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“Nothing,” he repeated, outline fading. “Nothing will keep me from you.”

He was gone in the next breath.

The silence pressed in, and I dropped to my knees and cried.

I paced for hours, watching the light slowly arc across the horizon.

The castle was still, empty in a way it never had been.

There was no trace of him anywhere.

Even before he’d materialized, I hadn’t realized the weight and hum he’d brought to the space. Now it felt cold, barren, like the world had forgotten it. Wolfe kept Kilmorran alive—kept it feeling like a home.

He told me there was nothing I needed to do, but I set his pocket watch, picture, and a handful of journals on the mantle anyway. I lit candles at intervals, careful not to form a circle on a night like tonight.

I couldn’t stomach eating. Couldn’t settle in with my laptop long enough to get anything productive done. Instead, I filled a bucket with soapy water and grabbed a scrub brush and headed outside. The sky was barely clinging to the last of its light, which meant I needed to work quickly.

I turned on the flashlight on my phone and set to work, scrubbing the rest of the dirt and grime from Wolfe’s slab away. I worked the stone until my arms ached. Until his name was clear and clean under the night sky. There was a small Celtic cross above it that I’d missed last night.

I cleared the ripped up grass away, letting it fly off into the wind.

He deserved to be remembered. For who he was—for what he did for this town. He gave his life for someone else and his family had the nerve to let the grass overtake his plot, to hide him from the sun.

It wasn’t right.

There was nothing I could do to keep it from happening again.

I would leave, the family would take back over, and the grass would regrow as if none of this had ever happened at all.

The wind around me began to shift, whipping violently through my hair and against my clothes. The moon rose, full and pregnant, above the sea. Before this trip, I don’t know if I would have said I believed in magic. Being here changed things. Electricity danced across my tongue. A thousand eyes watched me from the field to my right. Energy snaked across the ground, sending the small pebbles and chunks of stone in the driveway trembling.

This place was ancient—alive.

Darkness pulsed and slithered up the road and I wondered if all the things Wolfe had warned me about would be here too. Fear prickled against my scalp and quickly, quietly, I made my way back to the front door. The wind howled, whistling across the windows.

I would never know what it was that made me stop.

That made me turn toward the field in front of me that stretched through the neighboring farm.

The bucket slipped from my fingers, spilling dirty soapy water across the stones.

There was a figure cutting through the long grass, moon highlighting the broad slope of his shoulders, the sure and even strides. I took one step. Then another. Silver light flashed in those red-brown eyes and then I was running, sobbing through my teeth as I picked through the tall grass.

He was running too, cutting through the dark faster than any man should be able to move. I could hear him chanting my name, a prayer, an oath, a vow. I wasn’t sure. I just needed to get to him.

“Avery!”

And then he was there, whole, solid, real. I threw my arms around him, launching myself into his chest. He caught me, arms banded around my middle. God, he was warm. His heart—his heart—slammed into mine.

“God.” He shook against me. Something warm and hot touched the side of my neck. “God. To hold you.” He clutched me tighter, hands knotted and twisted into my shirt.

I couldn’t get close enough, breathe him in deep enough. The cinnamon and whiskey that clung to his skin was deeper, richer. There was a hint of citrus there now, something that reminded me of summer-ripe peaches.

I ran my fingers through his hair, marveling at the feel. So soft. So real.

I buried my face in his neck. His skin was cold under my lips.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.