“Help mee-EEE!” a third, eerily hollow voice echoed in the distance.

They were Edna’s reedy howls, but her voice grew harder to hear with each passing moment, as if she were being dragged away.

And then, as abruptly as it had begun, the storm was over. The winds subsided, and ruby sand drifted slowly to the floor. The room grew thunderously quiet.

Emrys whirled around to find Serena was just behind him, terrified but unharmed. Her wide brown eyes gazed back at him from beneath a layer of fine red dust.

Edna Milton was never heard from again.

EPILOGUE

It was an unseasonably warm afternoon in New Rotterdam. The sun, which had been wan and pale all week, burned with renewed intensity, dispelling the city’s ubiquitous fog. It was as if nature itself had taken notice of Emrys and Serena’s victory over the Wandering Hour and found it fit to celebrate.

Or maybe it was just due to global warming.

It had been less than a full day since Serena had been half-devoured by a monster with the face of an old woman, and despite their exhaustion and shock, none of them wanted to be indoors. Serena, in particular, couldn’t bear to be in her apartment, where the memory of the red hourglass was too vivid, as unconquerable in her mind’s eye as it had been when she’d tried with all her might to shatter it.

Emrys recognized her need to assert some control over her fear; to get up and do something, however small.

And so they were honoring the dead.

The adults of New Rotterdam would likely never know what had happened to Edna Milton’s victims. As Enoch Pierce had learned the hard way, adults didn’t really want the truth if it didn’t conform to their preconceived ideas about how the world worked:

Monsters weren’t real.

The people in power could be trusted to take care of things.

The tragedies that befell other people’s families couldn’t happen to them.

But Emrys, Hazel, and Serena didn’t have the luxury of embracing those comforting lies. And they couldn’t let the names of the dead remain unspoken.

They spoke Casper Jennings’s name at the laundromat and Betty Grimm’s in Arcadia Park. They read Emma Winthrop’s poem aloud, and, just outside the fence of Gideon de Ruiter Middle School, they watched a video of a band performance the school had posted online the year before. Brian Skupp had a tuba solo. Emrys thought he was pretty good.

Their path home brought them through the Shallows.

“We should tell Mr. Pierce what happened,” Emrys suggested. “He deserves to know. He was her victim, too, after all.”

Hazel touched his shoulder. “You’re right,” she said. “That’s good of you to think of him.”

She’d been handling Emrys with kid gloves all morning, offering gentle words of affirmation and even offering to do his chores. It was as if she thought he might crumble to dust at the slightest provocation, and he couldn’t say for certain that she was wrong.

“I think you missed your chance,” Serena said flatly, and Emrys looked over to where she stood, just outside Mr. Pierce’s antique store.

The display window out front, which had previously been home to a chaotic assortment of knickknacks, was now empty except for a single sign. It read: RETAIL SPACE FOR RENT.

“That happened fast,” said Hazel. “Even for the Shallows.”

Serena pushed the door. It was unlocked, swinging open and setting off the bell.

A few days ago, Emrys would have hesitated, fearful of trespassing, as he had when they’d stood outside Van Stavern’s ruined apartment. Today, he stepped forward without a second thought, slipping past Serena and into the shadowy shop interior. The cheerful bell echoed in the empty space.

The wreckage of apartment #701 had awed Emrys into momentary silence, and the utter vacantness of the one-time antique shop had the same effect. There had been so much stuff packed in there less than twenty-four hours ago. Now, if not for the trails and treads marring a thick layer of dust, someone might think the space had been deserted for ages.

“I don’t understand,” he said at last. “It’s completely empty.”

“Not quite,” Hazel said, pushing past him. “Look.”

Emrys saw it then. Atop the glass display case in the center of the room was a small figurine set beside a handwritten note.

Hazel got there first. She held the note tightly with both hands, as if it might slip through her fingers. “It’s addressed to you, Serena.”

Serena took the note, unfolding it while Emrys watched over her shoulder. The note read:

I’m sorry.

I didn’t have a choice. The end is here, and it is hungry.

One day, you’ll understand.

Serena made a choking sound, and she brought her hand up to her mouth. It took Emrys a moment to realize she was crying. Hazel reached for her, but Serena held up her hand and shook her head. Don’t.

“I don’t understand,” said Hazel. “Why is he sorry?”

Emrys lifted the small figurine gingerly between his index finger and thumb. His skin prickled, but he couldn’t tell if it was due to a supernatural sixth sense or plain old intuition.

“And what is that?” asked Hazel.

“It’s a chess piece,” Emrys answered.

Hazel’s brow furrowed. “Chess pieces are supposed to be white or black. Why is it yellow?”

“Not just yellow,” Emrys said flatly. In fact, the figurine was almost golden in color—a rich, warm hue that was as sunny as the day outside. It made Emrys sick. Pieces began shifting in his mind, a chess game Emrys and his friends hadn’t even realized they’d been playing—been losing—all along.

“It’s amber,” he said. “It’s an amber bishop.”

As in @AmberBishop. Emrys had spoken with someone using that online handle just the other night.

He looked up at his friends. “Enoch Pierce is an admin on the wiki. And I think … I think this means …”

He turned the piece over. Inscribed on the bottom were two letters in an elegant, looping script.

YC

“It means he’s with the Yellow Court.”

Emrys wasn’t surprised to discover that @AmberBishop’s account had been discontinued. Enoch Pierce had vacated the digital realm as hastily as he’d cleared out of his shop.