I slipped the tortoise shell back into my pocket.

Well played, said Stitches in her secret whisper. I knew you would find a use for it.

I didn’t reply.

The last time I’d walked with the huldra, I’d become a giant, my eyes far above the rooftops and the spires and the smoke-belching stacks of the crematoriums and the foundries. As I’d walked, the huldra had whispered things to me, things I could only now recall as vague, dreamlike memories.

I’d been offered power. Been shown dark wonders. I’d been able to see into the spaces between shadow and light, and the secret things I’d seen within had allowed me to not just work magic, but bend it to my will.

As I let go of the fake huldra, a small greedy part of me wished for that power again, if only for an instant, and the hair on the back of my neck rose at the faint memory of having such a thing in my grasp.

Mama cussed and rose to her feet, her cleaver appearing in her hand.

Evis dropped his rifle.

I turned. Darla caught my elbow, real tears forming in her eyes.

Walking down the grand staircase, her movements jerky and halting, came Gertriss.

Her stare was vacant. Her mouth moved, but no words came out.

Buttercup skipped along beside her, a doll in each hand, holding them up to Gertriss, waving them about her, trying to make her play.

Gertriss reached the bottom of the stairs and made for the rest of the dancers.

“Oh hell no,” said Mama, starting off after her. “Not my kin.”

There is nothing you can do for her, save keep working.

Evis charged after, unarmed.

Three halfdead responded to Evis and his orders to keep Gertriss from joining the dance. Two took an arm each. The third tried to wrap his arms around her knees and hold her still.

She dragged them all, one halting step at a time.

Darla put her head on my chest.

“Buttercup,” I called. Instantly, the tiny banshee appeared before me, her face somber, her dolls hanging still at her side.

I pushed Buttercup into Darla’s arms. “Tend the child,” I said. Darla looked up at me, hurt.

He must pretend to be falling under the huldra’s influence, said Stitches. It must seem real.

Darla pulled away.

I thought back to the times I’d actually held a huldra, to the power I’d felt rushing through my soul.

“I shall make me a manikin of this Elf’s skin and bones,” I said aloud. “I shall take a bite of his heart before it is stilled.”

Mama caught up to Gertriss and had no more luck than the vampires. Gertriss joined the expanding ring of dancers, spinning in slow circles to Lady Rondalee’s nameless song.

Angels above, bear me down this here river,

Bear me safe over snag and shoal,

Angels above, from heartache deliver,

Angels bear me safe and Angels spare my soul

Mama let go of Gertriss and screamed as she danced away.

It took five halfdead to wrestle Evis away from Gertriss.

One of them wound up with a broken arm. Evis had a swollen nose and a black right eye. I don’t think he felt either injury.

Mama wasn’t faring much better. She’d gone after the music box again, this time favoring a rifle she’d snatched from the floor. Mama had no idea how to fire it but she put the butt to good use, smashing away at the music box until the stock broke. She then proceeded to use the steel barrel as a club. Neither of the tiny mechanical dancers suffered in the least.

In the end, Mama exhausted herself and returned to her pile of herbs, where she burst into great hooting sobs of crying.

Buttercup dashed to her side, hugging her wordlessly, rocking with her until she fell silent. All the while, the banshee looked up at me expectantly.

I stirred the damned useless stew-pot and seethed.

The ranks of skeletons waiting for the barrier to fall now numbered eighteen deep. Evis absently ordered his men to cut them down. They did, this time with assistance from the rotating rapid-fire horrors that shot out through the shield earlier. Spent cartridges rolled across the casino floor. Bone-men fell. More rattled up to take their places.

“Sixty-two,” whispered Darla, not looking at me. “Dancers, that is.”

Fourteen dance in their locked rooms, added Stitches.

“That is not entirely helpful,” I noted. I rose. Huldra or no, Elf or no, I’d had enough sitting there stirring the world’s worst soup while my junior partner danced to a cursed trinket’s tune and my best friend died a second time from sheer grief.

Darla’s breath caught in her chest and she moved away from me. I looked around, saw Buttercup running, laying the rope I’d finally untangled out in a circle around us.

It was a game Mama had taught her when we first took Buttercup in. Run and lay string on the floor, in this door and out another. We’d reel it in, her screeching and giggling, until we caught her up in a hug.

Hey, it kept her from jumping through walls.

“Buttercup!” I bellowed. “Stop that.”

The banshee laughed and scampered on. I caught up the end of the rope and tugged, halting Buttercup long enough for Darla to scoop her up.

“Honey,” said Darla, her eyes wary as I gathered up the banshee-hair rope. “What are you planning to do?”

“I’m calling off the dance.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Stitches to try and get the Regent’s lady friend to help?”

“I’m tired of waiting for the Regent to pry himself away from his game of whist. I’m going to see if I can tie this rope around the music box and pull it close to the shadow. We’ll see how the bone-men like dancing. Evis, will you keep everyone back?”

He just nodded.

I stomped away while Darla had her hands full. Mama looked up as I passed.

“It ain’t a half-bad idea, boy,” she said. “You ought to let me do it, though. I’m protected from all manner of hex-craft.”

“Not this time, Mama, but thanks for the offer.”

The halfdead parted to let me through, and I zigged and zagged between sweat-soaked dancers. Gertriss saw me as she passed, and her eyes went instantly wide, though she could not bring herself to speak. The Lady Rondalee kept singing, her voice showing no signs of strain.

Gertriss spun away.

“If you’ve got any river magic to spare, I’m about to need it,” I shouted to the stage.

The Lady smiled and started a new song.

Mean ol’ love, she broke my heart,

though I was always true,

Mean ol’ love, she broke my heart,

and now she’s comin’ for you…

I kicked a chair out of my way and put a small loop in the end of the rope. My intention was to slide the rope over and around the music box and hope some magical quality in Buttercup’s banshee hair would allow the rope to take hold. Then I’d drag the damned thing close enough to chuck it as far back in the shadow-realm as I could throw.

The miniature dancers circled the lid, bowing and spinning. I could barely hear the tinkling of the music box as it played.

“This isn’t your world,” I said, holding the rope just above the box and adjusting the diameter of the loop. “You don’t belong here and these people don’t belong to you. Now let go, damn you.”

I dropped the rope and yanked it tight.

Damned if the box didn’t jerk halfway off the table.

I pulled. The box moved. Its apparent weight was far in excess of what it should have been, as though it were twice its size and full of lead, but it moved.

The halfdead scattered about me and began to shout. I turned and barely dodged a blow from a man dressed in the male toy dancer’s elaborate costume.

A trio of shots rang out. Puffs of lace and velvet blew off the man’s waistcoat. Another fusillade of rifle fire sounded, bullets whizzing a hand’s breadth from my face, and I managed to step away from a slashing blade just as the female dancer, now full-size and furious, charged at my back.