“You can run, dear,” the woman said, in the permissive tone of an elder indulging a rambunctious child. “And you can even hide. But I can always follow, Serena.”

Edna smiled, and her lips split open too wide. The skin along her cheeks tore along hidden seams, a mask that was pulling apart.

Emrys realized the hourglass had appeared as well. Its tortured golden frame towered from atop the kitchen counter, red sand sliding into its transparent belly. Barely any, compared to what occupied the upper bulb.

Such little time had passed. How would they possibly escape Edna for the full hour?

Serena screamed. She lunged toward where her brother sat on the sofa—and the metal lacrosse stick that was propped against it.

With a jolt of panic, Emrys felt his slick palm losing its grip on her hand. He couldn—

The sensation that followed was among the most unpleasant experiences of his life. The world dilated, like a film reel going slack. Noises warped, Serena’s war-bellow pitching low and slow. Emrys could even feel his own racing heartbeat stretching in his chest.

Then everything contracted again, the film coming back into speed. Emrys was yanked in the other direction, his almost comically low yelp rising in pitch as he caught up with time.

It was a dizzying, profoundly disturbing ordeal. One moment, he’d been scrambling to keep up with Serena—farther into the apartment—while now she was pulling him out the door in the other direction.

Serena must have dropped his hand for a moment, freezing him in time with the rest of the world.

“I can only help you if you hold on!” he shouted, just hoping he wouldn’t trip in his disorientation.

“I tried to break the hourglass!” Serena huffed. “But it’s too tough. My brother’s stick didn’t leave a scratch!”

They pitched down another floor, Emrys’s head still spinning. Apparently a closed apartment wouldn’t be enough. They had to find another place to hide. There was no time to reach the water, as Enoch Pierce had. But where else could they go?

It’s important that you’re able to access the reliquary at all times.

Van Stavern’s lesson from earlier that day rang through Emrys’s thoughts.

Anywhere you find a door, you can find an entrance.

“Wait!” Emrys screamed, digging his heel into the landing and holding Serena’s wrist for dear life as she attempted to keep sprinting toward the next staircase. “A door! I need a door!”

“A what?!” Serena shouted. Her eyes were wild with panic.

Emrys stared at the nearest doorway to one of his neighbor’s apartments. Van Stavern had promised that any door would do. Emrys scoured his memory for the incantation Van Stavern had given him into the Order’s magical reliquary.

Then he looked down at the hand currently gripping Serena’s wrist.

Ostiarius aperi was written in clear black Sharpie across his forearm.

A heavy thud shook the landing above. The old woman’s laughter broke out again, but it sounded wrong this time. Each peal warped and whistled, deforming to a ragged, wet hiss.

“Emrys, we have to go!” Serena pleaded. She tried to tug Emrys away, but he held his ground—nearly breaking their grip for a terrifying beat.

“But what’s the last word?” he wondered aloud. “P-something. Portal? Puerto?”

Serena gazed down at the writing. “That’s Latin …” she said. “Accusative case would be … is it portam?”

Emrys gasped as the word slotted into his memory. He pressed his free palm to the door. “Ostiarius aperi portam! ” he shouted.

Just like in the bathroom, gooseflesh rose all along Emrys’s arms. His right eye buzzed with anticipatory energy. By Serena’s sudden hushed pause, he guessed she felt it, too.

He lunged for the door handle—a handle that should surely have been locked—and found that it clicked easily open. Emrys pushed the door, revealing the same sprawling, otherworldly chamber he and his friends had stumbled into when this all began.

Serena looked appropriately shocked, but didn’t waste a moment clambering inside. Emrys quickly followed, throwing the door shut behind him.

He and Serena stood before the reliquary’s grand spire of an entrance, the brass doorknob regarding them coolly with its blue enamel eye.

Emrys bent over, panting, willing his head to stop spinning. Still, he didn’t dare break contact with Serena, who was herself now backing away from the door.

“Van Stavern said … this place was … safe,” Emrys gasped. “Taught me how to get in.”

Serena’s shoulders unhitched a bit at that, but the fear hadn’t left her expression. “How does he know, though? He’d never even heard of the Wandering Hour before today, right?”

“I’m not sure this place exists in the real world,” Emrys said. “How could she possibly follow us here?”

Serena shook her head. “Emrys, you heard that thing. She said she could follow me anywhere.”

“And what a wonderful site you’ve led me to, Serena.”

The Yellow Court

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Do not answer the door.

13

Every nerve in Emrys’s body fired at the same time. His legs shook ferociously, and his breath caught in his lungs. Edna’s voice echoed from everywhere at once.

“No,” Serena moaned, her voice thick with despair. “Please, no …”

Emrys caught sight of the hourglass looming on the reliquary’s mantle, the thin line of blood-red sand spooling down, down, down in its ever-patient pursuit.

Serena had been right yet again. Somehow, the Wandering Hour had found them even here. If they couldn’t hide in the reliquary, where would they ever be safe?

“A space outside of space,” Edna’s voice crooned. “A time outside of time. We’re something of a matching set, aren’t we?” Emrys caught a glimpse of a large shadow undulating between the relic pedestals, but it moved too fast for him to see clearly.