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I’ll never tell Sterling, but as winter draws closer, this cottage really starts to piss me off. And no, it’s not because I’m jealous of his ex, who is apparently taking the form of our family home. I’d love to have a good relationship with her, but it’s hard when she’s going out of her way to bother me.

As of right now, it definitely feels personal.

The fire rarely stays lit, the walls are wailing louder, and the laughter she used to carry through the house is gone. He’s wrong about a lot of things, but he’s right about one thing: she’s pissed. At me. No one else can hear her screams. Not even Leo, her least favorite person.

“What is it?” I bang on one of the shaking walls. “Are you jealous of me? Mad at me? Let’s talk about this like adults.”

To my surprise, the cottage yells: “No!”

The cottage yells back?

What the hell?

“Are you talking to her?” Luke asks, sounding amused, his head tilted to the side.

The sound of his voice would probably make me jump, but the walls are already talking, so nothing can scare me at the moment.

I turn to face him. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were here.”

He lifts a shoulder and holds out a book—one of the many written by our father. “Just had to return this.”

“I didn’t even know you stole it.” But I take the book and place it back on my shelf—no rhyme or reasoning behind the position, wherever it can fit. “Do you know if the fire went out again?”

I still haven’t figured out exactly how to light it, especially without my magic, but I don’t want to ask Luke directly.

He smiles and shakes his head. “Let me go check.”

“Thank you!” I call after him, beaming.

The cottage wails again, and I sit down on the edge of my bed, staring at the distorting walls. Always changing. If I wanted the walls to move, I probably would have taken a strong bliss potion—or some of those mushrooms the non-magical people are always taking. Not this.

The peace only lasts a moment before Luke cries out.

I run downstairs. It’s too much like when we were kids, and he came crying to make up with an injury, but it was never all that severe. I didn’t have anything to worry about then.

Maybe if I had heard my father screaming, I could have helped him. Instead, he died silently, with medical issues none of us could have foreseen.

When I find Luke, he’s on his knees but still upright, clutching his burned hand. His eyes are wide, and I waste no time helping him up, guiding him to the medicine cabinet.

“You’re okay,” I whisper. “Accidents happen.”

This is my fault for not knowing how to start a fire. I made him do it. He’s fine—fine enough that he’s walking—but that doesn’t stop the guilt from sinking in my belly like a stone.

I would say he’s in shock, considering his pale complexion. Hell, I am too. But we heal first and ask questions after.

“I don’t know what happened,” he says.

He sounds in awe, but I’m relieved. A burn? We can take care of a burn. We’re lucky it’s not worse.

“Looks like you got a little clumsy around the fireplace,” I say, opening the cabinet and grabbing the healing potion, along with a bandage.

There are reasons I don’t like messing with fire, after all. Burns are nearly inevitable. Still, I imagine it hurts, so we’ll take care of it swiftly. Our mother is usually the one who patches us up, but I think I’ll do a decent job.

“No. That’s not it.” He holds my hand with his burned one, flinching and looking at me with concern. Fear. “The fire attacked me. Like it was possessed.”

As soon as he speaks, the cottage wails louder than ever. A shudder runs up my spine.

It’s as if Wendy’s ghost is walking right through me.