Benyamin reassured his stupefied friends that he’d done this before. “It’s perfectly safe, I assure you—”

“Come along, children,” said Madarjoon. “We’ve no time to assuage your feelings. There are lives to be saved.” She took another step toward the whale, but Benyamin threw out an arm to stop her.

“Are you—I mean,” Benyamin stammered, frozen, “are you coming with us?”

“I know you’re a little old for my company,” said his mother with a smile, “but I’m afraid it’s best if I come along for the night, considering the circumstances.”

“But are you sure you’ll be alright?” he said nervously. “You’re not too weak to—”

“What did I say to you about accusing a woman of weakness? Do I look weak to you? I carried your bones inside of me, young man. A person doesn’t need legs to be strong. I’ve got enough heart for ten legs, and that’ll carry me farther than these limbs ever did.”

And without another word, she stepped off the edge of the cliff and fell, with a whistling whoosh, right into the open mouth of a humpback whale. Stunned and humbled, Alice and Oliver and Benyamin hastened to follow. They each held on to a different side of the wheelbarrow carrying their friend and, with a nervous intake of breath, took a running leap off the cliff—

And fell softly into the jaws of their sea captain.

As you might have expected, it was not a comfortable journey. In fact, it might be an understatement to say that whales are not ideal for transporting humans. But this whale was doing their group a huge favor, so they would have to make do with what they had. The group didn’t speak much as they jostled one another in the wet, sucking maw of the sea creature, as there was little positive to say. Each was lost in his or her own mind, every person thinking thoughts more diverse and interesting than the next—and as the conscious among them stood tall and still in the moist quiet of the whale’s mouth, it was all they could do to hold on to one another and hope they’d make it to town before the ghosts did.

But our protagonists would not be successful tonight.

I will tell you this now: It would be impossible to beat the ghosts to town. The spirits had a head start and, even though the whale moved at a tremendous clip under the sea, they would still be deposited at the edge of the open water—certainly closer than before, but still a bit far from the center of town. By the time they clambered out of the whale’s mouth and onto hard ground, they would still need to travel another twenty minutes or so by foot before reaching the Yalda celebrations.

It seemed a fruitless effort—with one exception.

Alice had not been idle. She’d been working with the mordeshoor through light and darkness, on land and at sea, pulsing color and magic back into her limp limbs until the little progress she made begat more progress, and soon, the mordeshoor was healing at an exponential rate. She was healing now in much the same way she fell ill: Each milestone was bigger. First a knuckle, then three, then four fingers, then the whole hand; by the time they reached land, Alice had managed to undo the gray as far as Laylee’s elbows, and though the mordeshoor was still too weak to stand, she was able at least to flutter open her eyes.

It was, as I’ve mentioned several times already, a very dark night. This darkness, plus their urgency to shove forward toward the city center, distracted the rest of the group from the miracles being performed beside them. So you might understand why it took a moment before anyone realized that Laylee had opened her eyes.

(Though it was, understandably, Alice who saw her first.)

“Laylee!” she cried, her heart swelling with joy. “You’re awake!”

“She’s awake?” said Oliver, hardly daring to breathe.

“She’s awake!” said Benyamin, who turned to his mother with pride.

“I knew she’d open her eyes in time,” said Madarjoon, who was hobbling along as best she could, huffing and puffing and never complaining, grateful to be on her feet again.

Laylee was terribly confused. It took a lot of explaining what had happened to her (and why she was lying in a wheelbarrow as they pushed her through empty midnight streets) before she finally clicked everything together, and when she did, she was stunned.

“You saved my life?” she said to Alice. “But how?”

“It’s what I came here for, remember?” said Alice, eyes shining in the moonlight. “I said I’d come to help you. We all did,” she added, beaming at her friends (old and new) with great happiness.

“So—you knew?” said Laylee. “You’ve always known I was going to die?”

Alice shook her head. “I didn’t. But someone must’ve known; otherwise, the Ferenwood Elders wouldn’t have sent me here. They must have heard about you from someone in Whichwood. They made a great exception to send me here,” Alice explained. “We don’t normally travel to other magical lands.”

“So strange,” said Laylee, who already seemed exhausted. She let her head rest against the wheelbarrow as Oliver pushed her forward, and said only “so strange” once more, before her eyes closed again.

No matter. They pushed on, their spirits higher than ever; it was a great help to their hearts to know that Laylee was healing—and that, hopefully, she would survive—especially as they charged forward into the endless winter night, desperate to save the people of Whichwood from an untimely end. It was an unlikely group of individuals upon whom depended the salvation of an entire city, but the insect boy, his injured mother, his colorless friend, her curious companion, and the nearly dead girl asleep in the wheelbarrow would have to do. It was, admittedly, hard to imagine them besting a crowd of angry ghosts, but they would at least have to try.