She found her location. Eastern wall. It showed three windows, but she only saw two, both of them barred. An arrow pointed to something on the wall, equidistant between the two windows. Jessica looked up. The only thing on the wall was a large wrought-iron sconce. She pulled on it. Nothing. She pushed. Nothing. She felt the heat in the very walls. The room was already thick with smoke up to her knees.

She twisted the sconce left, right, left, right, nearly tearing it from the wall. She was just about to give up when a panel slid down in front of her. Behind it was a round window. No bars.

Jessica looked around in the dense smoke. She found a heavy footstool. She lifted it and heaved it through the glass. Cool night air came rushing in. She was nearly knocked to the floor by the backdraft. Behind her, the door to the room slammed open and fire raged inside, devouring the brocade fabrics, the old dry furniture.

Jessica looked out the window. She could not see the ground. She recalled the sharp iron spikes along the railing. The flames raged ever closer. She could see part of the way down the hall, to the stairs leading up to the attic. The heat was so intense she felt as if her skin was about to peel from her face.

A figure emerged, clawing its way slowly up stairs. It was almost unrecognizable as human.

The figure paused for a moment, stared into the room. For a brief moment, through the flames, Jessica saw the man’s eyes. And it was in this instant they knew each other. Hunter and hunted.

Jessica turned back to the window, to the smoke-thickened night air. Lungs fit to burst, she could wait no longer. As she climbed onto the sill she realized what she had seen in the charred and blistered apparition outside the door.

His eyes were silver.

She jumped.

ONE HUNDRED FIVE

6:00 AM

HE TURNS TO CLIMB the final flight of stairs, just as a pair of oil paintings melt and slide from the walls. On the landing, a burlwood collector’s cabinet catches fire, its glass front cracking, its contents—a rare nineteenth century edition of The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin—vaporizing in a burst of searing ash, coating his face and arms.

He glances down the main corridor as doors are flung open. Through the dense smoke he sees each room. He recalls the lovely faces of Monica Renzi and Caitlin O’Riordan, of Katja Dovic and Elise Beausoleil, Patricia Sato and Claire Finneran.

He sees Lilly. His Odette.

As he drags himself up the staircase to the attic, the flesh from his hands is left behind on the white-hot iron railings.

At the top he finds Molly Proffitt, her delicate watery eyes now open in the Sea Horse tank, the gash in her head rent to expose her brain. Molly holds the door for him, the door leading to the attic and its massive roof beam.

Moments later Joseph Swann stands on a chair, the rope hanging loosely around his shoulders. He is framed by the large circular window that overlooks the front yard. At his feet, the old reel of film, The Magic Bricks, bubbles and melts.

He tightens the noose around his neck, the hemp rope pulling off the remaining flesh of his palms.

It is in this position that the flames find him, drawing him into their fiery embrace, into Hell, into the diseased heart of Faerwood.

ONE HUNDRED SIX

6:10 AM

IT WAS A familiar voice, but one she couldn’t quite place. Was it her father? Her brother Michael? It seemed to be filtered through a thick wad of wet cotton, like someone trying to shout through a mattress. For the moment she was underwater at Wildwood, her father yelling at her from the beach to watch out for the undertow.

But it couldn’t be the beach. Something was burning. She had to—

“Jessica. You okay?”

Jessica slowly opened her eyes. It was Kevin Byrne. The world came swirling back. She nodded, even though she did not know the answer to this question.

“Can you talk?” he asked.

Another stumper. Jessica nodded.

“Who’s inside the house?” Byrne asked.

Between gulps of oxygen. “An old man,” she said. “A girl.”

“What about our guy? What about the Collector?”

Jessica shrugged. Bright bolts of pain shot through her shoulders, her collarbone. She recalled falling from the window, falling. She didn’t remember hitting the ground. “I don’t know. I think they’re all dead.” She looked down the length of her body. “Broken?”

Byrne glanced at the paramedic, back. “They don’t know. They don’t think so. Your fall was broken by the hedges behind the house.” Byrne patted her hand.

Jessica heard the sirens approaching. Moments later she saw the first ladder company arrive. She breathed more easily. Taking off the mask—over the objections of the paramedic—she slowly sat up. Byrne and Josh Bontrager helped.

“Tell me about Logan Circle,” she said.

Byrne shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”

Jessica tried to smile. It hurt her face. “It’s kinda my job.”

JESSICA GOT UNSTEADILY to her feet. Even from across the road, the heat was intense. Faerwood was an inferno, flames shooting fifty feet or more into the sky. Somehow, Josh Bontrager found a cold bottle of spring water. Jessica drank half of it, poured the other half over the back of her neck.

Before she could make her way to the EMS van, she caught a shadow to her left; someone walking up the middle of the smoke-hazed street. Jessica was too shaken, too exhausted to react. It was a good thing she was surrounded by what seemed like the entire police department.

As the figure got closer Jessica saw it was Graciella. Her gown was covered with soot and ash, as was her face, but she was fine.

Kevin Byrne turned and saw the girl. Jessica watched the reaction on his face. It was the same reaction she’d had when she saw the girl in the hallway mirror. Graciella looked exactly like her mother, exactly like a young Eve Galvez. Byrne was speechless.

Graciella walked right up to Byrne. “You must be Kevin. My mom mentioned you.” She stuck out her hand. It was bleeding.

Byrne gently took her hand in his. Sticking out of the young woman’s palm were small shards of glass. The smell of a strong chemical filled the air.

“My name is Graciella,” the girl added. At that moment the girl’s legs gave out. Byrne caught her before she hit the ground. She looked up at him in a daze. “I think I need to lay down.”

ONE HUNDRED SEVEN

LABOR DAY WEEKEND was a festive holiday in Philadelphia, including the annual parade along Columbus Boulevard and the Arden Fair just across the Delaware River.

For Detectives Balzano and Byrne there was little festive about it. They stood in the duty room, all but deluged by the paperwork related to the Collector case. They would piece together a preliminary report by the end of the long weekend.

When Eve Galvez learned of the Caitlin O’Riordan case, she became obsessed. She closely followed the investigation, and when she felt that detectives Pistone and Roarke were not doing their job, Eve decided to do it for them. She photocopied their files, going so far as to take the interview notes from the binder, the notes that mentioned Mr. Ludo.

Night after night, for two months, Eve went out on the street, talking to kids, looking for any trace of Mr. Ludo. She tracked Joseph Swann in city parks, bus stations, train stations, to runaway and homeless shelters. She finally caught up to him one night in June. As strong and resourceful as she was, he proved too much for her. He overpowered her and buried her in a shallow grave in Fairmount Park. Her exact cause of death was still undetermined.