Twenty-Six

The gray mist seethed as Eleanor and Katie gripped each other’s hands. “Ready?” Katie asked.

“Ready,” Eleanor confirmed. She shut her eyes. The world-walker’s power shone inside her, like looking into an infinite night sky full of stars. Katie’s power was more like a ripple of silk, elegant and soft. Together, they reached for the Wending.

On their own, they couldn’t have slipped out past the binding of the moonlight thread—not for a while yet, at least. But together, it was easy. They wove their way between the threads of the worlds and found what they were looking for.

Pip and Otto appeared in a shimmer of air. Otto yelped in surprise. Pip had Gloaming out of its sheath in half a second—and pointed at Katie’s chest.

Eleanor turned to block the blade with her own body. “Stop! She’s on our side,” she said.

Pip’s eyes narrowed. Otto’s widened in confusion. “What are you talking about? Let’s get out of here and Empty this place,” Pip said.

“She’s different,” Otto said, peering at Katie. “Her heart is different.”

“We don’t have time to explain,” Eleanor said. “Mr. January and Mrs. Prosper will be back any minute. I have a plan. I need you to trust me. Whatever happens, okay?”

“Of course,” Pip said immediately. She lowered her sword. “She’s really not evil?”

“Never again,” Katie said, like it was a promise to herself. She didn’t look any different, at first glance. But there was a new strength to the way she stood, and a light in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“What are you—” Otto started, but he didn’t get any further before Mr. January’s voice interrupted him.

“Sister. Look at this. You’ve collected the full set, and just before midnight,” he said. He emerged from the gray, his eyes hard and suspicious. Mrs. Prosper was behind him. Eleanor stiffened and drew back toward her friends as Katie stepped out in front.

“What exactly is going on here?” Mrs. Prosper said. “What is this trickery?”

“No trickery,” Katie replied. Her voice was smooth and assured, and in it, Eleanor heard an echo of Wander. “They are here to offer themselves willingly. The final key.”

Pip and Otto gave Eleanor alarmed looks, but she reached back and squeezed their hands. This was the plan. It was going to be okay.

“That’s absurd. Why would they do that?” Mrs. Prosper said.

“You told us last Halloween that a willing sacrifice would make a far more powerful key than an unwilling one,” Eleanor said. “So here we are. Willingly. And you’re going to finally get what you want.”

“Are you sure about this?” Pip muttered at her shoulder.

She wasn’t—but it was too late to back out now. “We’re the key. The three of us. If we’re willing,” she said, looking at each of them in turn. Otto nodded, though his eyes were frightened. Pip gritted her teeth and dipped her chin once. They trusted her. Eleanor could only hope they were right to.

“A willing key is the most powerful kind of all,” Katie said. She stretched out a hand toward them.

Power flared, invisible strands of magic wrapping around them. Otto and Pip gasped, and so did Eleanor—her skin prickled and stung, like there was electricity dancing over it.

“This is a trick of some kind,” Mrs. Prosper said, frozen in place.

“No trick,” Katie replied. She reached up, and Eleanor could just barely see the gray glimmer of a thread running all the way to the massive door, wrapped in chains. She looked back at Eleanor. “Ready?”

Eleanor nodded. She gripped Otto and Pip’s hands tightly. Whatever happened now, they were together.

The ferocious storm of magic building on her skin began to rush away. Katie was pulling it. Sending it dancing along the thread to the massive door. Mr. January and Mrs. Prosper turned wonderingly, eagerness and disbelief on their faces.

Mr. January had spent almost two hundred years building to this moment. Two hundred years of tricks and rituals, magic and curses, to make the three of them the perfect, final key. He meant to fling the door open. To let all the armies of the Pallid Kingdom spill out into their world, and turn it as gray and miserable as their home. And now the last key was finally sliding into the lock.

Mr. January had turned children into keys, each of them a fraction of the power he needed to open that door. But he had done his work better than he realized. Not one deal, but two linked the children to the door—two bargains, and three magical trials conquered, and their own will, and their blazing love for each other. Katie didn’t need to transform them into the final key. She needed only a fraction of their power to form it, and she drew it from them painlessly.

The key appeared in the lock, and turned.

Katie didn’t fling the door wide. She let it open just a crack. Just a sliver. Not enough to let the Pallid Kingdom and its armies of the Empty out.

But enough to let two wayward children back in.

The chains rattled. The door eased open.

“Now, Eleanor,” Katie said, her voice strained—she was trembling with the effort of holding the door that wide, and no wider.

“Wait—no!” Mr. January cried, whirling as he realized what Eleanor meant to do.

Realized it too late. Eleanor reached with all the power of the world-walker, letting the Story flood through her whole being as she flung everything she had at Mr. January and Mrs. Prosper. She grabbed hold of the threads that connected them to the Pallid Kingdom.

She had drawn the hedgewitch and Jack and Wander from other worlds. She’d pulled Pip and Otto here minutes ago. This was just like that—in reverse. Not pulling but pushing.

“It’s time for you to go home,” Eleanor said. Her voice was oddly echoey. She could see stars beneath her skin, as if she were becoming more magic than girl—but she didn’t feel Empty. She felt the opposite. So full of love and triumph that it made perfect sense to discover there was a whole universe inside her.

Mrs. Prosper screamed in rage—and then she vanished. Only Mr. January remained, Eleanor’s power swirling around him.

“Hurry!” Katie said. “I can’t hold it.”

Eleanor gasped, sending one last burst of power toward Mr. January. In the instant before it hit him, he smiled. He tipped his hat. And he whispered—a whisper that seemed to come from right over her shoulder.

And then he was gone. The door slammed shut behind him.

A new lock appeared on the door. It was cold and gray and sharp-looking. It looked like it would cut you if you tried to touch it. Eleanor could sense it from here—and sense what Katie had made it out of. The cruelty the Pallid Kingdom had taught her, she had Emptied from herself. She had made it into the lock that would hold the door shut.

The gray world was silent. Mr. January and Mrs. Prosper were gone.

Only the echo of Mr. January’s whisper remained, twining around Eleanor, a threat and a promise.

“Until we meet again.”

In the distance, a familiar clock began to chime midnight.