Eternity

me.”

Melissa nodded, but she was shaking, and he could tell she was trying not to cry. In the light of the flames, her cheeks were pink-orange; her blue shirt looked black. Her eyes glistened, like tears were on the brink of spilling.

“Shhhh,” he said. “Just a few minutes. You’re safe.”

JD looked around, waiting for the Furies to appear. Praying that they would, yet dreading the moment they did. When they showed up—if they showed up—what would happen then? Mr. Feiffer’s letter hadn’t included a spell or a chant. . . . JD felt sweat beading on his brow. What if he’d missed something? What if this wasn’t right?

There was crashing in the underbrush nearby. Someone was coming. He and Melissa locked eyes, and he braced himself for impact. He waited to see Ali or Ty or Meg emerge from the trees. He spun in a circle, searching the darkness, his eyes already bleary with smoke, trying to guess where they would come from.

Then, a scream. Melissa. The crashing hadn’t come from below. It was from above. A branch, falling from the tall maple tree next to the fire circle. He ran toward her in horror, but he wasn’t fast enough—the branch slammed against the top of Melissa’s head, and she collapsed in a heap in the center of the flames.

Oh god oh god oh god. He edged close to the flames, trying to get past them, but they were as high as his waist and he couldn’t get to her. “Melissa!” he cried out. But she didn’t move.

The fire was licking up into the tree now, racing over its branches. He took a deep breath, steeling himself to charge through the flames. But just then another sound came from behind him. A racing footfall. Thump-thump-thump. He whirled around, expecting the Furies to be at his back.

But it wasn’t them.

It was Crow.

“What are you doing?” Crow’s face was wild; fire-shadows danced across his face and deepened the black craters under his eyes. “You’re going to ruin everything!”

“What are you doing?” JD barked back. “Go away! Stay away! It’s under control!”

Crow pushed past him, looking around frantically for something. Crow began to stomp on the fire with his boots.

“Stop!” JD bellowed, diving toward him. It wasn’t time yet. He landed on the dirt, and a sharp spray of dust hit his eyes and his mouth. But he brought Crow down with him. JD spat pieces of grit from his tongue.

Crow’s elbow went into JD’s ribs, so deep it felt like cracking. They were inches from the fire. JD could feel the sweat all over him—on his forehead, his arms, the back of his neck.

“What are you doing,” Crow said, shoving a calloused hand against JD’s face and pushing him down toward the ground. JD strained against it, feeling his muscles stretch like elastic, so taut that they might snap. No. Let go. He had to trust Walt. Crow was on the wrong side.

“I know you’re part of this,” JD panted. He reared back and kneed Crow right in the stomach, feeling his kneecap make contact, hearing Crow’s sharp intake of breath. JD had knocked the wind out of him, at least for a second.

He flipped Crow over, felt his weight shift, taking the advantage. He pinned Crow to the dirt. He looked down and tried to catch his breath. There was a smear of blood on his right hand. It was red-brown and ugly. “I saw you with them. You’re with the Furies.”

Crow turned his face to the side and spit blood onto the ground, trying to catch his breath. “I’m not working—with them. I was—trying to—strike a bargain.”

“A bargain?” JD huffed. The air was getting smoky and his lungs were tight from exertion. He was worried about Melissa. Maybe he should put out the fire after all.

“I offered myself,” Crow was saying between frantic gasps. “Instead. I thought it would save her. I saw it in a vision.”

“Instead of who?” JD increased the pressure on Crow’s chest. The heat of the fire was starting to scorch his face. A vision.

“Her,” Crow gasped. “They wanted her. Em.”

JD didn’t know what to think, what to believe.

“But it’s too late now,” Crow said. He didn’t look angry anymore. He just looked sad. “I was wrong. My vision was wrong.”

Sweat was dripping down JD’s face. It was hot, too hot. The fire was raging out of control. Soon the whole garden would combust. The moon was high, like a spotlight.

Melissa still lay motionless in a small, bare patch of ground.

And JD realized what he had done.

They’d all die—Melissa would die—if he couldn’t stop the fire, couldn’t get her out of there.

He scrambled to his feet just as a scream tore through the air.

When he turned around he saw Em come running out of the Furies’ house. She was sobbing. Babbling. “It’s almost time,” she was saying. “You saved me.”

“Where are they? Where are the Furies?” He tried to take Em’s shoulders but she pushed past him, moving into the garden, thick with smoke and flame. She was shoving aside the rippling tide of flowers, as though she’d lost something there.

“Em!” JD shouted.

Crow had climbed to his feet next to JD. “That’s not—,” he started to say.

“Shut up!” JD yelled. “I can’t think.” He needed to douse the flames—now. He lunged for the fire extinguisher he’d stolen from the auditorium, but Em blocked him off, a blissful smile on her face and a beautiful white flower in her hand. She grabbed his face on either side with surprising strength and a shock went through him as her lips touched his.

Adrenaline.

Fiery heat.

Desire.

“I love you,” he whispered.

Another frenzied voice broke into the chaos.

“What are you doing?” a girl shrieked behind them.

He broke away from the kiss as a mess of dark brown hair whipped past him. The smell of Ivory soap and cocoa butter lingered in her wake. Em.

Stunned, confused, and utterly frozen, he watched as Emily Winters—another Emily Winters, the real Emily Winters?—plunged into the circle of flames.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Em flew out of her trance like a bullet, immediately confronted with the insane scene in front of her.

There was a circle of raging flames over there, to her right. She could just barely make out a person in the middle of the circle. She looked closer. It was Melissa.

Just next to the fire, two boys wrestled in the dirt. Em squinted. It was JD. ?JD and . . . Crow?

And then, right there, on her left, amid the greenery . . . Ty. Ty, holding a big, beautiful, white flower. So white it practically glowed. Ty was holding it aloft so that the bright, big moon shone down on it like a spotlight.

It was midnight. Maybe she even heard a bell tolling somewhere in the distance. She couldn’t tell if it was real or in her imagination.

The flower.

It was midnight, and the albino flower had bloomed.

She wanted to reach for it. She wanted to so badly. To have it and rescue herself and stop the transformation. But there was no way she could get the flower and also get to Melissa in time. Em could see she