Eleanor thought of Katie and felt a pang of guilt. She really did wish she could be a better friend—but what was the point, anyway? She was probably going to get turned into a key, and she couldn’t exactly show up for movie night then. “We’ll meet up here,” she said firmly. “Whatever the People Who Look Away are trying to throw at us, we can handle it.”

“Indeed. To that end, I have prepared lists of supplies to have ready before the fateful day,” Jack intoned, holding out three pages of notebook paper covered in his scrawling handwriting.

Pip picked one up and snorted. “Sunscreen? You’re such a dad.” She rolled her eyes. Jack struggled to hide a pleased smile, and Eleanor pressed her lips together, stifling a laugh.

“This is a terrible list,” Pip went on, shaking her head. “Not nearly enough snacks. Or weaponry.” She pulled a pen out of her back pocket and began making changes.

Eleanor looked down the list. Jack had suggested books, potions, flashlights, rope, and, despite Pip’s objections, a startling array of sharp objects. He’d even put life jackets on the list. It was enough to fill the whole garage. “This is a lot,” she noted delicately.

Jack looked troubled. “We don’t know what to expect. I tried to prepare for every eventuality,” he said.

A strange feeling shimmered and shuddered through Eleanor. Words seemed to rise to her tongue without her thinking of them first, and when she spoke her voice didn’t sound quite like her own. “Then we undertake the task with nothing but our wits, our courage, and one another,” she said.

Otto and Pip stilled. Jack stared openly. “Isn’t that a line from Tales of the Gray?” Otto asked uncertainly.

“I . . . I don’t know,” Eleanor said, but she knew perfectly well it was.

They were the words the girl with backward hands spoke in the tale of Tatterskin. That Wander had spoken, Eleanor realized with a start.

As if Wander’s tale was seeping into her mind, bit by bit.

•   •   •

OUTSIDE HER ROOM that night, she paused to look at the grandfather clock that stood opposite her door. It was a tall clock, the case carved from dark oak and the face the color of pearl. The hands of the clock ran backward, counting from twelve to eleven to ten to nine. Thirteen keys were painted around the numbers, the last one faint as if almost rubbed away. Each of those keys represented a trio of children stolen from Eden Eld by the People Who Look Away. The last key was hers—hers, and Pip’s, and Otto’s.

The clock had warned them before, its ticking following them wherever they went. She could hear the steady tick-tock-tick as she stood here in the hall, but downstairs there had been no hint of it. Not yet, she thought. They were safe for now.