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“If the stem turns black, we have to leave. Right away. We have to get out of the house.”

None of them said anything about that. Our breath came out in faint clouds that the candlelight caught and lost.

“Any questions?” I said.

“What happens if it works?” Callie asked.

I realized that was the part I hadn’t thought about enough.

“Then we get what we need from her,” I said.

I took a steady breath and looked at the mirror.

“Clemency Hart, daughter of no master,” I said, then stopped. My voice felt as fragile as tissue paper. I cleared my throat and tried again: “Clemency Hart, daughter of no master, keeper of the severing, I call upon you with the leave of your blood and the consent of my own will.”

The candle flames had narrowed to thin bright threads. Callie’s hand gripped mine tighter. My words had a strange heaviness to them now, as if they weren’t exactly my own.

“I have stood before the Bridegroom and I come now to put aside his claim. If I am unfit, refuse me. If I am false, deny me.” My voice caught. I exhaled and went on: “If I am afraid, let fear stand witness and not master.”

We waited in silence. Priya’s lips were moving silently, like she was saying a prayer. Jess had gone completely still. The room held its breath with us.

Nothing happened. Not at first.

The only way I can describe what happened next is to say that the cold did something. It moved through the air demanding to be noticed, curling around our ankles and bleeding under our sleeves. The candle flames shrank again to fine points. The glass of the mirror seemed to deepen, as if its depth had doubled. As if it went on forever. The surface receded, becoming a void instead of a reflection.

We held on, gripping each other’s hands. Callie had screwed her eyes shut. Priya was biting into her lower lip. Jess was oddly stoic and ready.

I suddenly understood what the air was doing. Pressure was building in the room, and it was coming from behind us, approaching the circle. A pressure from something old and enormous that only needed to nod in our direction to change the atmosphere in the room.

Callie whimpered. For a few petrifying seconds, I felt like I was back around the fire with Aurora, but this time, there was no cacao to take the edge off.

But then it stopped. The pressure withdrew. Only the cold remained, and the shiver in our limbs. Like whatever had visited us had taken one short look, snubbed us, and flown away. The air in the circle went flat, leaving a terrible emptiness behind.

“Shit,” I whispered.

“Was that it?” Priya murmured.

“Whatever it was, it’s not what we needed,” I said.

We didn’t move. Our hands were still linked into a chain, and not one of us was ready to be the first to let go. The anticlimax was almost worse than the fear had been. Something had come, looked at us and left, and for a few seconds I doubted whether any of it had been real.

Then I remembered a line from the journal in Clemency’s narrow, furious hand.

The dead of this line do not come for the timid.

“We’re holding back,” I said.

“Holding back?” Priya stared at me.

“She came. She took a look at us and she turned around. She didn’t think we meant it.” I looked at each of them. “Some part of us is still hoping this doesn’t work.”

No one argued, which told me I was right.

“Maybe it’s the morbid terror,” Priya said weakly.

“Everyone think about your feet.” My voice leveled as I said it. “Steady on the ground. Take short, regular breaths. If you’re scared, let yourself be scared. Don’t fight it. Just keep your feet under you.”

Callie glanced down at her feet, then back up at me, her face the color of the candle wax. “I think I’m going to have to sit this out.” Her hand started to slacken in mine.