“No—no!”

The words ripped out of my throat. Nell’s eyes bulged as she tried to push my arm away. Her lips were moving, but the blood was thundering too hard in my ears, the fiend was laughing too loudly for me to hear what she was saying.

You understand now what I am capable of. Al’s voice sounded unnaturally high. I felt his fear and desperation like it was my own. You claim to only wish to save your family. Your only hope for her survival is to sign a contract with me. Agree, Maggot—agree!

“Screw. You,” I gritted out. No contract now, no contract ever!

She will die, just as your whole family will—

A burst of warm energy struck me dead center in the chest, shocking my entire body into numbness as it shoved me back down the steps and across the yard.

No, I thought, still feeling dazed from the blow. You don’t know Nell.

“I’ve got more of that, you parasite!” Nell was saying as she advanced toward the gate, one glowing fist still raised. The howler let out a tooth-snapping growl that was met in kind by one from Toad, who launched off the porch like a bolt of lightning.

A hot rush of pins and needles filled my limbs. My hand twitched closer to a sharp rock, and I could see it so clearly, how Alastor would use it to hurt Nell or Toad.

“No!”

It felt like jamming a cap back on a bottle of exploding soda. That horrible fizzing sensation eased up, and Alastor’s cries of frustration started.

“Are you okay?” Nell asked at the same time I said, “I’m sorry! I’m so, so, so sorry!”

“What’s going on?” Nell looked like she wanted to punch me. “How could you be so stupid as to leave the house?”

The truth exploded out of me: “It wasn’t by choice!”

She took a wide-eyed step back. “What do you mean?”

“He’s been…he’s been taking my body out for a ride at night,” I admitted. “I had no idea.”

“Obviously,” Nell said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Okay…okay…we’ll figure this out….”

I almost forgot about the ugly little gremlin I had carried back with me. Nell couldn’t see him sprawled out on the porch, but she heard him snarfing, sucking up his dribbling electric-blue snot and drool.

“Slip from the shadows into sight,” Nell whispered, “reveal yourself in the light.”

A ball of light tracked over to him, hovering no matter how far away from it he tried to get. I knew when she finally saw him. She shook her head, but didn’t look all that surprised.

“A hob?” she asked, looking straight at me. “You couldn’t survive a few weeks without a slave to attend to you?”

“Hey, I would never—” Oh. She was talking to the bratty malefactor. Not me.

I will not dignify that with a response. I am a Prince of the Third Realm.

“We need to get Uncle B,” I said, finally feeling strong enough to push myself off the ground.

“No!” she whispered. “No! We can’t tell him about this—not the malefactor taking over your body, not the howler you saw. I told you, we’ll be trapped in the house—”

“What does that matter if we’re dead?” I asked. “Is this about the play?”

A hurt expression flashed on her face. “Of course not. But if I can’t leave the house, I can’t…get to some of the things Mom left me to take care of. Things I could use to protect us.”

She looked so upset that I believed her. “Well, what are we going to do about…that?” I nodded to the little fiend and his round belly.

Nell bent over and picked him up like an oversize stuffed animal. “Can you walk?”

Not super-steady, but yeah. Instead of going upstairs, she took us down. It was my first time being in the basement, and right away I knew I wouldn’t be back. It was cramped, filled with barrels of salt, cardboard boxes, and mostly broken furniture.

She moved to the other side of the room, where something long and rectangular was hidden beneath a dirty bedsheet. The little fiend—the hob, or whatever—was left stretched out on the top of a dresser at the other end of the room.

“Tell your fiend friend we need to talk,” Nell said, whipping off the bedsheet. A long, elaborate gold mirror was hiding there—very fancy, very old. Very forbidden.

“Uncle Barnabas said to destroy all the mirrors,” I said. “That howler came through shards of one. Isn’t this dangerous?”

She hesitated for a moment.

“If the malefactor is powerful enough to control your body, he’s strong enough to hold back whatever tries to come through to get him. We’ll break the connection at the first sign of trouble,” she said. “I’m going to get a candle—don’t move.”

Like her wish could be command enough to stop me.

The prickling, tingling sensation raced along my good arm. All I had to do, though, was picture Nell’s face when Alastor forced me to attack her, and I shut it down. I guess my anger was stronger than whatever powers he did have.

Al didn’t have a comeback to that one. He didn’t want to talk at all.

I don’t know how long the three of us stared at one another in the mirror. Long enough for the white wax to start dripping down onto my hands. I held the candle tight between my fingers, trying to push away the uneasy feeling I got when I noticed the white fox had grown. It wasn’t a fuzzy little cub anymore. Even though his voice sounded young, Alastor looked…older.

“What were you doing?” I asked, finally. “Out in the graveyard?”

Nell’s head whipped toward me. “Which one? Describe exactly what was happening.”

So I did. And I watched Nell’s face go from white to pink to a furious cherry red in seconds. “You were trying to swipe witch magic. You thought it would work for you? You thought you could just use our gift, and that would be enough to fully awaken yours?”

The fox only stared. One blue eye. One black. Neither of them blinking.

“Well, it wouldn’t have!” Nell said. “Witch magic and fiend magic don’t mix. I don’t know where you got your information from, but they lied.”

“I do not know who told you that we cannot harness your power under special conditions,” Alastor said, and it was nice to hear his voice outside of my head for once. “But they are the ones that lied.”

“How many times?” I asked. “How many times have you slipped out of the house?”

The fox licked its paw innocently.

“Once? Twice?” I tried. “More than that? Since the beginning?”

Alastor’s little chin nodded, just slightly.

“Holy crap.”

“You have no memory of it?” Nell asked. “You haven’t been feeling tired?”

“I mean, I have a few more bruises and cuts, but I feel fine. I felt fine.”

“You could feel better than fine. I’ve tried to make a contract with you. I tried to reason with you. You could have power of your own. All I would have asked in exchange—aside from your spirit’s eternal servitude, of course—would have been the freedom to do what I must to understand what is happening.”

“What do you mean?” Nell asked. “What’s happening?”

“His Highness, Dark Prince of the Third Realm, refers to the mysterious, oh yes, mysterious happenings of the human realm and our own,” came a shaky voice behind us.

I spun around. The little fiend was sitting upright, his stubby legs dangling over the edge of the dresser.

“Be silent! It is not the business of humans!”

“When I come this close to getting mauled by Fido the monster, then yeah—I’d say it’s my business!” I hissed. “Tell us what’s going on. If it gets me killed, it gets you killed too, remember, buddy?”

The fox leaped to its feet and began pacing the length of the glass. The hob’s eyes lit up at the sight of it. “Your Highness, my lord and master, your form here is of great beauty, the greatest beauty. It surpasses that of your brothers—the hare, the feline, the crow, the snake, the lizard, and the hedgehog. Blegh! Nothing compared to you.”

“Hedgehog?” Nell repeated. “One appears to humans as a hedgehog?”

“Quiet, little witch. Do not strain your inferior mind to speak of things you do not understand. We did not choose our forms. Our father chose them for us.”

I raised an eyebrow. “He must not have liked you very much, fur ball.”

Apparently it is possible for a fox to look totally outraged. If it hadn’t been for the hob going up to the glass and making grabby hands at the fuzzy little animal, he probably would have launched into another tirade.

“Can you…not?” I asked, trying to pull the hob back from where he was slobbering over the glass. Nell had vaguely explained that hobs were servants of the Downstairs realm, but this one either had a serious case of separation anxiety, or he was obsessed with cute animals.

Nell disappeared for a second, rummaging through the nearby boxes. She opened up one labeled NELL’S TOYS. She dug around until she pulled out a stuffed gray cat and a fuzzy pink bear.

Judging by the way the hob flew across the room to try to tackle them out of her hands, it looked like he was just obsessed with cute animals. We’d have to hide Toad.

Nell held the stuffed animals just out of his reach, trying not to laugh as the hob jumped up in the air for them. His long ears flopped back and forth, and his snot went flying.

“Give them to me, give them to this hob!”

“Tell me what you guys found out, and you can have all of them,” Nell wheedled. “Look how cute they are. Look how soft.”

“Don’t you dare!” Alastor warned, his face smooshed up against the glass. “Nightlock!”

“Is that your name?” Nell asked in that same, sweet voice. “Nightlock, don’t you want Miss Kitty and Growley the Bear?”

The hob nodded, his eyes wide and wet. “Please,” he whimpered.

“Tell us what’s going on.”

Alastor let out a defeated sigh as the hob spilled his guts.

“My lord and master is trying to figure out which of his siblings betrayed him to the Reddings, yes,” Nightlock said. “One of them, his rival and brother, must have given the witch Prufrock his true name. This is the only way to control a malefactor—oh yes, the only way. She would have needed his name for the spell to bind back his power, to bind it back and destroy him.”

“Traitor!” Alastor hissed.

I whirled toward Nell. “I knew it! You guys were wrong!”

Nell paled.

“Oh yes, a traitor indeed, but which brother, which brother, or the sister?”

“Sister?” Nell and I said together.

“It was not Pyra!” the fox continued. “My sister is innocent and far too young for such trickery—too young to even gather souls. She would never harm her own blood, nor is she able to inherit the realm. It was one of my brothers—I am the rightful heir of the Third Realm, of Downstairs, and he could not stand this.”

“Your sister can’t inherit?” Nell asked. “What kind of crappy rule is that?”

We were getting a little off topic. “So you’ve been meeting to try to absorb power from the moon?” I asked. “And to try to investigate who might have betrayed Al? Did you find anything?”

Nightlock finally looked away from the stuffed cat. “No. Alas, no. The ruler on the Black Throne has cast a curse. All fiends banished and escaped from Downstairs, including this hob, may not speak the name, or they will be struck dead instantly. Instantly!”

“You know who it is?” I pressed. “It’s not Al’s father? Is he dead?”

The hob was shaking, just a little. “I cannot speak the name, I cannot. I have tried to find an elf for Master to speak to, but the howlers—the howlers killed the elf first. I have sought out nearby trolls, a White Lady, a banished dwarf, but none can speak the name. It is protected. It is protected.”

I shared a look with Nell. This was so much worse than even I imagined. “The howler that chased us here was after Al? And there are more of them?”

“Yes, and yes,” the hob said. “Now—Miss Kitty and Growley the Bear, wretched witchling. Give them to me!”

Nell rolled her eyes. “Since you asked so nicely…”

Nightlock pounced on the stuffed animals before they even hit the ground. He scooped them up and cuddled them close to his chest, rocking them back and forth even though they were almost as big as him. He cooed and dribbled blue snot all over them in delight and started sucking on Miss Kitty’s paw.

“Al, you’re in way deep,” I said, turning back to the mirror. “And you’re taking me down with you. It wasn’t just Honor that wanted you dead, it was someone in your family. And between my family and yours, if we don’t work together, we’re screwed.”

“Prosper…” Nell warned.

“I can help you get out of me, or at least try to stay safe until you can do it yourself, but in return you can’t take control of me without my permission, and you can’t hurt my family or friends.”

“Are you proposing a contract?”

“No!” I said. Why did eternal servitude or whatever always have to factor into everything with him? “I’m trying to call a truce to keep us alive as long as possible. I can be your friend.”

“Friend?” Al was disgusted. “A malefactor has no friends, least of all humans, who are lower even than worms. If you will not sign a proper contract, then I owe you nothing. If you will not sign a contract, then we are at war.”

Nell blew out the candle in my hands at the first sound of footsteps from above. Al’s image vanished with the rising smoke.

“Help me!” she whispered, tilting the mirror and lowering it so that it was facedown. We covered it with a sheet for good measure.

“Cornelia?” Uncle Barnabas said, yanking on the light cord hanging above the steps. “What are you doing down here? And at this hour?”

I looked to Nell, uncertain. How could we fix anything without his help?

“The malefactor is keeping Prosper awake, so we were trying a few spells,” she said. “We didn’t want to wake you up.”

Uncle Barnabas’s eyes narrowed to thin, pale slits. His hair was glowing under the old lightbulb. “He’s getting more powerful, isn’t he? I told you that pocket spells wouldn’t be enough. Perhaps this will inspire you to remember where your mother placed her grimoire.”

But…Nell knew exactly where the grimoire was. Missy had told me it was at her shop. Why not go get it and see if there was a spell in there that might actually work, if she really meant to help me?

I shook my head. No. She must have already checked and found nothing. Nell said that grimoires weren’t just spell books, but served as private journals. Even if she was protecting her mom’s privacy, she could tell him that.

But Nell clearly had no problem lying to her father, or at least keeping secrets, did she?

An excellent point, Maggot. I wonder, how can you entrust your life to two people who endeavor to keep secrets from each other? Because surely if they lie to each other…they lie to you as well.