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He’s right. Now that he said it, I can feel them—see them. Little orbs floating around me.

“And about you,” I add. “I love you, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Don’t. Don’t say it now. Not like this. Not like it’s a bad thing.”

“But I do.” I’m laughing again, but I’m crying, and I don’t know which emotion is mine or hers or which fit belongs to one of the starving spirits swirling around me. “I love you, but you only love me because I’m in this house. Because I’m her. Because her ghost is attached to me.”

“No!” His word comes out harsh, certain, but still so safe, and he pulls me into his chest. “I love you because you’re you. You being in this cottage… that’s why I didn’t want to love you. I didn’t even want to like you. But I do. We—we have to go. We need to get some help. Okay, princess?”

Help. Who can help me when I don’t know what’s wrong with me? I suppose the man with ties to death can probably help with the ghosts.

“I’m not a princess,” I choke out. “I’m a terror. Call me what I am.”

Tears prick at his eyes but never fall, and he holds my face in both hands, looking at me so seriously. “You’re both. You are everything. And I’m not the person I used to be.”

Wendy lets out a wail, and there’s nothing angry about it. It’s pure sorrow. I can tell Sterling hears it by the way he shudders, closing his eyes.

“I’m sorry for how I handled my magic in the past, but I’ve trained with Jewel for years,” he says. “I’m different now. You can trust me. Let me take care of you.”

The rest of the ghosts are still around me—I can see them so vividly now—but in that moment, I feel Wendy letting go. Her body disappears from the corner of the room, and her wails fade.

I slump into Sterling’s arms.

Sterling takes me to Jewel—another person I’ve been avoiding. She’s been so helpful, so honest. She didn’t push me away even though he knew I was without magic. Now, she’s seeing me like this.

Lost. Confused. Weak.

We’re at her home now.

“Your hair,” Jewel says cautiously.

“The hair is the least of my worries.” Sterling wraps an arm around my shoulder. “She’s being haunted. It’s not just the cottage, not just Wendy. Other ghosts, they’re⁠—”

“Taking to her like a moth to the flame,” Jewel whispers.

“Can you see them?”

“No, but…” She looks at a tarot deck on a cluttered coffee table. “I had a reading last night that I didn’t understand until now.”

I shudder, and for reasons I can’t understand, Sterling groans.

“Another just attached,” he says.

Guess that explains the shudder.

He continues. “I don’t know where they’re coming from. It’s not as if the cottage has a lot of paranormal activity—or at least, I wasn’t aware it did.”

“How do you feel?”

It takes me several moments to realize Jewel is speaking to me. I blink a few times. “Tired. Confused.”

I feel everything for everyone, but it’s too much work to sort through which feelings are mine and which are… the others.

“This is not a haunting.” Jewel takes me out of Sterling’s grasp and guides me inside. The stomping of his feet tells me he’s close behind.

“Good evening,” a witch says from off in the corner—Jewel’s wife, Michelle. We’ve met at coven meetings. “Should I put some tea on?”

“Not tea,” Jewel says. “Start a cleansing bath. Lots of salt.”