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“You’re supposed to take two teaspoons, not the whole thing!” Fia rushed forward, placing a hand on his wrist too late.

He lowered his arm. Licked the corner of his lip.

She hopped back on her toes.

“The whole bottle is hardly enough,” Penbrook said darkly, and really, there barely seemed any change in him besides the brightening of his eyes. “Might I remind you, I’m not combating sleep; I’m combating death.”

“And I’m not?” Andromeda let out a willowy sigh, not one who liked being forgotten.

Penbrook reached into his bottomless pocket again and plucked a second bottle from its depths, which he presented to Andromeda with an exaggerated bow. “For you.”

“All right, I forgive you,” she said, gulping down the concoction, then daintily wiping her mouth. From the corner of her eye, she regarded Fia through her veil. “Even though it’s not my forgiveness you’re hoping for.”

And then Penbrook was looking down at Fia too, dark eyes questioning behind his mask, because he must have suspected—and really, he should have known—she’d already forgiven him. Fia opened her mouth to tell him, but the words died in her throat at the sight of his unkempt hair, which had been perfectly groomed only a moment before.

“What did you do to your hair?”

Penbrook’s hand flew to the side of his head, where one shorter lock rested among all his lustrous strands. Whatever illusion he’d cast to hide the snipped-away piece had worn thin, just like the one that had hidden the scratch on his jawline.

He tried to smooth his hair, but there was no concealing the narrow shorn patch or his despair as he grimaced. “How terrible does it look?”

“Not to worry,” Andromeda said. “It draws attention away from your deathly pallor.”

Fia shook her head at their ridiculousness. “Why did you cut it?”

But there could be only one reason. He’d sacrificed his hair to The Book of Ribs.

This book isn’t the one you were looking for, he’d said about the blue volume he’d compiled for her. Tonight, though, maybe tonight…

Penbrook dropped his hand, caught up by his cause—and apparently, his humiliating outdoing. “Sebastian Smith escaped me once, but I won’t allow it this time. I’ll see that you have your mother’s spellbook again, if it’s the last thing I do.”

“You said returning The Book of Ribs was the last thing you would do.”

“Second to last, then,” he amended with a sigh, as if Fia was missing the point entirely.

“It’s not worth it,” she whispered, thinking of the curse Sebastian had released in the spellshop, what he might let loose in Thistledown if he was pulled here against his will. He’d very firmly warned her not to call for the book again.

A prickling on the back of her neck had her turning, sure she’d find Sebastian watching from afar, but she didn’t see him in the gardens across the road or among the other guests disembarking from carriages and streaming toward Thistledown.

Last night, as Fia slept, Penbrook must have cast the spell without care for how use of his magic—and especially that much magic—would amplify his curse. How it would weaken the illusions he spun today.

“Let me see the invitations.”

“They’re perfectly fine,” Penbrook said, but he started rather hurriedly for the steps, as if he wasn’t sure how much longer his mirroring spell would last either.

Fia and Andromeda slipped up the stairs behind him, drawing closer to the doors of Thistledown, the wide frames of which were decorated with a string of globes as fragile as bubbles, firelight flickering within. They cast a warm glow against the long black-and-pale-gold banners that welcomed them to the Masque of Parchment and Ink.

Less than welcoming were the dozen Cloaks standing guard—considerably more than seemed necessary. Their eyes roved over every guest who pranced forward, at the ready should the attendant at the door find fault with tone or attire. Or the invitation itself.

Fia forced a smile as she stopped beside Penbrook at the entrance. Andromeda leaned against her, her breaths a little slow despite the energizing serum fizzing through her veins. If this was all the good it did, Fia feared how they would have been without it. She would have had to all but carry them.

“May the gargoyles admit you,” the dark-haired attendant said from behind his mask of black, one white-gloved hand held out, awaiting their invitations.

“They may.” Penbrook reached into an inside pocket of his coat, extracting the three invitations he’d illusioned in the carriage. Fia glimpsed the calligraphed paper, saw the words waver before settling into their mostly proper place again, if one didn’t look too closely. As though nothing were amiss, he handed them off.

Andromeda, perhaps not as confident in the longevity of Penbrook’s spell, smiled up at the attendant, her sweet words a distraction. “If they release you to the masque, find me for a dance?”

“Oh, yes.” With his gaze hooked on Andromeda, the boy slotted the invitations into the box at his side without noticing the way the paper was fading or that Penbrook was scowling at his magic’s decline. “I mean, no, I’m not allowed—”