Page 1 of Sorrow & Strangers

Chapter One

Summer

Fear. Fire. Fury. To know is not enough.

Fear. There is none anymore, only frigid numbness encasing me. A layer of ice that keeps me from crumbling, holding me together, but keeping me apart.

Fire. The darkness coils inside me, with no light left to oust it. It burns within me like the hottest inferno. A midnight flame of despair that consumes me until I’m just a charred cinder.

Fury. Absent. I don’t have the will to rise to fury, to anger . . . to anything.

Morningstar House looms in front of me, betraying nothing of the emptiness within. Pain pierces my heart as my eyes roam over the place I used to feel safest. No, that’s not true. Connor’s arms. The only time in my whole miserable life that I felt safe was when he was holding me. And now . . . there’s nothing.

The house looks the same. It is the same pale blue color with the white porch wrapping around it like a hug, yet it’s different. The light has gone. The garden is still teeming with flowers and shrubs. They’ve been maintained, yet death still clings to the land, a pallor hanging over the structure, the entire realm.

He’s gone.

Max’s words echo through my mind as they have over the past three months, and like always, the sadness permeates fucking everything, making my limbs heavy with the weight of it.

Alice moves to stand beside me. She doesn’t touch me, doesn’t even look at me. We both just stare at the house, shoulder to shoulder, waiting to see their faces. I count the painful beats of my fractured heart, longing to see Luke waving from the window, the twins bursting from the door arguing about something stupid, Rafe broodily walking behind them, and then . . . his devastatingly beautiful smile. His skin would start to glow as his bright blue eyes met mine. I can almost feel the phantom warmth of his touch sending tingles over my skin, another cruelty forced upon me.

The boys are gone, all the angels are. Removed from Annwn by High Archangel Michael following the brutal and unjust murder of a future warrior. Of one that showed so much promise that he would have had his very own Legion by the winter. Of one with completely gilded wings by the age of thirty-two. A marvel. A natural. A triumph of the species. Gone almost completely.

My nights consist of nothing but reliving the past, yet there is a fraction of a moment every morning when I wake up and think that maybe it was just a bad dream. But it wasn’t. The nightmare is reality.

“We should burn it down,” Alice says quietly, the vitriol in her tone betraying her sincerity. Another spear of pain shoots through me, devastation drowning everything else.

Slowly, Alice slides her hand into mine, a quiet show of support and the catalyst that allows a tear to track down my cheek.

She squeezes my hand fiercely. “We don’t have to stay.”

“We do,” I reply immediately. My voice is hoarse, pained, and strangled, my vocal cords protesting the unexpected usage. When was the last time I spoke out loud?

Alice glances at me, her concerned gaze caressing my cheek. “We could go back to Drãculea,” she offers. We’d spent the last three months there, despite how hard it was for her to be surrounded by those who hate her. But we’d had nowhere else to go.

I shake my head but don’t shift my gaze from the house. The now-­familiar grief grips me tightly, twining around me and forcing exhaustion into my body. I need to sit down. Lie down. Sleep. Never wake up. I swallow the sob caught in my throat and start down the path I have walked countless times before. Alice is at my side, her hand still in mine as she keeps pace with me. I step onto the porch, and the door stares back at me, waiting to be opened. We stand in front of it. We stare silently at it for a long moment.

“I changed it,” Alice says, breaking the silence. “Inside.”

Another useless tear slides down my cheek as Alice raises her hand to push the key into the lock. The door swings open, and a whimper leaves me as I’m hit with the new interior of the house. The smell of them is gone. Gone are the scent of clouds and rain, the remnants of Farrah’s cooking left over after the boys heated a meal she had stocked the freezer with for them.

Alice leans into my side, her small body pressed to me as she takes in the changes with me. She must have done it all remotely, which makes sense. She’s barely left my side since it happened. Everything is different. My knees buckle, but Alice catches me, looping her arm around my waist to support me. She waits, allowing me to make the first move. No rushing. No pushing. She’s hesitant to go inside too. Her reluctance practically radiates from her.

She’s been trying to hide how affected she’s been, trying to be strong for me, but I hear her crying too. Every night. The last time we were here was on that day . . .

Alice tightens her arm around me, and we walk into the house together. We both stop, just breaching the door, and once again, the pain surges through me at the sight. The walls have been painted a neutral cream color with pink and blue accents. The furniture has been switched out, and even the flooring has been changed. Area rugs litter the space, none of which were here before, and on the coffee table there is a vase with blue and white ­angelonias. I recognize them immediately. They’re from his funeral, runed to be eternal. Eternal. Like he was supposed to be.

“We don’t have to keep⁠—”

“We do,” I reply, my voice sounding raw again. I am grateful for the changes, but I also resent them. The house was perfect before. It was perfect when five boisterous, loud, annoying Morningstars lived here. When Connor lived here. The flowers need to stay. Connor’s memory needs to stay.

“I had them change everything over the summer so it’s . . . less.” I’m not sure what word she wants to use. Perhaps she doesn’t know either. “I changed the bedrooms,” Alice continues.

My stomach twists at the thought of strangers in Con’s⁠—

“Except Connor’s. His room is untouched,” she says quickly, interrupting my thought. I’m not sure if she could see my distress or sense my discomfort, but she knew exactly what I was thinking and eased my concerns. “I set up Rafe’s room for you.”

Next door to Connor’s. Next door to the room I slept in countless times. Next door to my dead fiancé’s room.