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That landed somewhere Margaret never had. Every time Swamp Barbie had called me Margaret, I'd been able to hide behind the mix-up, hide behind the "wrong Dellencourt." There was no hiding from this. She knew exactly who I was now.

"Oh, good," I said. "You learned my name."

"You will refuse."

I looked down at the crown. At Zelda. At Kai.

Then I smiled. Not nicely.

"Lady, you really haven't been paying attention."

Zelda hadn't said a word since the mark spoke. I glanced over and caught her staring down at her own palm as if it belonged to a stranger, jaw tight, knuckles white around nothing.

"Hey," I said, quiet, just for her. "You okay?"

"That was inside my hand." Her voice was steadier than her face. "Not near it. Not touching it. Inside it. Like it just... let itself in."

"Zelda…"

"I'm fine." She wasn't. I knew her well enough to know exactly what fine meant when she said it that fast. "I just wasn't ready for her to use my own body to talk. That's all."

I wanted to tell her it wouldn't happen again. I couldn't. Neither of us knew that yet.

So instead, I bumped her shoulder with mine, the only reassurance I actually had to give. "Magical duct tape doesn't get scared."

"Magical duct tape is terrified," she said. "It's just also very good at pretending it isn't."

That, at least, sounded like her.

That's when Barney, God love his socks-and-sandals soul, made himself useful in the one way that actually mattered.

He flipped back through the journal. He wasn't hunting for something new, just staring at something we'd already read a dozen times without understanding it.

The Queen closes what should never open.

The Witch binds what cannot be held.

The Guardian stands between Below and the Queen.

I read it again, and this time it landed differently. Queen closes. Witch binds. Guardian stands between. Three jobs, done at the same time, by three different people.

Nobody had ever been supposed to sacrifice themselves. Margaret's Guardian had fallen before the three of them could finish the work the way it was meant to be done, and her Witch had bound the Door instead of the woman. Their solution had held for centuries—but it had never been the solution these instructions called for.

"We've been reading it like a prophecy," I said.

"What is it?" Barney asked.

"Instructions."

The plan came together clean, simple, and absolutely terrifying, in that order. We'd go back to Hoopingarner House. Zelda would use the tether to pull the One Below through. I'd use the crown to close the Door, reseal the breach. Kai would stand between her and me, hold the line, and keep the One Below away from me long enough for the rest of it to finish. Zelda would bind the woman—not the Door, not this time.

Queen. Witch. Guardian. All three of us, doing the job right.

"If you're wrong..." Carol started.

"Then we improvise."

"That is not comforting," Kai said.