It’s all your fault, all your fault every step of the way, whispered a nasty voice in Maren’s head. Because of her, Hallie was in a coma, and Lishta and Amos might as well be, too. If the police couldn’t find them, Lishta might die and Amos’s parents would lose their oldest son because of his kindness.

And Maren’s parents would lose both of their daughters in the space of one summer. She’d watched her mother trying to make breakfast after the accident, burning egg after egg until they had no more left. She’d listened to her father crying in the shower sometimes when he thought nobody could hear. And now Maren was about to double their sorrow. Multiply it by a thousand.

All she wanted in the world was to go back, back, and curl up on the sofa with her mother, feel her arms around her, the soft cushion of her body, and her slow, deep breathing. She wanted her dad to come home and pretend he wasn’t tired and make goofy jokes. She wanted to be warm and safe and loved.

And she wanted her sister. Maren imagined Hallie marching up to Obscura, disarming her with an elaborate tae kwon do move, and tying her up in a chair. Then they’d call the police and their faces would be all over the news. Sisters Fight Off Kidnapper. The articles would rave about how courageous the two girls were, how fierce and strong. But Maren wasn’t strong enough to fight Obscura alone. As the ballerina kept pointing out, she was small and foolish and weak. No match for a grown-up. Not even brave enough to tell her grandmother the truth about what she’d done.

Maren buried her teary face in her arms, and her breath came in shuddering gulps. She let the dusty darkness swallow her for a long, long time, until her lungs ached and her tears had all been spent. There was nothing to hope for tonight. Everybody still thought she was staying at Lishta’s.

And Hallie was moving in six days. There was nobody to cure her now. If Maren didn’t figure out how to escape, her parents would bring her sister to the long-term facility on Friday, wondering the whole time what had happened to her.

It was all too much to think about. A cold numbness settled in Maren’s bones as she let her eyes drift shut.

A tiny thump overhead.

Maren’s eyes flew open.

“TA MERE EST UNE VACHE PARESSEUSE.”

She staggered around, reaching blindly into the darkness, until she found a heavy block covered in dust and sticky, trailing threads. Trying not to think about the spiders involved, Maren dragged the block over to the approximate location of the trapdoor. It took a few minutes of shuffling and dragging and readjusting before she found the hinges again and pressed her mouth to the crack.