It was just like last time, except Kane was not the center. Poesy was. The whirlpool plucked at him as though sampling his taste. His feet lifted off the ground, but before he was sucked in someone wrenched him from the phantasmagoric vortex. Elliot. They huddled together, helplessly watching as Helena squirmed in whatever psychic grip Poesy exerted. Scream after scream tore from her throat as her reverie ripped itself to shreds, as her dreamt youth ripped apart, too, revealing the crumpled form of an old lady in a little yellow sweater and elastic-waist jeans. She kicked at the air with her orthopedic sneakers, the laces neatly tied. And then, as though her world wasn’t enough, Helena collapsed into the teacup, too.

And it was over.

The small backyard refocused. The Tudor house watched them, stoic. They were back in Reality Proper, where the night pulsed with a blustery chill. The gazebo, the château, the beasts—they were gone. Taken.

There was the sound of crushing, and then Poesy plucked something small and glittering from the teacup’s belly. She hooked it onto her bracelet with the rest of her charms, then swiped the bottom of the teacup with a finger to sample the residue.

“Sweet. Grasping. A floral whimsicality and a full-bodied escapism. Hmm. Notes of nostalgia for times she never lived, homesickness for places she’d never been. Oh! And what an aftertaste. Undertones of envy and desperation, accented by several harsh desertions. Hints of obsession and—oh, gross—such saccharine self-pity! Smacks of mania.”

It was Adeline who finally protested. “You can’t do this! You can’t just steal her away!”

Poesy’s smile was wide and self-assured.

“Finders keepers,” she said, her nails clicking against the Dreadmare’s beak as it bowed to be pet.

And they flickered out of sight.

• Twenty-Two •

Still

There would be no going to the diner tonight. No one even seemed comfortable looking away from where Helena had been. It was like standing over a grave, watching the dirt settle atop the space where someone had been swallowed up by the earth. Leaving felt like losing them for good.

Then, one by one, the Others looked to Kane. Where there had once been annoyance and pity, a new expression tinted their eyes. Fear. Adeline spoke in a soft, slow voice, as though to a rabid animal.

“What did you do?”

Kane moved to his sister, who sat shaking on the ground.

Adeline tried again. “Kane, leave her, I can help her. First just tell us what that was?”

“She doesn’t need your help,” he said.

“Just let me soften the memory a little. It’ll ease the shock. We need to talk about this.”