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He was Valen Hazevale’s son, in possession of a soul he had no claim to, even if she could resurrect his body. He wasn’t meant to be here. She was Keara Evelian’s heir, and she was raising a child he thought would be better off dead. She needed to worry about taming the Wraith and the Guardian while protecting Luka by bending to Amalia’s demands.

Whatever that was needed to stay buried. She didn’t know where to begin to unpack all those complexities, some of which were kept under a lock neither she nor Jarek had a key for.

Lily didn’t move, staring out of the window, watching the moons slowly shift across the sky and trying to purge the image and feel of him from her mind. Her eyes drifted shut, and sleep found her.

She was roused to giggling outside the window. A small shadow ran back and forth from the light of the lit porch below. Eventually, Ivy skipped into view, stopping to tighten a bag over her shoulder and trailing off into the blackened night. Lily didn’t think much of it, until she caught the unseen energy right where she left it in the field.

It twisted its sickly gray head toward the girl.

Lily launched from the bench. She waited with bated breaths, but her internal pleading didn’t stop it from stalking after Ivy. Lily flew from the study, snagging her rifle and jacket from her room on the way down to the kitchen. She stopped at the open doors.

“Lilith?”

Lily blanched at seeing Estelle wrapped in a blanket and standing over a bowl of fruit at the center counter.

“Where’d Ivy go?” Lily asked.

“To the root cellar.”

She gripped the frame, frantically looking out into the dark. “Where are Sterling and Jarek?”

“Not here. In town, I think…” Estelle’s growing annoyance drifted from her tone. “Is something wrong?”

Lily rapped an indecisive hand against the wood. It never acknowledged anyone or anything else before… “I’m going after her.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No,” Lily snapped, throwing on her coat. “I’d rather you get one of Sterling’s men from the stables. Can you do that?”

Estelle nodded, worried.

“Then go, quickly.”

Lily took off into the dark the moment Estelle left the kitchen. Her phantom lit the way while she retraced the ethae’s prints left in the grass through the wide field. They angled past the landscaped brush outlining the yard. As she expected and dreaded, the prints faded. Lily called for Ivy. She stopped, spinning in place, and called again.

“You,” a small voice exclaimed. Lily spun to Ivy standing at the base of a knoll. “What’re you doing?”

“We need to go back.”

“I haven’t got the walnuts.”

“They can wait,” Lily insisted, reaching for the girl’s arm.

Ivy ducked out of the way. “It won’t take long. I’ll show…”

Ivy’s voice faded into the night. Lily’s heart dropped, and she spun around to the shape of the ethae just beyond the underbrush she came from. It crept into full view, head low, and making a gurgled chuff as its lips curled back.

Lily grabbed hold of a wriggling Ivy. The ethae lifted its head and roared, low and transcendent, the vibration coursing through the earth and up Lily’s legs, rattling her to the bone. Her hold on the rifle wavered, body begging to raise it, but mind keeping it low.

Energy feeds off energy.

Lily loosened her grip on the weapon, extinguishing the light. The muscles behind the ethae’s empty sockets gleamed in the moonlight, twitching as if looking around. It lifted its head and took one steady step closer…

Then it lunged.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Weariness pressed heavier on him than the sacks of flour and grain piled on his shoulder. Trudging back to the plantation with Ava’s thanks in tow and the relentless tide of Sterling’s voice at his side, Jarek was ready to collapse from every kind of exhaustion imaginable.