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“I won’t ask you to come with me. I don’t know what will happen. This could be a trap. I might get stuck again.”

“Where you go, we go,” Ash said, expression fierce.

There were grunts and growls of agreement. I didn’t second-guess them, they knew more than anyone what was at stake.

“Two of you can come with me. The rest need to stay and protect the pack in case of another attack.”

Asher and Dirk instantly broke from the group, and we rushed down the stairs and out to the demon blood-soaked earth surrounding the keep.

The moon was behind the clouds, and I allowed myself to partially shift, my eyes, ears, and muzzle transforming my face to enhance my senses. Ash and Dirk shifted into their wolves and flanked me as I ran full speed toward the cottage ruins.

I didn’t know what I’d find when I got there.

But I’d do whatever it took to get Iris back.

Iris

It felt as though I were floating in the sea, caught in a riptide that pulled me farther and farther from dry land.

Nothing I did would stop my forward momentum, dragging me deeper and deeper into the forest. I knew where I was, and I knew where I was going. The crones’ laughter was ringing in my ears. Their magic that had touched me before at Shadow Falls surrounded me now, cold and grasping, painful, as they gripped my soul and pulled me toward them.

This time I wasn’t alone. This time I saw them—lost souls. They moved around me, wandering aimlessly, lost forever in limbo.

The cloaked figure appeared in the distance, in the shadows of the trees, tall and broad.

Death.

I was in his realm, and he knew I didn’t belong here.

But the trees ahead parted again before he could come closer, and I was pulled into the clearing, the trees closing behind me like last time. Light glowed ahead, warm and inviting when I knew that cottage was anything but. I tried again to fight it, but I was drawn forward until I stood a few yards from it.

The trees surrounding it swayed and moaned, low and mournful. The only light coming from the cottage’s small windows.

Something moved near me. I spun around. Penny rushed by.

“Penny!” I called.

She didn’t hear me, didn’t even look my way. She looked distorted, muted.

That’s when I realized she was here, but not here. She was in the mortal realm, and I was in limbo, locked in Ortus Cottage’s magic that Charity had created. Penny stood near the ruins where this cottage had once been.

She moved to where the stones we’d found lay, and I watched as she muttered a spell and waved her hand over the ground. A hatch door appeared, hidden by her magic. The cottage basement was still there from when it once stood. Penny opened it and disappeared down a ladder, shutting the door behind her.

I turned in a circle. It was impossibly dark all around me. I had no clue what time it was, but it couldn’t be long until dawn.

I faced the cottage again, and anger filled me. They were trying to take me from my life, a life that I loved—from Draven. They wouldn’t take me without a fight. “You called me here, so show yourself.”

I didn’t know if I was completely helpless or not. My powers had worked during my visions at the falls, and I prayed to the mother they worked here as well. Someone moved behind the door, a shadow through the window.

The handle turned, the old iron latch rattling.

Then the door swung open.

A woman, backlit by firelight, stood in the doorway. Her hair was black and wavy like Magnolia’s, and her eyes were blue. She was stunning. Her full, red lips curved into a smile that was meant to be inviting, alluring, but instead lifted the hair on the back of my neck.

Charity.

“Iris, my dear, we finally meet,” she said and held out a hand. “Come to me.”