to lunge out. To wrap her hand around Eleanor’s throat.

To pull her through the door, into the gray, as the link between the worlds was stitched shut.

Twenty-Five

Entering the gray world was like going blind. Everything lost its definition. There were no edges, no shapes, no shadows. Just flat and endless gray.

Gray, and the People Who Look Away. Mrs. Prosper was picking herself up, dusting off her skirt. Mr. January stood leaning on his cane and glaring at Eleanor, still held in Katie’s tight grip. Her breath rasped as Katie’s fingers squeezed her throat, and she grabbed at the woman’s wrist, trying to break her hold.

“What have you done?” Katie snarled.

“Open the door, sister. We are running out of time,” Mr. January said impatiently.

“I can’t. They’ve done something to seal us off,” Katie said.

Eleanor struggled to breathe. Katie held her just off the ground, so her toes barely touched. The gray around them was slowly starting to take shape—the faintest suggestion of tree trunks rising from the formless color.

She had to get out of here—but she couldn’t. She was as trapped as they were.

“Then unseal us,” Mr. January said.

“I can’t,” Katie growled. She dropped Eleanor and gestured sharply. The gray seethed over Eleanor’s wrists and ankles, turning solid and pinning her in place. Eleanor gasped, her lungs greedy for air, and then broke out coughing. Katie looked down at her in disgust.

“Don’t just stand there. Do something,” Mrs. Prosper snapped. “Time is moving again. If midnight comes, we’ll have lost our last chance.”

“Ticktock, little sister,” Mr. January chided. “Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I would suspect you didn’t want to get home.”