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Each step I take is no escape as its whispered words drift through my mind in a voice that sounds vaguely recognizable.

Run. Run. As fast as you can, witchling. You will never be able to hide from me. Never be able to escape what you know … what you did.

A choked sob breaks free of my throat. I stumble and my knees slam into the dirt. My hands scrape across stones and cold roots. The world warps around me, trees blending in and leaning over my body, the path that I’d taken becoming gnarled and blocked by more of those twisted roots. The moon disappears behind dark clouds, and I am alone with the creature that hunts me.

I try to stand, but my legs are trembling so badly that when I plant a foot and push down, my body collapses all over again. Cold breath washes over the back of my neck—a sign that the creature is growing closer. The air around me thickens like fog. My vision swims with things I don’t want to remember.

A hand grabs mine. I scream. The sharp taint of terror claws at my insides, and I whirl around, the trembling of my own limbs overwhelmed by the automatic instinct to protect myself, to fight.

“Haven!” a familiar voice shouts. “Haven, stop! It’s me!”

The hand holding on to me is strong, I realize. Calloused. Real.

I lift my eyes to meet the ones staring down at me. Instead of Cameron’s hazel gold, though, all I see is a deep green. Shadows and moss.

Ezra.

Something wet hits my cheek—not a tear but a drop of rain. The two of us glance to the skies. It’s as if they were waiting for our acknowledgment. The clouds open, and drop after drop begins to fall. It soaks into my hair, my clothes, and trickles down my back.

I don’t ask how he found me or how he’s here; I dig my nails into his clothes and try to hold on tight. Ezra pulls me up from the ground, his eyes lit with something fierce. “You can’t listen to it,” he says, his other hand reaching forward to stroke back the hair that’s quickly growing soaked behind one ear. I shiver as cold invades my bones, rushing under my skin. His hands are like brands against me.

“I—” I try to speak, but the wail of the creature growing nearer has the words catching in my throat as I jerk and turn in its direction.

Ezra doesn’t hesitate in moving between me and the incoming monster, shifting so that his body shields mine. I glimpse the thing beyond him—a blur of black smoke and eyes that don’t belong to any living thing. It wants me.

I can’t say how I know this fact, but there’s something within the monster’s open, shapeless, screaming mouth that calls to a piece within me. It has no eyes, yet still I feel horrifically stared down as it shoves tree after tree out of its way, leaving carnage in its wake now that it’s closer to me than before. I shrink back.

“Don’t look at it,” he barks, his voice louder now as a rumble of thunder sounds overhead. “It feeds on that.”

“Cameron disappeared,” I tell him. Water cascades down my arms as I shift behind him. Ezra doesn’t answer me as he glares at the quickly advancing monster. “As soon as that … thing”—I say for lack of a name to call it by—“appeared, Cameron vanished.”

Ezra casts me a surprised glance. “Cameron?” He shakes his head and turns back to the monster. “No, Cameron’s in the house. He never left.”

“What?” I gape at him. “No, Cameron was here,” I insist. “He was with me right before…”

“Haven.” Ezra’s voice cuts me off as the creature moves into the clearing where we now stand. “Cameron is in the manor.”

No, that’s not right. I shake my head. “That can’t be right,” I say dimly. I remember running out, but Cameron followed. “He…” When had we come out here? It was hours ago, wasn’t it? Training—he was supposed to be training me, but then … it had gotten dark. I glance up to the dark, cloudy skies as confusion slams into me.

My head is dizzy with memories. I could’ve sworn I was just training with Cameron, but there’s another memory beyond that—shadowed behind the monster.

“Cameron was with me…” I try again, only for my words to trail off as the monster emerges from the confines of the trees, standing taller as it nears where we are. I stumble back a step before halting myself.

Ezra slowly turns away from it to meet my eyes. He doesn’t need to say the words as my gaze flicks from him to the monster that slowly fades at the edges … just. Like. Cameron.

It shrinks, growing smaller and smaller. Horror dawns alongside realization.

Cameron was never out here with me. He’s not the one who led me into the dark. This monster was already here, waiting … waiting for me. It created the roots and destroyed them with an illusion. It made me feel safe in arms that weren’t real. It … knows me.

Ezra lifts a hand and points a finger over my head. Just like the false Cameron before, he utters words in an old language I don’t understand, and when I glance over my shoulder, it’s to find an open path back to Bishop Manor. It’s closer than I thought, or maybe that, too, is an illusion.

I whip back to Ezra. “How do I know you’re real?” I demand, closing my arms around myself and backing up.

Ezra doesn’t let me get far. As soon as the path opens, he takes two hulking steps toward me, closing the distance in record time as he grabs me up and slams his mouth down over mine.

I gasp into his kiss, and his tongue shoves inside. It’s raw and real. He tastes like anxiety and … safety. Two things that certainly don’t belong together, and yet one soothes and one gives purpose.

“You have to leave the dream,” he tells me, voice rough and filled with desire.