He spun on her quickly. “What?”
She repeated herself, using her magic to summon a mage globe that burned a pale, phosphorescent white. The vault loomed, a marble angel rearing out of nowhere. Edwina’s heart skipped a beat.
She hated the dark.
And Sterling was… strangely quiet.
“Why are you staring at me?” she asked, turning to find his eyes upon her.
He muttered something under his breath and moved past her.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Edwina drew back, startled at the bite of acid in his voice. He never spoke to her like that. It reminded her a little of his encounters with the duke.
“Sense anything?” he called, running a hand over the vault walls.
Edwina’s breath fogged in the chilly air.
Stilling her senses, she opened her mind to her clairvoyance.
“Nothing,” she replied, circling the crypt. “There’s no psychic residue of anything foul or sinister.”
“It’s been a week.”
“If some foul creature was squatting on Lady Willoughby’s chest, I’d feel the echoes of its resonance.”
“A creature, yes. A ghost or phantom? No. They’re not strong enough to leave a psychic impression that would last a week.”
Edwina sighed and glanced toward him.
Instantly, she was overcome by an image of Sterling with a knife through his heart, blood dripping down his chest as he pressed on as if unaware of it.
A startled inhalation and then the image was gone.
“What is it?” he demanded, clearly hearing her gasp.
“Are you all right?” she whispered.
Sometimes her clairvoyance gave her insight into a person’s heart and soul, and Sterling—as stoic as ever—was clearly battling some inner wound.
“What did you see?”
She shut down her Third Eye, swallowing hard. “You’re bleeding. There’s a knife in your heart and you’re bleeding, and you don’t even notice it. Has something happened of late?”
It had been two weeks since she’d seen him last.
What had occurred in that time?
Was it his father?
His brother, Hart?
It looked like… betrayal. Or a sudden jagged rift in his soul. Or?—
A horrible thought occurred.
