Eleanor let out a sigh of relief. That was one problem sorted, at least. “Then we just need the Prime Stories,” she said.

The Editor pursed her lips. “I really can’t give them to you. They’re part of the restricted collection. The books here are very dangerous, Eleanor. They can take a person over completely. Write themselves onto your soul. Blot you out completely.”

The hedgewitch had taken a book from the Editor’s desk and was flipping through it with an intent look of interest. “Fascinating,” she muttered. She was so absorbed in the book that she wasn’t watching Thea anymore. Eleanor hadn’t been, either. None of them had been.

None of them, Eleanor suddenly realized, had noticed that she was creeping closer and closer to the stacks of books. Or that she had stood on her tiptoes to reach up, grabbing hold of the very edge of a particularly thick book.

Or that she had pulled it down into her arms and opened the cover.

Nineteen

The book Thea was clutching was pale gray, with the faintest hints of violet. And on its cover was written Princess Thea of the Pallid Kingdom.

“Don’t touch that!” the Editor cried. “It hasn’t been updated yet! It could—”

Her voice cut off with a strangled sound, but Eleanor didn’t have to ask what it could do. It was already happening.

Words were crawling up Thea’s arms, scuttling beneath her sleeves. They snaked up her throat and flowed up to her eyes, until it seemed like she was weeping words.

“Thea!” Eleanor shouted. She and Pip grabbed the book, trying to pry it from Thea’s hands. Eleanor wrapped a hand around Thea’s wrist like she could stop the words from flowing into her.

But both of them were too late. The last of the words had slithered free of the pages, settling into Thea’s skin. She let go of the book and staggered back. Her eyes were black, swimming with ink. Her outline blurred.

“I never escaped,” Thea said. Her voice held an odd echo, as if it was coming from far away. She stumbled back one step, and then another. “None of us escaped. We stayed and grew up and we learned to be hard and cold.”

A girl, another Thea, stepped free of her. This one was older. Her hair had lost its color, turning platinum. “We learned not to show our true faces. We learned to lie and to bargain and to gather power and to keep it.”

Her outline shivered again, and Katie Rhodes stepped free, the way she’d looked as she hunted them down the road. “We went into the world to conquer it, but the gates were sealed shut behind us. And so we waited. And we schemed. And we were wicked.”

Their heads tilted as one. “You tried to save me,” the youngest Thea whispered. “But you failed.”