I tried to suppress a grin. “I don’t think you need to worry about me staying.”
“Youwill!?”
“Once I’ve sorted all this stuff with the wraith—”
They threw their arms around me. I nearly choked on the bony point of their shoulder.
“That makes me so happy!”
“Me too.”
“You look it.” They smiled and leaned in for a conspiratorial whisper. “I won’t be offended if a certain boy played a part in that. I saw you and Kessian dancing earlier. Are you both going to make a bid to catch my bouquet? Then I can planyourwedding.”
“Slow down.”
“You do like him, though, don’t you?”
“Yeah … Quite a bit, really.”
“Well, normally I’d warn you off a boy like that, but he seems to be fonder of you than his past dalliances, so Iguesshe has permission to date you.”
“He needs your permission?”
“Of course. Where is he? I’ll tell him. Kessian!” they began to shout.
“I’ll go find him,” I said, patting their shoulder. “Be back in a bit.”
Camilla was already pulling them into another dance. I broke away from the crowd. It had been a little longer than ten minutes. I didn’t want to leave Kessian hanging, so I broke into a bit of a jog.
Lunaris’s door was open. I thought it was in anticipation of my arrival, but as I skipped up the stairs, it was to find the living room empty.
Lunaris flashed her lights red in alarm, and as I took in the shadow-stained steps and scratches on the door, her radio tuned in to three different stations, song lyrics putting together a message.
A retro pop song cried, “Help!”
A rolling bass melody sang, “Run, boy, run.”
And finally an acoustic folk tune sung by a woman in a deep contralto, “Your lover likes a little danger, but not this kind.”
I tarried only to retrieve my tithe belt, then turned and tripped my way outside. I sprinted up the grassy knoll, heading for the shed, but I knew what I’d find before I got there, confirmed it when I saw the door creaking open in the wind with no light shining through the gap, and when I threw it open, it was to find the edge of the sigil smeared through.
Warwick hadn’t known this was here. Only my family had, but who among them would dare let it out when my family were the ones it targeted?
A strange, familiar melody came over me. A song I’d only heard once before. It had been hard to hear over the music at the wedding, so loud it carried here, but it echoed in my blood more than in my ears.
A gnarled cord of magic like barbed wire wended around my throat, nestled into the crevices of my spine. It tried to force me to stand ramrod straight and walk, but it couldn’t quite worm its way into my brain. Whether because I’d survived its thrall once before or because some other force protected me, I didn’t know, but I did know one thing.
The wraith had taken Kessian.
Chapter 29
Only a scant few minutes ago, we’d been kissing under a tree. The spring was a stone’s throw from the wedding. If he’d been drowned there, people would have heard. People would have seen.
I clung to this thread of hope as I took off running into the woods, following the sound of the music and the strid’s gargling laughter.
Had Kessian waited long before the wraith was upon him? The idea that he might have, and that the time I’d taken while speaking to Fae had made me late, along with the thought that I could have prevented this, all of it would haunt me. Would Kessian think I’d set this trap for him?
I should have left with him at once. The notion of what we’d nearly had, cut off before it could bloom—I pushed it from my mind and focused on picking my way through the woods. I had no talisman, no trap waiting nearby, and only whatever tithes my belt, the forest, and my own body provided. If I ran to get help, the wraith would reach the strid before I had time to stop it.
