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I pull my shirt up and over my head, then toss it over to the table. I’m still in my monster form, my skull mark still prominent on my flesh. I can choose to reveal it or not, but right now I need the mark bare.

I glance down at Dawn’s name scribbled beneath the skull, and the past flashes in my mind on replay, as if it just happened yesterday: Dawn’s father charging into my home, bestowing her onto me, begging me to protect her.

Since then, my life has become a whirlwind, leading me right to this moment. Where I’ll show her how much I love her by keeping her alive.

Her gaze glides over me, but I need to concentrate. “I ask you not to interfere. You’ll hear everything he says.” But they won’t see the veil parting life from death. My skin crawls each time I do this.

Regardless, I swipe a flat hand across my chest.

A spark of energy snaps over me, and it feels like hundreds of insects crawling under my skin.

The skull mark shifts across my chest, its mouth gaping open, and instantly, a chill encases me from head to toe. At once, it slides up across my shoulder and skitters down my arm. It pauses on the back of my hand. Every hair on my body lifts from the cold encasing me.

I lean forward and place an open palm at the center of the corpse’s chest.

Immediately, sparks awaken in my body, and a sudden pulse shoots out from my hand and slams into the man’s body.

Everything around me darkens at once. Sunlight dims, corners crowd with shadows, and a heavy gray mist spreads around us.

Each exhale spills past my lips as fog, and at the corners of my eyes, I catch movement. Shadows gather at the veil between our worlds, always watching and waiting for any opportunity to slip free.

Dawn and the other two stand shrouded in darkness, but I still see them. Their eyes are bright lights, burning through the shadows.

I turn back to the corpse and whisper, “Come forward. I invite you.”

His head snaps up, eyes flipping open. A faint light burns behind them, a temporary one for his visit. A sense of being drawn toward him tugs at my body from our invisible bond.

The man glances around frantically, bewildered, and shoves against his ties, the chair rocking under him. “W-where am I?”

“Silence,” I command, and it breaks his distraction. He stares up at me, his shoulders settling down. “I will guide you, but first you must do something for me. You will answer my questions. Understand?”

He stares at first, but something in him comprehends what I’m saying as he nods.

“Good. Now, who sent you into the mountains to come after us?”

“The Gamemaster,” he croaks.

I take a deep breath, reminding myself not to rush, a mistake I made long ago in Grimvale. A family friend asked for my assistance with her recently deceased husband, but I asked him too many questions too fast, and it confused the dead man. He started convulsing and ended up zapping back into the underworld without a single question answered.

“Why is the Gamemaster after us?” I ask.

The man’s eyes never leave mine, and there’s a buzz from his chest against my palm. “Because he’s not from Earth, but from Grimvale.”

I blink, letting the answer sink to the pit of my stomach, where it twists. Fuck, he’s from Grimvale too? That explains why he pays us way too much attention.

Lian murmurs something, but I can’t hear him, and I don’t want my attention split.

“Why did he leave Grimvale?” The question pours out of me, not what I meant to ask, but curiosity grabs me by the throat.

“He confided in me once that his father threw him out. His father reigned over the Ice Fire Court.”

Dawn’s startled gasp reaches me, while dread slams against my rib cage because suddenly everything changes. The terror of what this means claws up my spine.

“Keep going,” I suggest.

“He’s the bastard of a king.” The man hasn’t blinked once, and the borrowed light behind his eye fades slightly. “He was a firstborn, the rightful heir, according to him. Except the king refused to name a bastard as the next king, so he murdered his mother in the local river. She was just a servant in the palace. Then he threw the Gamemaster out in front of the whole court to humiliate him.”

Gods, this is getting worse.