The chandelier swayed as Madness circled it, trailing a gloved hand over its dripping crystals.

Until this moment, I had tried to fight against them if only to buy the Armands time. Enough to allow them to vacate the premises before I became something worse than what I was.

Delaying the inevitable seemed to be a knack I’d never lost.

Valor was doomed. And if he was, then so, too, was Rastin. So were we all if Stephanie did not do as I had instructed and seize her chance for freedom.

I wanted her to go. I wanted her to stay.

A moment ago, one wish had been stronger. Now, in her absence, the other grew to consume me.

Closing my eyes against the hisses and whispers of the masks, I did something I had not done since I was a small boy.

I prayed. To the God of the Bible, no less. My father’s God.

Let her leave, I pleaded even as I opened my eyes to see the bird-masked Malice do the honor of pulling my mask free, like a magpie ripping flesh from a carcass.

The masks screamed and recoiled.

Wails of horror filled the house—mine among them.

Because of what would come next.

Please, I beseeched. Let her leave unharmed.

This I repeated in the mind that would soon be taken from me as well.

Because even as I willed her to take flight and never look back, I could not bear the thought of never seeing her again.

Above, Madness’s head rotated, his three-in-one face aiming itself directly toward me.

“I don’t know who you think you are begging,” he growled, his three distinct voices speaking at once. “No one can hear you in there. No one but us.”

Madness laughed. And then he dove for me.

FORTY-ONE

Stephanie

“No!” I shouted the moment the door slammed shut in my face.

Immediately, I latched on to the knob, only to find that it wouldn’t twist in my grip.

Somewhere inside, Charlie wailed.

“Charlie!” I pounded the door. “Dad!”

I’d seen and felt so much that could not be explained. And now here I was. Back in the world I knew, locked out of the house I didn’t.

Just when I’d decided to abandon the front door and try the back entrance, its stained-glass sidelights and transom lit up—signaling that someone had come into the foyer.

The sound of Charlie’s crying grew louder. A large shadow painted the panes. The lock clicked. Then the door opened, and I found myself staring up into my father’s stunned and sleep-drawn face, my little sister bawling in his arms.

Behind him lurked the stripped walls and creaky worn floors of our house.

“Where in God’s name have you been?” Dad bellowed at me, furious and frightened.

“We have to go!” I said, collecting Charlie from him, her face red and streaming with tears. She clung to me, small arms wrapping me tight. “We have to get out of the house. Now!”