“Did you have to ruin it?” I cried. “I’d been looking forward to it all day.”

He shook me, hard. “You have no business looking forward to pink cakes. That’s not your world anymore. Your world is hunting the Book and staying alive. They’re mutually exclusive, you bloody fool.”

“No, they’re not! It’s only if I eat pink cakes that I can hunt the Book! You’re right—we’re not the same. I can’t walk through the Dark Zone at night. I don’t scare all the other monsters away. I need rainbows. You don’t. I get that now. No birthdays for Barrons. I’ll pen that in right next to Don’t wait on him and Don’t expect him to save you unless there’s something in it for him. You’re a jackass. There’s a constant for you. I won’t forget it.”

His grip on my throat relaxed. “Good.”

“Fine,” I said, though I don’t really know why. I think I just wanted the last word.

We stared at each other.

He was so close, his body electric, his expression savage.

I moistened my lips. His gaze fixed on them. I think I stopped breathing.

He jerked so sharply away that his long dark coat sliced air, and turned his back to me. “Was that an invitation, Ms. Lane?”

“If it was?” I asked, astonishing myself. What did I think I was doing?

“I don’t do hypotheticals. Little girl.”

I looked at his back. He didn’t move. I thought of things to say. I said none of them.

He vanished through the connecting door.

“Hey,” I shouted after him, “I need a car to drive!” There was no answer.

A large chunk of cake dropped from the ceiling and splatted on the floor.

It was mostly intact, just a little goopy.

Sighing, I got a fork and scraped it onto a plate.

It was noon the next day when I got out of bed, cleared my monster alarm from in front of my door, and opened it.

Waiting outside for me was a thermos of coffee, a bag of doughnuts, a set of car keys, and a note. I unscrewed the thermos top, sipped the coffee, and unfolded the note.

Ms. Lane,

I would prefer you join me in Scotland this evening, but if you insist on helping the old witch, here are keys, as you requested. I moved it for you. It’s the red one, parked in front of the door. Call if you change your mind. I can send a plane as late as 4:00.

CJ

It took me a moment to figure out the initials. Constant Jackass. I smiled. “Apology accepted, Barrons, if it’s the Ferrari.”

It was.

SIXTEEN

Liminal” is a fascinating word. Times can be liminal: Twilight is the transition from day to night; midnight is the crack between one day and the next; equinoxes and solstices and New Year’s Day are all thresholds.

Liminal can also be a state of consciousness: for example, those moments between waking and sleeping, also known as threshold consciousness, or hypnagogia, a state during which a person might think herself fully alert, but is actually actively engaged in dreaming. This is the time that a lot of people report a convulsive jerk, or a feeling of physically falling.

Places can be liminal: airports with people constantly coming and going, but never staying. People, too, can be liminal: Teens, like Dani, are temporarily stuck between child and adult. Fictional characters are often Liminal Beings, archetypes that straddle two worlds, marking or guarding thresholds, or are physically divided by two states of existence.

Between-ness is a defining characteristic of liminal. Limbo is another. Liminal is neither here nor there but exists between one moment and the next, poised in that pause where what’s passing hasn’t yet become what’s becoming. Liminal is a magical time, a dangerous time, fraught with possibility . . . and peril.

Halloween seemed to drag on forever. Ironic, considering I had slept until noon. I had four measly hours to kill until four o’clock, when I would leave the city to head for the abbey, yet it stretched interminably.

I called Dani as soon as I got up. She was excited that I was coming, and told me the ritual was scheduled to begin at six-fifteen.

“So, what is it? A lot of chanting and weirdness?” I asked.

She laughed and said, pretty much so. Invocations had to be recited and tithes paid before the Orb could be opened and its Fae essence released to fortify the walls. I asked what kind of tithes, and she got a little cagey. I wondered if Rowena planned to use my blood or something. I wouldn’t put it past her.

I called Christian and he said all was a go. His uncles had begun the Druid rites at dawn, although Barrons wouldn’t be joining them until later in the day.