“Westlyn,” I say suddenly, my heart slamming against my ribcage. “Where isWestlyn!” It’s not so much a question of her whereabouts as a command to find her, and in a single breath I’m charging back across the lawn to the manor, the others scattering behind me to scour the property.
The ravens are going mad with worry.
She wasn’t in the library,I tell myself.She had no reason to be out there. The sun has only just set. She’s asleep in her bed, right where I left her after visiting her room last night.
Right where I left her… Right where I left her…
I repeat the mantra in my mind a dozen times as I tear through the manor and up the stairs. I repeat it as I call out to her, again and again, with no response. I’mstillrepeating it when I open the door and step into her room and find it utterly empty, her scent everywhere, the shape of her impressed upon the mattress as if she’s only just risen from sleep.
I can’t seem to make myself breathe. To force my heart to beat. But then, after an impossibly long moment, it starts up again. And in the echo of it, amidst the eerie cacophony of squawking birds and the shouts of the other gargoyles searching the premises, an inexplicable void opens inside me.
Westlyn.
She’s gone. Not in the bath, not tucked away in one of the other bedrooms. Just… gone. I know it as sure as I know the scent of her skin.
But…no. That’s impossible. I was only just here with her… I came in to apologize after our argument last night, but found her asleep. I knelt beside her and ran my hand over her hair and she stirred, reaching for me, whispering my name as she tried to draw me close…
Sleep, little mortal,I told her.Just sleep…
I can almost see her here now, almost feel the warmth of her breath against my lips, but the bedding is ice cold beneath my touch. Beside the pillow, her fae amulet lies inert. I pluck it from the bed. It’s as cold as the sheets.
Lucinda skims the air over my shoulder and lands on the headboard, pacing. Silent now as her black eyes lock on mine. She seems to be waiting for something from me—an answer to this terrible riddle. A promise that I know what to do. That Iwillfind a way to fix this.
Whateverthisis.
She caws at me, piercing and accusatory, and something inside me fractures. A tremor begins in my heart and radiates out through my limbs, my wings shuddering as pure darkness threatens to pull me under.
The last thing I said to Westlyn—the last thing she’ll remember, anyway—was… nothing. After our dalliance in my bathroom, her cheeks still dark with desire, she’d looked into my eyes and asked me if I was ready to be fully honest with her.Use your words,she’d said. And I stared back into those endless turquoise depths and said… absolutelynothing. Not a single fucking word, and now she’s gone and the fire rages outside and I—
The floorboards groan behind me, and I whirl around and grab the closest gargoyle by the throat.
Fucking. Jude.
“Where. The fuck.Isshe?” I can barely speak through the blinding fury, the terror, the gnawing black pit in my chest, but I choke those words out and glare at him and wait and wait and fucking wait for aneon, and still, he has the gall to remain silent.
Not so much as a breath, not so much as a shove against my chest and a demand to release him.
Jude Hendrix. The gargoyle who never backs down from a fight. Who never lets a moment of silence pass without filling it with a threat or an inappropriate joke or some inane babble about blood and bones and violence.
“Jude, I…” I blink rapidly, trying to focus. Trying not to lose the last of my control.
I don’t even know what I mean to say to him, only that I can’t bear seeing him like this.
I release my grip on his throat and clamp a hand over his shoulder.
“I… can’t,” he finally whispers. His eyes are rimmed in red, muscles rigid and trembling beneath his gray skin. “She’s not in the workshop or the kitchen or the study. She’s just… I can’t lose her, Draegan. I just fucking… can’t.”
The fear in his voice is fathomless and bleak and so unlike him it cuts me right to the fucking core.
This is really happening.
This is reallyfuckinghappening.
“No sign of her in the orchard or the darkroom,” Augustine says, barreling up the stairs in a breathless rush. Rook trails behind him, laptop open and balanced on his hand as he frantically taps its keys.
“Tell me you’ve got something,” I say to Rook, grateful that his mind has the ability to lock away fear and grief and the horror of his lost library so he can focus on this singular, all-important mission. “And tell me it’s not evidence of our witch being anywherenearthat fire.”
“I’m pulling up the security footage now. Give me a minute—this thing is slower than the tablets, which are flaming goo at this point. I don’t understand how it could’ve happened. Come on, come on… There it is. Hang on.” He hits a few more buttons, the screen a blurry reflection in his glasses.
