Page 57 of When Ashes Fall

As the voice continued, the wind snatched the words away from me, but I was sure another voice had mingled with the first. Trying to remain casual, I glanced at where Knox stood at the edge of the cemetery, scanning the headstones.

He wasn’t the one speaking, and he didn’t give any indication he’d heard the voices. It took me a few tries to get the cork back into the bottle before I slipped it into my pocket. Taking a deep breath, I wiped my hands on my pants and rose.

The wind was picking up, but Knox hadn’t suggested leaving, and I wasn’t in a rush to go back to the castle. I loved it there with the sprites and all the plants, but it felt amazing to be outside the walls, free, and… with him.

I kept waiting for his mood to change abruptly. His moods were like the weather, unpredictable and ever-changing, but it was good to be with him.

And incredibly dangerous to my heart.

Taking a deep breath, I plunged my hands into my pockets to keep their shaking from him. When I was sure I could handle this, I strode further into the cemetery.

I didn’t make it past the first row of headstones before the low murmur of more voices filled my ears. As I walked deeper into the graveyard, the voices grew louder. They weren’t shouting or excited; they discussed the two newcomers with the indifference of one discussing the weather.

No one had any idea who we were… including Knox. They discussed the way he moved with such sleek, stalking grace and questioned whether he was the alpha and where the last alpha had gone.

That conversation led to one about where all their loved ones were. No one had come to visit them in so long, and some had turned into roses while they were here. They didn’t question how this came to be, and I wondered if they somehow knew what happened.

I gulped as I kept my jittery hands in my pockets while trying to steady my nerves. If Knox couldn’t see my heart thumping in my veins, then surely he could hear it battering my ribs like a hammer against a nail.

It was a mistake to have come here with him, but I didn’t know how else to get here, and I had to know if Archie was a fluke or if I could hear other dead eternals too. Now that I had the answer, I wanted to flee from it as far and as fast as possible.

If I started running, Knox would take me down, and I’d either have to confess the truth or keep my secret and be locked away again. I didn’t fool myself into thinking I had complete freedom here, but at least I had some and I was safe.

I was trapped amongst the dead and with an old love who could easily transition into an enemy. The complications of my life made my head throb.

I couldn’t see the dead, but their relentless chatter surrounded me. When I stopped next to another rose beside a grave marked Henrietta, I removed my potion.

Though the day was warm, chilly air caressed my nape, and I imagined a phantom leaning over my shoulder to better see what I was doing. If it had breath, I’d feel its ice against my nape… or perhaps that was the phantom’s breath against my skin.

The possibility made the hair on my arms stand on end. Could a phantom be breathing down my neck right now?

With Archie, I imagined it was his arm or chest or some other body part brushing me when I felt the chill of him. Maybe it had been his breath… or the phantom equivalent of it. They were dead; they didn’t require air, but I also shouldn’t hear them.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Briar

“What are you doing to my daughter?” Henrietta demanded in a high-pitched squeal as I rubbed the rose’s petals between my fingers.

The question was so urgent that I almost instinctively replied to it, but I bit my lip in time to keep from doing so. I wanted to let the woman know I was trying to help her child, but couldn’t respond without alerting Knox.

Instead, I carefully removed the potion from my pocket and sprinkled some beneath the rose. The cool air increased against my neck.

“That’s what the sprites use,” Henrietta said. “I saw them with it when they came to tend Betsy before.”

“She’s not a sprite,” another irritated voice retorted.

“She’s not a shifter either. She’s too puny,” a man with a deep voice declared.

I was far from puny, but I wasn’t going to argue with the phantoms.

“A caster perhaps,” someone else said.

“In Wildwood?”

There were so many speaking at once that I couldn’t differentiate one from another anymore.

“Why would any shifter let a caster into Wildwood to tend to ours?”