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“Hello, House of Pain.”

“Zara?”

I sat straight up when I heard the voice. Not just because it had been six or seven years since the last time, but because she sounded so desperate—as if her telephone box were underwater, and slowly springing a leak.

“Mary, where are you? Christ, it’s been—”

“Zara, it’s coming,” she said.

I absorbed that. “What is?” I asked, finally.

“Yle’en.”

There was a pause. She spoke across it, the words tumbling out without waiting for a response. Like a cry for help, or a confession.

“Trevor’s father is dead. They found him at home, all over the place—upstairs, downstairs, in my lady’s chamber. Blood everywhere—but it wasn’t liquid or dry. It was frozen.”

A bird tapped lightly at my window, making love to its own reflection. Probably deranged, as most city animals soon become.

“And Ray’s aunt, too. She suffocated in bed—her lungs were full of pollen. The cops said the whole house smelled like lilies. When they broke the door down, it was so cold they could all see their own breath. Zara, this was in August.”

I studied my right hand. My cuticles were speckled with what my father used to call gift spots, but which I later discovered to be the residue of slow-healing bruises on the flesh beneath. Apt.

Mary was still ticking off her mental list. “And then Bob Shand—you remember our uncle? It got the bastard in September. Dogs, the cops told Eunice. But she knows better, and so do I. Dogs don’t leave triangular bite-marks.”

“I would’ve thought you’d be glad to see him go,” I said. “All things considered.”

“I was, that’s not the point.” She paused. “I’ve been in therapy for a while. It helped a lot. I managed to forgive some people—my mother, for one. But they found her last night, in her car, in the river. Floating in a block of ice.”

The sun stood still and white in a pale grey sky. Beyond my garden, people were laughing.

“Have you called the others yet?”

“Of course.”

“And what did they say?”

She sighed. “Eunice didn’t want to be bothered. Ray told me to get professional help. Trevor’s line’s been disconnected. Zara, they’ve changed so much.”

“And I haven’t?” I felt like giggling, but my mouth wouldn’t move in the right direction.

Silence and hissing, across the miles. Then:

“I’ve been thinking about it. There’s one chance—slim, but I’ve got to take it.”

“Which is?”

“I was the one who started it all. I showed you guys the books, I sowed the seeds. I’m the Unseen King, right?” Her voice quavered. “If anyone can stop Yle’en—reason with it somehow—it should be me.”

“And if you can’t?”

No answer.

I absently wondered how she planned to whistle them all up. Long-dormant images sprang immediately to mind, but I held onto my stomach, and pushed them firmly back down.

“But it’s changed too, Zara,” she whispered at last. “I can feel it. It hates us now.”

“No, Mary,” I said softly. “It hasn’t changed. We have. And that’s why.”