The sun took Scarletta Beretta's cat, so now Scarletta wanted to take the sun. She stood at her worktable on the hill and watched noon ruin her work again. Her ruby hair stuck to her neck. Sweat ran down her corset. On the table lay crushed petals, bat wings, and vine clippings—the start of a potion meant to dim the sun forever and bring her familiar home. The heat spoiled them before she could even begin. The petals browned. The wings curled. By the time she ground the first batch, the mixture went dead in the bowl. She had tried everything. She brewed at dawn, but the glare climbed the hill too fast. She draped cloth over the table, but the cloth caught and smoked. Every day the light burned down and mocked her. Somewhere above it, she believed, her small black cat was trapped. She would not stop until she pulled it back down. Scarletta threw her spoon into the dead mixture. Then she stopped. The answer had stood behind her all along. She turned toward the gothic mansion rising over the hill, its stone walls wrapped in rust-colored vines. The windows there were deep and shadowed. The thick walls never warmed. Inside, no sun could reach her ingredients. She had avoided those rooms for years. They were cold and full of her mother's old things. But cold was exactly what she needed now. She gathered her bowls and ran for the door. The vines snagged her gown. She shoved through anyway. Inside, the air hit her like well water. She set her ingredients on a stone table far from any window. The petals stopped browning. The bat wings held their shape. For the first time, her work survived. But she had no instructions. The potion to dim the sun was no simple brew. She needed a recipe, and she had none. Scarletta searched the dim rooms by candlelight. Dust coated every shelf. Then, in a locked cabinet, she found it: a heavy book bound in black bones. A green jewel sealed its cover and glowed in the dark. She knew this book. It had been her mother's. She had been forbidden to touch it as a child. Her hands shook as she lifted it. The jewel clasp was locked tight. She pressed it, pried it, whispered to it. It would not open. She held the one book that could free her cat, and she could not read a single page. Scarletta set the book on the cold stone beside her saved ingredients. Her workspace was safe at last. But the recipe she needed sat sealed in her hands. She stared at the glowing green clasp and understood her next task. She had to open it.