And Erik. Poor Erik.

I couldn’t get the sight of that cheekbone out of my mind. Or forget the way his skeletal hand had clasped mine. The too-angular feel of his form when I’d flung my arms around him, pressing my body against his rail-thin one.

Dead. He was dead. But somehow . . . alive.

The horror of it caused me to convulse once, which caused Charlie to whimper and cling to me harder, and Lucas to squeeze my hand again.

Erik was still in that house. And had been since he’d died. A prisoner. Forever.

Even if I could somehow convince my dad to leave, how could I go knowing that Erik was still there?

“There’s . . . something I forgot in the house,” I said to Lucas, who slowly turned his head my way. “I have to go back for it.”

“You can’t,” he said. “Not alone.”

I fell silent at the implications.

“Your dad,” Lucas said. “He’ll probably be here all day. And they’ll come . . . if I call them.”

I gathered his meaning with the same reluctance as before.

“It’s almost morning,” Lucas said, his way of pressing the issue when I didn’t answer. “Does Charlie have somewhere she can stay?”

Since I was still a minor, Charlie and I had to stay with a friend’s family until Dad got discharged. But I could just tell the hospital I was riding with Lucas to pick up my stuff from the house first.

Deciding to spare Lucas the details, I nodded in answer to his question.

In response, he released my hand, then walked out into the hallway to make his call.

FORTY-FOUR

Zedok

Luckily, Mr. Armand had survived the attack.

Still, though, there was no cause for relief.

Standing beneath the pristine twin of the chandelier on my side of Moldavia, in the exact place where it lay decimated on the Armands’ side, I glanced to where the discarded mask of Madness lay on the floor, shuddering from the aftershocks of its defeat.

Once more, I wore the countenance of Valor. Paradoxically, our reunion was owed only to Madness, whose violent actions had brought about the one thing that could have returned me to my senses.

In inflicting injury upon Mr. Armand, I had left him and thus his family with no other choice but to come back and to stay. For where was one such as Mr. Armand to go with a broken leg? Aside from that, were not the man’s savings as well as his livelihood instilled within this house?

This war against myself. As always, I stood only to lose it. The only difference now was that I had something to lose.

Rastin. Where are you?

At last, Madness’s mask dissolved. Released from my fear that he would rise as soon as my back was turned and usurp me a second time, I turned on my heel and strode down the dark hallway. From there, I once again passed the threshold between worlds to enter the Armands’ sunlit kitchen. Morning light glinted on the surface of the cluttered table.