I blink at her. “That supposed to be comforting?”
“No.” She steps into the room and sets a clean mug on the counter beside me. “But itshouldbe.”
I’m not sure what that means. Not really. But she surprises me by pouring me fresh tea without being asked and even adds a splash of honey from the jar I thought no one used but me.
“You’re not the first,” she says quietly, not meeting my eyes. “To wonder how to get to him.”
I take the mug gratefully and blow on the surface. “Did any of them succeed?”
“One,” she says. “And she’s dead.”
The words hit like a slap. Cold. Final.
I swallow hard. “And you don’t think he can…?”
“Come back from it?” She finally looks at me, and this time her gaze is less frost and more fire. “I don’t know. But if he could, it would take someone patient. Quiet. Unafraid.”
“Someone like me?”
Mary shrugs. “We’ll see.”
She turns to leave, then pauses in the doorway.
“He used to laugh,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. “Used to cook. Used to play piano in the evenings when the wind got too loud.”
“And now?”
She meets my gaze. “Now he just listens to it.”
6
DARIUS
When I wake, the first thing I feel is the heat. Not the warmth of firelight or morning sun creeping past the curtains, but something more primal and unwelcome, a heat that coils beneath the skin like a fever brewing from the inside out, thick and cloying, filling my throat with the taste of smoke and metal.
The second thing I feel is pain. Not sharp, not immediate, but slow and deliberate, like a warning carved into flesh. I sit up, dragging stiff muscles with me, and glance down to see the source. Four deep red lines rake down the right side of my chest, raw and inflamed, arching just beneath the edge of my ribcage, the edges already beginning to clot but still angry, like open mouths refusing to close.
They’re not the result of a nightmare. I’ve had those before—violent, vicious, and endless—but they never left evidence behind. These are real. These are deliberate. These are from me.
The beast clawed its way out last night, not completely, but enough to mark the skin like a signature it couldn’t resist leaving behind.
I exhale slowly, dragging a hand through my hair as I swing my legs over the end of the bed and rest my elbows on my knees, trying to breathe past the pressure in my chest. It’s heavier than it was yesterday, thicker than it’s been in years, like the air itself is denser now, weighted with a scent I can’t get away from no matter how tightly I seal the doors.
Tessa Monroe.
Her name pulses like a heartbeat in the back of my skull, a constant rhythm I can’t shake no matter how far I retreat into the cold, no matter how many layers of steel I wrap around myself. She’s in this house, moving through it like she belongs here, her scent lingering in the halls long after she’s gone, clinging to the bannisters, the drapes, even the damn bookshelves as though she’s been written into the walls.
I try not to think about her. I try not to remember the way she looked when I turned around and saw her standing in the doorway with breakfast in her hands, startled but not afraid, soft but not fragile, her mouth opening like she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the right words. I try not to remember the way her eyes fell to my chest and lingered—not with horror, but with something closer to... understanding.
I try. But I fail.
Because no matter how hard I fight it, some part of me is already watching her from a distance, always. In silence. In shadows.
I tell myself it’s for safety. That it’s necessary. That if I know where she is, I can keep the beast on a tighter leash. That awareness will make me cautious, disciplined, restrained.
But that’s not the truth, not the full one.
The truth is that I watch her because Iwantto. Because I can’t help it. Something about her—the softness in her step, the quiet steadiness in her voice, the way she touches everything likeit might bruise but still deserves to be held—draws me in like gravity, slow and steady and unstoppable.
