Did he think for one moment that I, knowing what he was, would willingly take it from him?

Horror warred with my incomprehension, until my eyes fell to the shining metal of the proffered mask.

Like a mirage, another face appeared in the skull’s mirrored surface. Quickly, the vision swam toward focus. And the face . . . it belonged to a girl.

Stephanie.

Tick, tock, tick, tock went the mantel clock, counting the seconds in which my fingers crept, of their own accord, toward the mask. Toward her.

As they did, a low rattle entered my awareness.

The house. It had begun to hum around us, causing the knickknacks to clatter on their surfaces, the legs of the furniture to tremble against the floor, and the strings of the dormant piano to unanimously elicit an ominous wail of warning.

Terror for what I was doing, for what I’d nearly done, prompted me to rip the mask from Wrath’s grip and toss it to the hearth, where it dissolved to vapor before impact.

At once, the tremoring of my world ceased. The piano’s voice died.

At my side, Wrath’s looming figure undid itself, his crimson cloak and officer’s uniform unfurling to nothing, even while his low and unsettling laughter—always the last part of him to leave—echoed as fading thunder through the parlor.

NINE

Stephanie

With a loud scrape of chair legs on linoleum, I dropped into the seat across from his, prompting all four people at the lunch table to look up in surprise.

The petite, blonde, braid-wearing girl seated next to me fixed me with a scowl.

Dead ahead, Hipster Glasses gaped with the highest degree of shock of anyone.

I leaned forward over the table. “We need to talk.”

“Uuhh.” He shot a glance to his cohorts, who consisted of Braid Girl; a Black guy with short dreadlocks, a yellow peanut M&M T-shirt, and a septum piercing; and a pale goth kid with silken shoulder-length black hair and an enormous silver cross looped around his neck. “I thought we already . . . talked.”

Hipster Glasses shot Braids a more panicky glance.

I sensed there might be a thing there. At the very least, he didn’t want her to know the details of our last conversation.

“We need to talk again,” I clarified. Right when I’d been about to expound on why, though, Braids cut in.

“Yeah—hi.” Pivoting toward me, she offered her hand. “I’m Charlotte.”

“Stephanie.” I gave her hand a quick shake before turning my attention back to Hipster Glasses. Or rather, Lucas.

“Oh, um, sorry,” said Lucas, sounding dazed. “I should introduce you. This is Patrick.” He pointed to the kid with the piercing. Patrick gave me a what’s-up chin lift, which I returned. “And that’s Wes. Alternately known as the Priest.”

“A pleasure to make your abrupt and unexplained acquaintance,” Wes said, winking at me in a distinctly come-hither manner.

“Uh . . . you too,” I murmured, and returned my attention to Lucas.