I am not a ghost.

Erik’s words rang through my head, suggesting things I didn’t like to think about. Still, he couldn’t have meant that the stories, the ones Lucas had told us, were true. Could he?

“Erik,” I said under my breath. Could he hear me? “We need to talk.”

I watched the closet door, waiting for something to happen. It never did, though. Still, I kept watching, all the way up until my eyelids grew heavy and at last . . . fell.

THIRTY-TWO

Zedok

“She’s been home for some time now.”

Seated on the wicker settee, surrounded by the gnarled vines of my sister’s long-dead roses, I peered toward the doorway, within which stood the mask who had spoken.

He wore a black-and-white ensemble of medieval nobility complete with an ostentatiously plumed hat. His mask, which resembled the painted black-and-white face of a court jester, bore the most malicious of grins. Between his hands, he shuffled a deck of cards, white as the snow that blustered in behind him.

“Care to know where she was?” asked the mask.

“No,” I said, regretting that I had chosen the conservatory this evening for a hideaway. My masks tended to stay away from here, but there also happened to be only one door. A door that this mask now blocked.

“Yes, you do,” the mask said, sending the cards rushing from one black-gloved hand to the other in a rapid, streaming shuffle. “Or else I wouldn’t be here.”

“I’ve no interest in games,” I said to the mask. “Go away, Guile.”

“Perhaps I will,” he said as he spread his arms with the softest jangle of hidden bells. “After a while.”

Irritation rankled me. Because though I had come out here to be away from the house and, more importantly, Stephanie, the mask spoke true. I did want to know where Stephanie had been that evening. But then . . . wasn’t that because I already suspected?

“I heard her and her father talking through the walls a short while ago,” said Guile. “Turns out she has been to a dance.” He formed the cards into a fan and gave himself a fluttering waft. “Bet you can’t guess with who.”

He plucked one card from the lot and held it out to me, back-first.

“I don’t care,” I said.

“Yes, you do,” repeated Guile, who flipped the card to reveal the knave of hearts. “We all care. You’re just the only one who doesn’t want to.”

“I’m the only one who knows I shouldn’t,” I snapped, even though the conversation could only prove circular from here, as they all inevitably did.

“That you shouldn’t doesn’t mean you don’t,” mused Guile. “But then, why shouldn’t you care?” he challenged. “Because you’re dead? Because you’re a walking nightmare? Because your face is—”

“Enough,” I said, standing. “Leave, or I shall make you.”

“Make me, and I shall return.”

What was the purpose of this torment? Guile had to know he could not win in a match against Valor. He could not possibly be here with the hopes of besting me and transposing masks.