“If a man dies but is nearly saved, is he alive?” Indu asked him. “If you enter almost all the numbers into a codex lock, does it open?”

“No, sir, but—” Lemak began to plead.

“Nej-li, it does not,” Indu interrupted.

“I can help you,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure that I could. “Please let me go. I will help you.”

Indu looked over at me, as if he’d forgotten I was there, and he gave me a wispy, sour smile. “Oh, my child, you are already doing all you can.” His smile fell away the instant he turned back to the häxdoktor. “You need to finish this. It’s time to open the lock.”

“I can help you in other ways,” I said, my voice trembling as I begged. “I have other skills. I’m strong, and I can read six languages.”

“Ulla?” Pan was saying, and a cold wind rushed over me as I opened my eyes.

His hands were on my shoulders, and his thick brows were pinched together with worry. Everything seemed so dark, and I blinked to clear it, but it never changed. It wasn’t a lingering haze from the memory—the sky was darkening.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He looked up at the cloudless sky and the shadow crossing over the sun. “Maybe an eclipse.”

“I didn’t know there was supposed to be one today,” I said.

The streetlamps in the city were all kerosene, hand-lit before dusk, but with the unexpected night falling as the sun was blotted out, Merellä was soon going to be submerged in total darkness. Nearby, I heard confused shouts and uneasy rumblings as everyone reacted to the sudden changes in the afternoon sky.

The giant woolly elk bellowed in the stables, and we were close enough that we could hear them kicking and ramming at the doors, the wood and hinges rattling as their hooves stomped the ground.

“Shit, the woollies are freaking out,” Pan said. “I should calm them down before they hurt themselves.”

I took his hand, so he wouldn’t run off and leave me alone in the dark. He squeezed it once, then we jogged through shadows and made it inside the stables just as the total darkness fell.

“I can’t see anything,” I said.

“Stay here.” Pan pushed me gently, so my back was against the wall. The raw wood left a few slivers poking me, but I didn’t complain. “I’ll try to find a light.”

Then he walked away, his stumbling footsteps receding, and he murmured words of comfort to the elk, though it didn’t seem to be helping much. They brayed and kicked loudly. My eyes slowly adjusted in the dark—the outlines of the stacks of hay and stalls taking shape.