“I don’t know,” I choked. “She wouldn’t tell me.”
My tears had started to dry, but my body still trembled. The panic hadn’t left, it had just settled beneath my skin, like it was planning to stay.
“What about the moonwater stuff?” Will asked, glancing toward the path. “Should I go back? Get it for you?”
“No!” I shouted, too sharp, too loud.
Will flinched.
I grabbed his wrist, my grip tighter than I meant it to be. “Don’t go back there. Please.”
He nodded, slowly. ”But what about—”
Behind him, Aran dropped his pack to the ground with a dramatic sigh.
“Relax,” he said, already unbuckling it. “We don’t have to.”
He pulled out a crumpled paper bag, followed by a weathered book with brittle, curling pages.Grimoire of Herbs and Healing.
“Recipe’s in here,” he added, holding it up like a trophy. “Took the ingredients too.”
Will stared. “You couldn’tnotsteal from her?”
“I was bored, and it seemed like it could be useful,” Aran said, completely unbothered. “And back in the day, you’d have been right beside me, stuffing your boots.”
Will didn’t respond.
”You don’t have to thank me for anything,” Aran sneered, glancing toward the darkened path behind us. “But it’s not like we were planning to go back after… whatever the hel that was.”
They’re no good, Kera. They’re pickpockets. Thieves.
That’s what Einar had said. He would’ve scoffed if he saw me, would’ve crossed his arms and mutteredI told you so.
And yet… there I was. Trusting them. Running with them. I even found myself appreciating the thoughtfulness behind the crime. Maybe Einar had been wrong. Maybe people could change.
All I knew was, they hadn’t run.
Not yet.
And some fragile part of me was starting to believe that maybe they wouldn’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I was caught somewhere between dreaming and waking, stirring in the thick fog of sleep, when I heard a noise. My first thought was that it was just another nightmare. The world around me was dark, and shapes blurred and swam as my mind scrambled to catch up, to make sense of what I was seeing. Shadows stretched where they shouldn’t, and a figure loomed over me, black against soft orange flicker.
My pulse stuttered.
Had the shadow from the cottage followed me? Had it tracked me down in my sleep, waited until I was defenseless? Maybe it had come to take me. To drag me beneath the roots of the world and feast on my soul.
Or maybe it didn’t want to kill me. It wanted touseme.
To speak through me, burn through me, kill through me. Use me like it had used the seer.
My chest seized, and I tried to move, to scream, to do anything, when fingers clamped over my mouth. Cold, calloused skin crushed against my lips, stealing the scream straight from my throat. And just like that, the terror shifted.
It wasn’t a shadow. It wasn’t a cursed spirit or an ancient god come to possess me.
It was worse.
