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Her mother’s grimoire. Her family’s secrets.
Sneaking away hadn’t been difficult with Nerissa somewhere Raana couldn’t trace her, so busy working on the spell with Kai and Isla’s blood.
Jumping between the shadows, it had only taken half a day’s travel and rest to make it to her mountain home. Funny, when she’d walked these passes with Adrien, she’d been so weak, so slow. Back then, he kept telling her to remove her iron ring and embrace her fae body, but she refused. Now, with this lesser enchantment, she could see he had been right. Not only had it been easier to move through the darkness, but her body had been stronger, faster, and her senses were even keener to avoid the paths that swarmed with Io’s guards.
Her cottage appeared just as ghostly as Phobos’s Pack Hall. A shell of itself, of a life lived—her prison and her sanctuary.
The potted flowers near the front door had died without her care. She sifted around their dried periwinkle buds and cracked stems until she found her rusty house key. It rasped as it slid into the keyhole and clicked as it turned.
Raana hesitated.
She hadn’t been back since she’d learned of Helene’s betrayal, since she’d learned why all her stuff had disappeared. A little coin was all it took to convince her caretaker to give her up to the highest bidder.Thatwas all she’d been worth to her. Would those reminders be all she saw when she stepped inside?
Raana shoved the door open, a swirl of dust kicking up in the soft spill of moonlight that trailed in behind her. The cottage had never been a grand space, but it felt even smaller now after spending so long in the crumbling palace. From where she stood in the entry hall, she could see everything—the living room, dining area, washroom, and her bedroom.
Her heart clenched, morose homesickness wrapping around her throat.
This silence—she liked this silence. This bittersweet nothing.
Perhaps a few hours by the fire with a good book wouldn’t hurt. Maybe, for once, she could forget without needing to dream. She could escape this world in black and white pages. In this cage, this prison, that was hers all the same.
The fire in the hearth roared to life after she struck it, washing over her with its heat. Raana embraced it, her fingers playing in the light and shadows it cast. Though, she hated that her mind tugged to a memory.
Adrien.
“Spirits,” she grumbled, hanging her head.
Get over this. Get over him.
She swore she could feel him behind her, watching as he had been the last they’d been here. All his handsomeness, bravado, and aggravating—
Wait.
With her eyes wide and shadows swirling around her, Raana gently rose to her feet. Her hand slowly reached for the steel fire poker perched against the hearth’s stone outlay.
Not possible.
But still, she moved on instinct, shadow to shadow, her body colliding with something hard, firm, and warm. She got her footing, one of her hands firm on another’s shoulder while the other positioned the sharp end of the poker against the soft, delicate skin of their throat.
Raana’s chest heaved as she stared into the golden-green eyes that had been the subject of every dream and nightmare. “Adrien?”
His gentle smile obliterated her while the firelight danced divinely across his face. “You’re getting better with that,” the prince said, tipping his head to the poker, his raven locks shifting.
This had to be a dream. She hadn’t traveled here at all. She was back in the hall, corrupted by dark magic. Sleeping.
“Are you real?” She hadn’t meant to whisper the question aloud.
But then she watched, wide-eyed, as Adrien’s hand rose to feel along his own chest. “I feel real.”
He certainly did.
The muscles of his arm tensed and relaxed beneath her touch in a way she’d come to know well, and her shadows didn’t seem to protest his presence. In fact, they began weaving around their legs like house cats, drawing them closer. The back of her eyes stung, her heart galloping heavily. “What are you—what are you doing here? How are you here?”
“Waiting for you—and I walked. Unlike some people, I don’t have shadows to carry me across the world.”
Smartass.
Raana’s laugh edged with a sob, and she squeezed his shoulder again.
