Now came the hard part; we had to sneak across the school yard, around and behind the crowd, just like Addison had, without getting caught. And it might have worked—except that all hell broke loose at that very moment.

Suddenly the powerful shine from the front door dimmed into a dull glow, and the crowd’s excited mumblings shifted into fresh cries of outrage. Tod had done his job. Unfortunately, he was now hauling Luci away from the school and around the human-world version of the crowd toward us, drawing all eyes our way.

“Come on!” I shouted, and took off toward the tree, pulling Alec behind me. Fortunately, with the hellion no longer feeding his pets, the proxy grew steadily stronger until he was running on his own.

We were ten feet from the tree when Avari stepped out from under the branches, one hand wrapped cruelly around Addison’s scorched arm, the other around Nash’s. My heart nearly burst through my chest in terror and surprise.

Stupid hellion powers!

To my horror, Nash didn’t seem to know who held him. Or even where he was. I’d never seen him like that before. His eyes were focused on nothing, and as I watched, they actually rolled back into his head. He was as high as the international space station. Nash would be no help in his own rescue.

“I knew you’d show up eventually,” Avari said, and a soft crackling drew my gaze to the ground at his feet, where a thin, delicate layer of ice was now spreading toward us over the gray grass.

“It’s too late,” I said, drawing my gaze back up to his.

“You’re missing a lampade, and you can’t open a doorway of any size without both of them.”

“Not yet.” The hellion nodded formally in concession, and the layer of ice thickened, obscuring the gray ground it covered. “But the summer equinox is only six short months away, and I’m sure we can find some way to amuse ourselves until then. Since we’ll all be here together…”

Alec squeezed my hand and tugged me backward, his cold fingers trembling in mine. “Cross over!” he hissed, without taking his eyes from the hellion.

Avari shook his head slowly, confidently, wrinkling the collar of his starched white shirt. “She won’t go without this one.” He jerked ruthlessly on Nash’s arm, hauling him upright hard enough to make me flinch. “Loyalty is her weakness. It renders her predictable and tells me just where to aim. If only the rest of your world were so feeble… Ahhh, but then where would be the fun?”

“Kaylee, cross!” Alec begged, tugging on my arm, but I shook my head again.

“I won’t leave him here!”

“You won’t have to,” Addison said. And before I could register her intent, she jerked her arm free from the hellion and spun around behind him, screaming in pain when thesudden movement split her crusted skin. Blood streamed down her torn flesh, and when Avari reached for her, his fingers slipped in the crimson streaks. Addison’s screams hit all new notes as more raw skin tore when she tried to run.

As the hellion’s hand closed around the charred remains of her hair, she shoved Nash with an agonized grunt. He stumbled forward. Alec and I raced toward him. Nash fell to his knees, and we knelt beside him.

“Take him!” Addy screeched. I expected to find her trying to pull Avari away from us. But instead, she clung to him, her fingers barely clasped around his torso, and as I watched, as his fury grew, a thin, bluish film of ice traveled over her, freezing the blood that flowed from her new wounds. “Now!” she screamed.

Avari gave a mighty snarl and threw his arms away from his body, literally breaking her hold. Her scarred forearm shattered and fell to the ground in several gruesome, frozen chunks.

Addison screamed again, holding her severed arm up as her broken body thudded to the ground. I’d seen all I could stand.

My heart pounding, I grabbed both Nash and Alec, then closed my eyes. My wail that time was for Addison, whose pain had only begun at her death, and who would endure it for eternity, or until Avari died. Neither of which seemed imminent.

As my throat began to sting and burn, the imprisoned cry scraping my flesh raw, Avari’s roar of fury faded from my ears, and the unnatural cold of the Netherworld became a benign December wind, stinging my bare arms and shoulders above the ruined pageant gown.

On my left, Alec dropped onto the frozen grass and burst into tears of relief. He knelt on his hands and knees, sucking in breath after frigid breath as if he’d never tasted anything sweeter than normal, everyday air.

Nash sagged on his feet, his stare as heartbreakingly vacant in the human world as it had been in the Netherworld. He didn’t seem to know we’d crossed over at all.

Harmony would know what to do for him. Surely she’d know how to bring back the Nash who’d first asked me to dance three months earlier, even if he never again remembered how that moment felt.

Exhausted, I sank onto the freezing ground next to him and lay on my back in Sophie’s dress. I barely felt the cold on my bare shoulders, or the grass that tangled in my hair. All I could think was that I was alive. We all were. Except for Addison, and though it bruised my soul to admit it, there was nothing else I could do for her.

The tree branches overhead were skeletal in the human world, devoid of weird spiky pods, and beyond, I saw a vast, clear sky full of blessedly familiar constellations. We were alone on our side of the gray fog, because the human crowd had gathered on the front lawn of the school, kids and adults alike waiting in a long line to enter the building.