I shoved her back with a snarl. “Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare pretend you’re still mine.”
“Balthazar, look at me,” she said softly. “Please. My love…”
“No!” I screamed again, pressing my eyelids shut so tightly I saw stars. “You’re not real. You’re a fucking ghost in my head, stitched from memories and guilt and things I can never have back!”
And then her voice dropped to a whisper. “I heard you murdered Raul’s son.”
My eyes flew open, my entire body going still. My stare sliced through the room like a predator spotting prey in the dark. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“How could you know about that?” My voice dropped into a rasp. “Of course you know. You knoweverything,don’t you? You’re in my fucking head—you see all my sins.”
A manic, unhinged laugh escaped me. It didn’t even sound human. Not anymore.
“Why did you kill him?” Zara asked.
“Why?” I repeated, pacing in erratic circles, my hands twitching like birds trapped in a storm. “Why? Because his kind—his people—slaughtered my daughters. My children. Because you—” I jabbed a finger at her. “You left me. You chose Mathias over me. You betrayed me.”
Rage and heartbreak collided in my throat, raw and thunderous. “I’ve been abandoned over and over again. I loved you. I loved Alina. Itrustedyou both. And what did I get?”
I turned toward her, wild-eyed, breathless. “A curse. That’s what I got. And now you haunt me like a penance I’ll never finish paying.”
Zara’s ghost didn’t retreat. She leaned in, her breath warm against my face. Real. Too real.
“Your anger so consumed you,” she whispered, “that you forgot I was grieving, too.I lost them, too.I reached for you repeatedly, and all I got was your blame.”
With fury and heartbreak, she spoke, “Your words were knives, Balthazar. Every time I came to you, you turned away. You became a monster, not just to the world… but to me. And when one man offered me a shred of kindness, you destroyed him.”
I let out a guttural, feral scream that shook the walls. “Enough! Shut up! Cease your lies and leave me be! He led them,Zara! He led those fucking Timehunters to slaughter our girls!”
Then—laughter.
Soft. Innocent.
Terrifying.
It bounced off the walls—bright little giggles echoing like bells through a crypt. My heart seized. I turned in a frenzy, eyes scanning, desperate.
“Freya? Astrid?”
Their voices—so pure, so sweet—wrapped around me like smoke.
“Tove? Revna? Meya?” I choked out their names like prayer and poison all at once.
I reached, heart thundering in my chest… but nothing. Just air. Just grief.
“Freya,” I whispered, voice breaking into a sing-song melody. “Revna, where are my precious girls?”
I tiptoed toward the portraits on the wall, eyes wide with a manic gleam. “Astrid. Meya. Are you playing hide and seek with Daddy?”
Then—laughter, louder now—from behind the understairs closet.
I pressed a finger to my lips. “Shh…” I whispered, like a game. “I found you…”
I flung the door open.
Cobwebs. Dust. Empty.
