Jenks nodded, making my heart sink. “You, cookie maker, need to take a backseat. We know how to bring Ivy down. You don’t.”

“I know what not to do,” Trent said, but his worry was obvious as he helped me shuffle inside. I was glad there was no light as I looked over the soggy gloom. Al was poking about my seldom-used desk, head cocked as he held up a tiny chair Jenks had left there. Jenks was darting about, lighting the candles we had scattered around for when the power went out. Slowly the space brightened as the wicks took hold and wax began to burn. It smelled—sort of a sour, bite-at-the-back-of-your-throat smell, stinking of vampire fear and heartache. Ivy ...

I looked down the black hallway, both afraid and anxious.

“Maybe I should go get Bis,” Trent said, and Jenks made a sparkling beeline back to us.

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard out of you since you, ah ... never mind. You’re going to need a ladder,” Jenks said, but Trent was already taking the belfry stairs two at a time. Sighing, Jenks pointed at Al, then his own eyes, and then Al again before following Trent.

Al frowned, wearing that same wary, reluctant look he’d had in Trent’s office before he walked out with Newt and Dali. He made a “get on with it” gesture, and my heart thudded. Jenks was watching him, eh?

“Ivy?” I called, wanting to give her even more warning. “You here?” It was obvious she was, and I limped to the top of the hallway. There was a thin crack of light leaking from under her door, and I looked at Al. “Why are you here?”

“To catch you when you fall. And you will fall. It’s simply a matter of finding the right lever.”

Swell. “Ivy?” I called again. “Ah, you okay?”

Breathless, I waited at the sudden slide and thump of something heavy in Ivy’s room. A frantic hush of words followed. It was Ivy, and I reached out, finding myself painfully yanked back into Al. I fought to get his hand off me, stopping when Ivy shouted, “No. Nina, no!” I hesitated, Al’s grip easing as Ivy added, “It’s Rachel. Please. I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t take it away. Don’t leave me. No. No!” Nina howled, a desperate pain in her voice. “Oh God. Give it to me!” she suddenly raged. “Give it to me!”

I couldn’t move as Nina’s fierce demands dissolved into heartrending sobs. Any hope I might have had that the newly undead might survive their souls died. Clearly Ivy had captured Nina’s, and Nina was out of her mind to get it back. Everything was out of balance and her second death was the only way to bring it back again.

“Whoever made this curse was a sadist,” I whispered, and Al’s grip on me fell away.