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Jarek regarded the man before snatching the book from Sterling to present it to Croll. “Can you tell me anything about this?”

Croll gave the illustration a few seconds’ glance. “I’ve read about these before,” he said.

Jarek’s heart rose from the pit of his stomach. “What do you know of them?”

“Not much. I do know only certain blessed people can see them. Imordials are obvious, but also those who have been gifted with the Guardian’s sight of the aura.”

Jarek was so preoccupied by Lilith’s creature earlier he’d forgotten she mentioned Ivy was seeing something like it too. “Ivy’s an Escardian,” Jarek said. “Lilith said she was seeing something similar to her. She must not know.”

Sterling cursed over a sigh. “Let’s keep it that way.”

Jarek nodded. Ivy’s soul belonged to the Guardian. If she learned she could manipulate auras, the magic would maim or kill her.

Croll muttered a quiet prayer before going on. “Ethae are spirits that spread the Guardian’s influence throughout the land where it is needed. They transcend beyond our plane, similar to souls after death, and feed Eizreth life’s influence.” He tentatively glanced at Jarek. “You never saw them, sir?”

“No,” Jarek said, pacing the floor. But the Guardian wasn’t whole, nor did it belong to his bloodline. If they never appeared to him, it was because he was never meant to see them. “What Ivy described seeing is different from Lilith’s ethae. It’s larger and has been stalking her for some time.”

“I would assume there would be one for the Wraith,” Croll said. “But I was not given reading on reapers during my time in the Coffers. I am more familiar with angelic lore.”

“What about the other Flares? Do they have one?” Jarek asked.

“No,” Sterling mumbled in time with Croll. He lifted and wagged a thoughtful finger. “There would only be two. The Vulpes and Serpent deal with emotions. The Allay and Gnaw, the response to emotions. Those four Flares dabble in the makeup of humanity only, right? But the Guardian and Wraith, life and death, they’re different. Their influence affects humans, the earth, and its animals.” Sterling strolled toward the shelf. “If these spirits pass between planes, can they take a body?”

“You’re insinuating this thing took her to the Aithre?” Jarek asked.

Croll shook his head. “A physical body can’t cross to the soul’s domain.”

“Not to the Aithre,” Sterling suggested. “Somewhere else. On Eizreth.”

Jarek’s eyes widened. The conversation he had with Lilith at the tavern in Gridian stood out in his mind. Her amazement that her predecessor managed to cross the continent so quickly. “Keara,” he breathed. “That’s how she made it out of Cara before Valen’s army could cut her down. Why her body was never found.”

“Maybe so,” Sterling said, rubbing the back of his head. “But Lils never mentioned seeing this thing a decade ago while she was with us in Rimore. It could have rescued her when she was discovered by the empire in Markoth. Why now?”

Jarek gazed out the window, picturing the break in the forest the night he found her chasing the ethae. The remnants of ash sprinkled across the forest floor. “Lilith is using the Wraith. She has been since she met Luka. That’s when she started seeing it—when she started behaving as a proper Imordial.” Relief flooded Jarek’s veins. This creature might not be an immediate threat, but… “Where would it have taken her? She was safe here.”

“Safe, but not needed,” Sterling said. “The Wraith hasn’t been active in Eizreth for hundreds of years, and for it to come back so suddenly? I bet it wanted her somewhere specific.”

Jarek’s panic set itself back in its place. “Did it take her back to the mountains?”

“There is little to no death in the north,” Croll said. “An ethae can only connect to their Flare’s influence.”

“Somewhere people are dying…” Jarek pondered, glancing at Sterling.

Sterling’s face turned white when he met Jarek’s eyes. “Oh, shit.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Vanishing with a graft was as jolting as being shoved into a room drunk on a night’s worth of liquor.

This was not that.

The world didn’t spin until one sobered enough to catch up. What happened to Lily was relieving, like the feeling of coming up for air after diving under water. She filled her lungs and blinked in her surroundings. Lights flashed beyond a broken window; wind whipped against the outside walls.

The corpse of a child lay at her feet.

Lily yelped. She hopped away, tripping over a fallen chair, then scrambling backwards until her back hit the wall. Something like thunder rumbled outside.

She was in the gathering room of a small residence. The front door was wide open, the windows broken, the tattered curtains blowing gently in the wind.