She, Doomed Girl

Sarah MacLean and Carrie Ryan

I stood alone in the gray, surrounded by cloud.

My throat burned and my eyes watered as the frigid wind snapped at my face. I’d never felt emptier in my life. It was like that sensation you have after waking up from a dream, when your emotions are still trapped somewhere else and all you’re left with is a feeling that you don’t understand.

Sure, I’d left everything behind when I’d stepped onto the ferry, but I hadn’t expected it to hurt like this. There’d been nothing keeping me in my old life—nothing I couldn’t bring with me.

Nothing that wouldn’t be forgotten.

Silently I cursed the airline for losing my luggage, leaving me to finish the trip with only my purse and a handful of change.

And a deed. And a key.

And no idea what I was getting myself into.

“You’re headed for the castle.”

The voice startled me, coming from the fog like in some old gothic movie, where the terrifying Vincent Price character growls the words, all skeletal angles and crooked fingers. But I wasn’t in a gothic movie. I was on a boat. In Scotland. And despite the rolling fog that had come down off the hills and pooled in dark cinematic swirls along the banks of the North Sea, hiding both the land I’d left and the land where I was headed, there was nothing gothic about the bearded Scotsman in front of me.

There was nothing skeletal about him, either.

I swiped at my eyes to clear them, but the bitter wind drew fresh tears. It was obvious looking at the Scotsman that he’d spent his lifetime out on these waters. His cheeks were weathered red from the sting of cold salt air whipping across the deck of the ferry and his words disappeared into a laugh that betrayed a lifetime of whiskey and cigarettes.

I wrapped my arms around myself, bracing against the wind and wishing I had the winter coat I’d packed when I left Los Angeles. The Scotsman was wearing one of those beautiful, warm fisherman’s sweaters—the ones that are probably knitted using wool spun from the sheep outside the house. The ones you don’t need in Southern California—but that you absolutely need here. I’d have to buy one tomorrow.

Now, I just wanted to get to where I needed to go. I was tired. And I wanted a bed. I’d always been a terrible traveler, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept.

The man stared at me, expecting an answer. His eyes gleamed nearly silver in the strange light of dusk and the bleak, gray sea, and I realized that I’d forgotten what he said. “I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head, “I didn’t—”

“I said, you’re headed for the castle.”

I nodded, feeling numb. At least there was good news in that he’d confirmed there would be a castle at the end of this trip.

At least that hadn’t been a lie.

“I’m Charlie.” He extended one hand, the size of a Christmas ham, and added, “Charlie MacLaron. And you’re Emily.”

My hand stilled inside his massive grip.

“How did you know that?” I mean, this might be quiet Scotland, and this guy might be wearing a sweater no doubt knitted by his loving wife, but it didn’t mean a girl shouldn’t be careful.

He grinned then, revealing a gold-capped tooth. “Few make it all this way on their own,” he said, as though it explained everything. “I’ve been keeping an eye out for you.”

I suppose it made sense. The key and the deed to the castle had been left for me a few days earlier, and while I didn’t know much about castles or land, I did know that it wasn’t every day a waitress living paycheck to paycheck was given a castle on an island halfway around the world. Add to it the fact that this place didn’t seem to be a booming, bustling metropolis, and I should expect a fair amount of curiosity and gossip.

The wind blew again, harder than before, bitterly cold, knocking me off balance, toward him. Charlie laughed, reaching out to steady me, and said, “Don’t have legs for the boat yet? You’ll get them. There’s plenty of time.”

I shoved my purse high on my shoulder. “How long is the ride?”

His eyes lit up. “As long as it takes, lassie.”

I faked a smile and looked away. Now was not the time to tell my new neighbor he was more frustrating than funny. I wrapped my arms around myself once more, trying to rub feeling back into them. “In that case, I really wish I had a coat.” When he didn’t reply, I added, “They lost my luggage.”

“You’ve lost more than that,” he said.

I snapped my attention back to him. “What did you say?”

He was looking out over the prow of the ferry, toward the bank of fog that marked our destination. A wide, blank future. Untouched. Pure.

Paradise.

“I said you’ve lost more than your luggage. You’ve lost your way.”

I have.

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re on a boat in the North Sea with nothing but the clothes on your back and a key to a castle. It’s not exactly ordinary.”

He was right, of course. I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “It was a gift.”

He looked back to the shore. “Was it, now?”

He wasn’t talking about the key or the deed to Castle Anaon, and neither was I. The trip had been a gift. The change. The offer to walk away from everything I was. Everything I had.

Which wasn’t much.

Which was nothing.

And the day it all came to a head and I realized that I had nothing—that I was in danger of becoming nothing—everything had changed.

My grandmother used to have a silly saying about doors and windows. I always thought it was the kind of thing that poor women said to keep hope alive. But in that moment, as I’d stared down at the old, weathered piece of paper and the large brass key on the linoleum countertop at Sal’s Truck Stop Café—which was neither a truck stop nor a café nor owned by someone named Sal—I’d heard that stupid saying whispering in my ear.

A castle.

Escape.

“What are you running from?” Charlie said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

The question made it seem like I was on the lam—like I’d done something terrible. Which I supposed I had. Wanted too much. Loved too hard. Let myself believe that happily ever after was real.

After I’d been punished for it, a stranger had marched right into Sal’s Truck Stop Café and opened a window. One that looked out onto the mist-covered banks of the North Sea.

So here I was—to start over. To try again. To be reborn.

Somehow, Charlie’s question still hung in the air. What are you running from?

Trust. Love.

I finally settled on, “Truth.”

“Sounds like something that you run toward.”

I smiled. “Maybe I’m doing that, too.”

“Well, if you’re to find it, then here’s where it’ll be.”

The Scots loved their Scotland, that much was true. I reached into my pocket, fingering the heavy brass key that now seemed like the only thing that hadn’t been left or lost on this long, unyielding journey. “I hope so.”

The ship lurched at the words, giving a great, heaving groan and sending me to one knee as Charlie cursed. “It always shocks the hell out of me, that,” he said, helping me up.

When I was on my feet again, I asked, “What happened?”

“We’ve run aground. The tides are never where they should be on this side.”

It occurred to me that tides are regular as . . . well, tides . . . and that ferries have schedules, but it seemed not the appropriate time to question the ferryman’s knowledge of his trade.

“We’re here?” I looked past him to the shoreline, where the fog was thick enough to shield everything but the dock.

“Aye, you’re here.”

I started forward, getting only a few steps before I turned back to Charlie. “I didn’t pay you.”

He looked at me for a long moment with his strange silver eyes and said, “No, you didn’t.”

“What do I owe you?” I asked, reaching into my pocket and extracting a handful of change, holding it out to him in that way that tourists do when they don’t entirely understand how a new currency works.

I’m not really a tourist now, I had to remind myself. This is my new home.

Home.

There was something in the word. Something that felt at once good and right and strange and desperate.

There was no time to dissect the feelings before Charlie leaned forward and picked through the coins in my hand, extracting two heavy golden pieces. “That’ll do.” He then nodded toward shore. “Up the path to the castle.”

I followed his directions and was halfway down the dock when he called out to me. “Emily!”

I turned back, fog swirling around me, cold and wet and fresh on my skin, to find him peering at me intently. “Yes?”

“Sometimes it’s best for everyone if you don’t look back.”

And then he turned away to tend to his boat and I stood in confused silence trying to understand what he meant. The moment was broken when a large man jostled past me on his way down the dock. I pressed myself against the railing to let him pass, but not before my legs were tangled in the leashes of the trio of Labradors following him toward the ferry.

“Wait!” I called out, not wanting to pitch face-first onto the dock, and not wanting to crush the smallest dog—a sweet-faced black puppy who sat the moment I spoke, staring up at me with the most loyal of faces. “I’m caught in your dogs,” I added, carefully trying to extract myself from the leashes.

The middle dog, full grown and eager, leaped up at me, his massive black paws catching the strap of my purse and pulling it off my shoulder. It fell to the ground, the contents spilling everywhere. The grayed muzzle of the third dog extended to the bag, sniffing at the honeyed almonds I’d packed for the journey. I snatched them away before he could claim his prize and shoved everything back into the bag.

The dogs’ owner didn’t say anything, instead waiting patiently until I was clear of the leashes before turning without a word to board the boat, dogs following along behind him.

“Charming,” I said under my breath, turning back to the dock, which led to a dirt road and, not too far away, a narrow path that disappeared into a thicket of willow trees. It didn’t look inviting.

Few things dark and foreboding ever do.

A sharp shiver of unease sent goose bumps crawling along my spine. Perhaps this entire trip wasn’t a good idea after all. I turned back toward the ferry, intending to ask Charlie to take me back across, but the shore was empty. Only a soft sweep of fog curled against the dock in the boat’s wake—the tide must have risen fast.

The yipping of his passenger’s dogs faded as they began the return journey to the other side of the North Sea.

And, like that, alone on the bank, something felt off. Terribly so. Like I’d forgotten something important.

My sanity, perhaps?

Whatever it was, it was too late now. Charlie had left, which meant I was stuck. Unless I wanted to swim. I took a step toward where the dark water lapped against the shore and was just about to dip my fingers in to test the temperature when I laughed.

I was in Scotland—the very north of Scotland, where it may as well have been the Arctic. There was no way I could swim back to the mainland. If I didn’t die of hypothermia, I’d disappear into the fog never to be seen again.

And if that happened, who would even know I was missing? Charlie? The stranger who’d left me the key?

There was no one else. How could that be?

I had only one option, and it was forward. As Charlie had said, sometimes it’s better to not look back.

Ahead, the path loomed, waiting for me. Tendrils of fog spilled from the sea and seeped into the forest, leading the way like a campy horror set. What did I have to lose?

Nothing.

Everything important, I’d lost a long time ago.

With a sigh I shifted my heavy purse from one shoulder to the other and began walking. The ground underfoot was soggy, and within a few steps my shoes were wet, my toes almost frozen.

I silently added wool socks to the list of supplies I’d need to buy whenever I figured out where the nearest town was. In the distance I heard what sounded like sheep bleating, and I shook my head, fervently hoping I wouldn’t be expected to rely on them for my new attire. I didn’t know how to knit.

The trek through the forest seemed endless, and more than once I feared I was walking in circles. Maybe this was some sort of elaborate prank. Of course I’d already wondered this before—more than once. The moment I’d seen the deed, the first thing I’d asked was, “Is this a joke?”

But then I’d picked up the brass key lying on the countertop, and it had just felt . . . right. Something in my head had whispered, home, and I’d known this was where I needed to go.

And, just like that, the path ended and I found myself on the edge of a mist-shrouded field. Something dark loomed ahead, a shadow through the fog. A sharp wind blew from the forest behind me, carrying with it the moaning sound of poplar trees bending until they ached.

“That’s ominous,” I murmured to myself. And then I had no words because the clouds cleared and I caught my first glimpse of the castle.

I burst out laughing. I’d assumed castle had just been a fancy word for “impressive house.” I’d been expecting something modest—perhaps nothing more than a quaint Scottish cottage.

I’d been wrong.

This thing was one hell of a castle.

A wall of weathered dark stone rose several stories from the ground, all climbing vines and heavy oak doors and thick windows that hid as much as they revealed. The place was immense and looked like it came straight out of a fairy tale, complete with towers and turrets and crenellations.

There was no way this was mine. Things like this didn’t happen in real life—not to people like me.

What else could I do but head for it? I’d come all this way . . . taken all this risk. As I approached the immense wooden door, dotted with heavy iron nails from top to bottom, I pulled the brass key out of my pocket. It had seemed so large in the diner—bigger even than my hand—but now, in comparison to the door and the castle looming above, it was downright tiny.

Holding my breath, I slipped it into the lock and turned. “No. Way,” I muttered when the door swung open. The gray light from outside spilled into the dim interior, revealing a threadbare rug and a tarnished suit of armor propped against the wall.

The castle. Had a suit of armor.

Of course it did.

Suddenly, I felt giddy. Ridiculously so. It was like that first moment you open the door to a hotel room on vacation and you have no idea what lies ahead but you know it’s going to be awesome.

And this castle was so much more than awesome. My jaw dropped when I stepped inside. The ceiling in the front hall was so high it was lost in darkness. The walls were covered in ancient-looking tapestries and dusty paintings of scowling men wearing kilts and brandishing intimidating weapons. On the far side of the room a curved staircase with an elaborately carved banister swept toward the second floor.

I clapped my hands, no longer frozen, no longer wet, no longer hungry, no longer interested in anything but deciding where to explore first, when a dark, booming voice stopped me cold.

“What are you doing in my house?”

My heart exploded, fear making me light-headed. I jumped back, stumbling into an antique side table. The table tipped and crashed to the ground, one of the legs splintering.

I winced as the sound echoed through the house.

A curse came harsh and wicked from the darkness, and out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a shadow moving at the top of the stairs. Coming closer.

A complete stranger.

A male stranger, judging by the voice.

He took his time, moving purposefully, step by step, until I thought my heart would beat from my chest in equal parts panic, terror, and something less ominous—something like desperation.

I glanced around the room, looking for anything I could use to defend myself. My eyes fell on the suit of armor, its hands clutched around an ax. Without thinking, I leaped for it, wrenching it free. It was heavier than I expected, and it took all my strength to face him, brandishing the weapon.

“Don’t come any closer.”

He reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped, just beyond the reach of light from the open door. His shadow spoke. “That ax is four centuries old and designed for someone much stronger than you.”

“I think I can handle it,” I replied with bravado I didn’t feel, even as my muscles protested the heavy weight. He stayed in the darkness. Good. “Now why don’t you tell me what you’re doing in my house?”

He didn’t say anything, but his shadow moved, crouching over a nearby table. Looking for a weapon, probably. I was going to have to duel with this man. Using an ax. And he would no doubt have something more useful. Something portable. And mechanized.

The stink of sulfur rose in the air as he lit a candelabrum there—I watched as flame burst over five tapered candles, all with a single match. I would have singed myself more than once, but his long, graceful fingers didn’t waver in their task. I was transfixed by the play of candlelight over those fingers, and the hands to which they were attached—the rise and hollow of muscle and vein, the strong knuckles and long bones.

And that was all before I got to his face.

Good Lord. He was stunning—all dark hair that looked like thick sable, skin bright and bronzed in the candlelight, and cheeks and jaw and brow strong and powerful like some kind of statue—a Greek god. A Roman athlete.

Except there were things about him that weren’t so perfect: a scar above one eye, long and wicked; a mouth set in a cruel line, like he’d never in his life smiled; and cold, gray eyes filled with weariness. With tragedy.

Why?

No. I wasn’t transfixed. I wouldn’t be transfixed.

He was an intruder. In my house, lighting my candles.

And he must be stopped.

I hefted the ax with renewed vigor. “Are you a squatter?”

One side of his mouth twitched, just barely. “I appear to be standing.”

This wasn’t a joke to me. “I have a key.”

“Where did you get it?”

“I—” Wait. I didn’t have to answer him. “It doesn’t matter, as I also have a deed.”

“I assure you, not to this castle.”

I raised a brow. “No, you’re right of course. To a different castle. Scotland is, I’m sure, overrun with castles just waiting to be inhabited.”

“It is, rather,” he said.

I ignored him. “Look, whoever you are, this is my castle. You’re trespassing.”

“Where is this deed?” He sighed, as though it was he who was put out and not I—exhausted, without my luggage, my only worldly possessions a half-eaten package of almonds, a pocketful of change, and an ax.

“I’d get it for you, but as you can see, my hands are occupied.”

A very heavy ax.

“You can put it down, you know. I don’t plan on attacking you.”

“Would you tell me if you were?”

“Probably not.”

Oddly, his honesty was a comfort. I let the ax fall to my side with a heavy thud. “How long have you been living here?”

“Long enough to know that you shouldn’t be here.” With that, he turned away. Taking the light with him into the dark bowels of the castle, leaving me no choice but to follow, ax trailing behind me, through the massive entryway and down a long, unlit corridor to an enormous library, spanning two huge floors with a balcony of bookshelves that stretched high above us. I caught my breath inside the door.

He turned to face me at the noise. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “What every little girl dreams of.”

He placed the candelabrum on a desk littered with papers and sat in a large wing chair. “You like books.”

In hindsight, I should have been surprised that the words weren’t a question, but there was a fire roaring in the fireplace, and he had already stretched his long legs toward the heat, the wool of his trousers pulling tight over muscled thighs and knees, shielding the tops of his shoes. He wore a fine white linen shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow, collar open to reveal a perfect triangle of skin.

The man was dressed for business and draped in wealth. He was no squatter. “Your deed,” he said, extending one long arm toward me as though saying the words could produce the document.

And they could, apparently, as I was already reaching for my purse. Extracting the paper, I passed it to him. He looked at it, turning it over, inspecting every inch of it before setting it down on his great mahogany desk. My desk. “Where did you get this?”

I inched toward him, dragging the ax along the floor. “I was left the deed and the key.”

His brow furrowed. “An inheritance?”

“Not exactly.” Not at all.

“How, exactly?”

“As a tip.”

His eyes widened, and if I wasn’t mistaken, there was a hint of laughter buried in their depths. “As in, a gratuity? For services rendered?”

It hadn’t seemed so insane until he said it aloud. My cheeks suddenly felt warm. “Yes.”

“For what kind of services?” The question was filled with lascivious curiosity, and warm quickly became hot.

“Not what you’re thinking, I assure you!” I crossed my arms at his disbelieving expression. No wonder this man lived alone in a castle. He was insufferable. “Someone should shave that eyebrow right off your head.”

“That happened to me once,” he said, the smile edging toward fondness. “All right . . . you are not a lady of the evening.”

“I am not.”

“The gratuity, then?”

“I’m a waitress.”

He stilled. “A waitress.”

I nodded.

“And someone gave you a castle.”

“Yes.”

“In exchange for soup.”

I scowled at him. “And a sandwich.”

He let out a big, booming laugh. “Let me guess, a woman wearing red gave it to you.”

“How did you know that?”

“The same way I know she gave you the key.”

Nerves made it easy for me to steel my voice and repeat myself. “How did you know that?”

Instead of answering, he turned away and poured himself a glass of amber liquid from a large crystal decanter on a nearby sideboard. A brief smile played across his lips as he lifted the glass into the air and murmured, “Giving a castle to a waitress as a tip—fairly inventive.”

He downed the scotch and poured himself another, without offering me one. After a sip, he leaned back against the sideboard, swirling the glass lazily in his hand. In the candlelight the scar slashing through his eyebrow appeared stark and severe.

“How did you know that the woman who gave me the key was wearing red?” I said, clenching my hands by my side.

The stranger grinned, but it was not a grin of mirth. His eyes bored into me. “Lucky guess?”

Before I could argue, he cut me off. It was like a switch had been thrown, and whereas before he’d begun to soften, he’d once again turned cold and immovable.

“You should leave here. Now.”

Maybe he was right. But I wasn’t going anywhere. “No.”

He turned on me, gray eyes flashing. “You can’t imagine where you are. What has brought you here. You don’t belong here.”

“You don’t know that,” I said.

“I know you’re lost,” he spat out. “I know you have traveled an immense distance—farther than you’ve ever gone in your life because you’re afraid of where you’ve been and even more afraid of where you are going. And I know it never occurred to you that where you were going might be worse. That here might be worse.”

His words startled me, and I hated him then, this dark, handsome stranger in his stupid gothic castle.

My stupid gothic castle.

He didn’t seem to care, turning away. “You took the last ferry to the coldest, dreariest place in Scotland, Emily—to an isle at the end of the earth—and you thought that you’d find rainbows and faeries on the banks of the North Sea, all because some red-dressed bitch whispered a promise that offered you escape from the life you lived.” He drank, finishing the scotch and setting the glass down next to the castle deed before he added, “Following whispered promises isn’t brave adventure. It’s sheer idiocy.”

For a moment the room was silent. In the distance came the far-off sound of something howling—a dog baying for its master. The sound brought the stranger’s attention back to me, the mask dropped from his face. His eyes glistened with something familiar.

Pain.

“You should leave this place and never come back.”

Cold raced up my spine. “How do you know my name?”

In two steps he was in front of me, his hand held out as though to cup my cheek but his fingers never quite reaching me. “Oh, Emily . . .” he whispered.

Did he think it was a game? That I was a pawn, willing to be maneuvered?

No. I was through being maneuvered. And this man was obviously everything that was wrong in my life. But I had a key and a deed, and if he wanted some fight, he’d get it. I’d get a lawyer. I’d fight for this.

Like I’d never fought before.

“ . . . You fall for it every time.”

The words stung. I wanted to throw something at him. Wanted to clear the desk in a single dramatic gesture, sending his ordered papers and pens to the floor. Wanted to plant the ax that was still in my hand into the center of the heavy mahogany, through deed and blotter and centuries-old wood.

But I didn’t. Instead I lifted my deed from the desk, folded it carefully, placed it into my back pocket, and said, “I’ll take idiocy over isolation any day.”

I stormed from the room, leaving the ax and the man.

I’d just made it to the front door when he caught up with me. “Stop,” he said, as though he’d never had to make a request in his life.

I yanked open the heavy oak and stepped into the rain that had blossomed in the minutes since I’d entered the castle. His hand closed around my arm. “Where are you going?”

Without bothering to answer, I wrenched free and stormed down the path marked by poplars and willows toward the boat landing.

“The ferry won’t be back tonight.”

I kept walking.

“The castle is the only thing on the island!” he called out.

The rain intensified. I turned back. “What?”

He emerged from the fog, inches from me. “The island is all deeded to the castle.”

I blinked. “So you’re the only one here?”

“Yes.”

“Nowhere else to stay?”

“No.”

A gust of icy wind whipped around us, my hair coming loose from its moorings and whipping my face like a harsh, stinging lash. “Where am I supposed to sleep?”

He looked as furious as I felt. “I think the better question is where are you going to sleep.”

“Not with you.”

“I do not recall inviting you.”

I narrowed my gaze. “A good thing, too. I wouldn’t if we were the last two people on earth.”

He leaned in close enough that I could feel the warmth of his breath against my lips. “If I could do so, I would leave you out here to spend the night with the wolves and the rain. Maybe that way, you’d resolve to leave here forever.”

Something lodged in my throat—fear perhaps. Because I didn’t think he was joking. A shiver passed through me at how callous this man could be, if he wanted to.

And I was alone with him. Great.

He turned away and headed back through the fog, which seemed to have thickened in the mere minutes that we’d been outside. The rain began in earnest now, and that’s what pushed me over the edge; I’d trade my pride to be warm and dry. I had to follow the godforsaken man or get lost on this godforsaken island in this godforsaken weather.

What an idiot I was.

Once we were back inside the castle, the door tightly closed, he lifted the candlestick from a nearby table and started up the large winding staircase toward the upper levels.

I didn’t follow, watching him go, taking light and warmth with him, until he spoke again, the heavy, dark words falling down toward me. “Do you want a bed? Or not?”

Like that, I was bone tired, as though the word bed were all it took to make me ache for sleep. It filled me with a desperate desire for rest. For peace. And like a stray animal, I followed him, desperate for the promise in the words, even as I hated myself for giving in to him.

Even as I hated him for having power over me.

For making me need.

I STARED AT the ceiling, my eyes burning from lack of sleep. Wind pummeled against the castle, howling almost as though it were otherworldly. Of course it was storming. As if this night and this place weren’t foreboding enough already. I snuggled deeper under the covers of my bed, but that did nothing to block out the flashes of lightning.

My jaw ached from clenching my teeth, maybe from the storm, maybe from the man . . . but every muscle tense, waiting for the next clap of thunder. For another wave of fury thinking of his words—of his insults. Whispered promises. Silly dreams.

He was keeping me from sleep. He, who claimed the castle belonged to him, and who looked so much like he belonged to it.

He, who’d laughed when I’d told him about the deed and the diner.

He, who hadn’t bothered to tell me his name. Who was rude, inhospitable, brooding. Who’d all but promised he’d rather leave me to the wolves.

He, who had shown me to the room and closed the door, saying nothing. Offering no comfort, no apology.

But those weren’t the things that kept me from sleep. Instead, it was the gray eyes, the square jaw, the wicked scar across his brow. The cords and sinew of his hands and forearms. All things I shouldn’t have noticed.

The sound of my name on his lips.

All things that shouldn’t be keeping me from sleep.

In despair, I crawled from the bed, pulling a warm tartan around my shoulders and heading for the window to look out on Scotland. On this place that had held so much promise. Closed doors. Opened windows. But tomorrow I’d no doubt find myself without a home, without my luggage, and without a way back to L.A.

Not that there was anything waiting there for me anyway.

Why did that suddenly feel like such a betrayal? It wasn’t the stranger’s fault I’d made this choice and walked into what was increasingly seeming like at best a prank and at worst a trap. He owed me nothing.

He owes me everything.

The thought stilled me, my breath catching. I felt my pulse thrumming through my fingers.

It was a ridiculous thought.

Thunder crashed, loud and close, like hell itself was just beyond the castle battlements. Needing to distract myself, I moved to the window and pushed aside the curtain. Rain washed against the mottled glass, wind howling through unseen holes in the walls. The room felt colder, and I pulled the tartan closer, willing the wool to keep me warm. Failing.

Just as I was turning back to the bed, lightning streaked across the sky, and everything outside shone as though lit by the sun. Wild, wide fields rolled toward the forest beyond, the willows there a twisted tangle.

Darkness fell again, the landscape burned against my eyes, and it was only then—in the ghost of the image—that I realized I’d seen something moving outside.

More than something.

A sick feeling crawled up the back up my throat.

You’re imagining things, I told myself. I was exhausted from lack of sleep and the feeling that I’d been traveling forever.

I tried to force myself back to bed, but I couldn’t move. Thunder rolled, hitting the castle with a physical force that vibrated through my body like an earthquake. But there was another noise too. Something creaking. I’d heard it before in the forest, the wind bending the trees, but now the sound was too close.

My hands shook as I reached to check the latch on the window. As soon as my fingers fumbled on the lock, lightning struck again. The world turned bright. I immediately wished for darkness.

Dogs everywhere. Not just dogs. Massive black beasts, their coats darker than midnight of a new moon and their eyes a glowing red that sought me out. As the storm gathered strength and the ground shook, the demented-looking dogs spilled from the forest and slunk toward the castle.

And then a woman appeared, stepping from the fold of trees. For the barest moment I wanted to shout a warning, but as she passed through the hounds she traced her fingers over their backs and none moved to attack her.

She stopped in the middle of the field and looked up toward my window. As one, the hounds threw back their heads and let loose their tormented howls. I could hear them through the walls.

And in the sound I heard my name.

I recoiled and the window blew open. Lightning continued to streak across the sky, illuminating the world like a strobe light that echoed the wild pattern of my heart. I recognized the woman and the red of her cloak.

She was leading the creatures closer. They were coming for me. There were no barriers between us anymore.

Only an open window.

I let the scream come, a single word—the only one I knew. “Owen!”

I WOKE SOAKING wet and cradled in his arms. He whispered into my hair, over and over, the words soft and nonsensical, and rocked me, wrapped strong and solid and safe around me, one hand stroking the hair from my face, and for a moment, I allowed myself to sink into the solid comfort of him. The warmth of him. The way he smelled of rain and ruin and truth.

Owen.

At the memory of the name, I scrambled from his lap, hating the way I went cold at the loss of his touch. I wrapped my arms across my chest. “What are you doing here?”

A hint of hesitation crossed his face. “You had a nightmare.”

I glanced toward the window, now closed, the only sign of the storm the still-damp floor. Tentatively, I crossed the room and peered outside. Though the moon was new and the sky mostly black, the rain had eased enough that I could see the grounds below. Nothing.

Normal.

No woman. No hounds.

But it had all felt so desperately real. I shivered. There had been more to the dream—something that had come before, but the harder I tried to remember, the more it slipped from my grasp.

I stared back at Owen. Shook my head. Not his name. He hadn’t told me his name.

Even though he knew mine.

The dream—it had something to do with him. Something wonderful and sad at once. I recalled feeling betrayed, but had that been in the dream? Or had it come when I was still awake?

“What are you looking for?” He gestured toward the window.

“I thought I saw . . .” I began, but stopped. Why should he care about my dreams?

He never had before.

“What did you see?” he pressed.

He would laugh, but I couldn’t stop myself. The words were a whisper. Like they had come from the trees. “There were these horrible beasts—some kind of dog. They were led by a woman wearing red.” I paused, swallowing. “The one who gave me the key.”

He didn’t laugh.

He stood then. Came toward me. I stiffened before he could reach me and give us both what we wanted. He stopped inches away, warmth pouring from him, a promise. Something had happened in the night. Something had brought us to this moment.

Somehow, I knew him.

I shook my head. “How did I know your name?”

He stepped closer, nearly touching. Not touching.

Owen.

“Because you’re remembering, Emily.” He said my name like he’d said it a hundred times before. A thousand.

We stared at each other, he the only anchor in a spinning world.

“Have we met before?” I asked, hoping there would be an easy explanation. “In L.A.? Somewhere else?”

Silence.

“You should change out of your wet clothes,” he murmured. “I’ll make tea.”

And then he left.

I FOUND A thick cashmere robe in the closet along with a pair of shearling slippers and headed for the kitchen with my heart pounding in my chest. I knew the way through the castle, the turns through the twisting corridors familiar, natural, like I’d been navigating the halls for a lifetime. For longer.

When I stepped into the warm glow of the kitchen to find Owen at the stove, it was all so . . . simple. Safe.

And then he turned to me, his gray eyes serious as they scanned my body, lighting with something at once familiar and foreign, and I didn’t feel safe anymore. I felt naked. I tugged the sash tighter, ran a hand through my tangled hair, nervous.

His.

Where had that come from? We’d only just met . . . we’d never . . .

But somehow, we had.

He was staring at me, knowledge in the hint of a smile curling the corners of his mouth. His feet were bare, and the waist of his gray wool trousers hung low on his hips. I imagined slipping a finger into his pocket and dragging him closer, pressing my face to the warm hollow of his neck. Breathing him in. Turning my face up to his.

I knew how he would taste.

My stomach flooded with warmth.

But my spinning mind was still uneasy.

On the stove a teakettle screamed, breaking the moment. I didn’t know what question to ask—each one I formulated seemed too preposterous to force past my lips. He didn’t seem to be quite ready to volunteer any information, and for a while we went about the kitchen in silence, wary. I pulled down the mugs and set out a plate of cookies. He snatched the empty cookie bag from me and tipped it over my tea, tapping in a handful of crumbs.

I gasped at the gesture, and his gaze snapped to meet mine. A flush colored his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he said, reaching to clear the mug. I stopped him, my hand on his arm.

“How did you know?” I whispered.

“You crumble cookies in your tea.”

Without my realizing it, we’d spent the past few minutes in a sort of dance, moving around each other in the kitchen as though we’d lived out this pattern a thousand times before. Kettles and stoves and cream and biscuits.

He’d told me I was remembering, but remembering what?

I met his eyes. “How do we know each other?” Images raced through my head, and I began to pace. “How do I know that you love blackberry tarts? That you shave with a straight razor? That you like Shelley?” Poetry came to me like lightning. “He does no longer sit upon his throne of rock upon a desert herbless plain.” He closed his eyes at the words. “You’ve recited it.” I put my hand to the scarred oak worktable in the center of the kitchen. “Here.”

With me.

My heart ached with the memory. With the words, full of promise, full of hope, full of happiness. With the loss of them. I looked to him. “But how?”

He was close enough to touch now, big and broad, blocking out the world as he lifted his hand and touched my face, running the tips of those strong, remarkable fingers over my cheek and down my jaw, taking me in hand. Tilting me toward him.

I was gone, lost in his gray gaze, filled with time and truth and heat and something more . . . something I didn’t dare identify.

I felt it too.

When he kissed me, I was home.

There was nothing tentative about the kiss; it was filled with knowledge of where we’d been, of what we liked, of how we fit. It was touch and breath and heat, his arms around me, my hands in his hair, and I was robbed of all thoughts save one—

This was truth.

This moment was all I’d ever wanted. All I’d lived for. This was the promise for which I’d come. This man. This place.

He broke the kiss, trailing his lips across my cheek to my ear, his breath warm and harsh there, my name coming in dark, liquid syllables, a benediction. A curse.

“Emily,” he whispered, his strong, warm, remarkable hand stroking down my neck, beneath the collar of my robe, setting me on fire with sound and scent and touch until I couldn’t bear it anymore.

I gasped and pulled back. “How do I know you? Know this? I don’t understand.” But I did understand that I had never in my life wanted anything the way I wanted this man.

He knew it, one side of his lips lifting in a wicked smile before he took my mouth again, claiming me with softness and strength before he lifted his head, leaving us both breathing heavily.

He pressed his forehead to mine and spoke, the words low and desperate. “All you need to know—all you ever need to remember—is that I love you.”

I DIDN’T KNOW how to respond.

I love you, too.

But that couldn’t be. He was a stranger. I needed distance, and so I retreated, putting the table between us. I tried to stay calm, but my emotions ran too hot, everything in my head too bright. My question came out rushed. “Who are you?”

He took a deep breath, grasping the back of his neck with his hand.

And then a murky memory invaded my thoughts, turning the blood heavy in my veins. I ran from the room, Owen chasing after me, calling for me to wait as I tore through the castle, finding my way through the maze of corridors with ease.

I stopped in his office, panting, and heard Owen’s steps slow as he approached me. His breath caught as he slipped his fingers into mine, giving comfort. Taking it.

“It’s you,” I whispered. The painting was ancient and larger than the rest, the color dulled with dust and age—two hundred years old—but the image was still clear. A man in hunting plaid, surrounded by poplar trees, Anaon in the background. He carried a rifle in one hand and a gray-muzzled black Lab sat by his side, a pheasant at his feet. Gray eyes. Strong jaw. One side of his mouth twisted in a tiny, almost imperceptible smile.

One I loved.

I faced him and touched my finger to where a scar slashed through his eyebrow. It was the same as in the painting. Every detail exact.

He’s a ghost.

The thought entered my mind like a whisper and then turned into a shout.

I shook my head.

Normal people don’t think this way, I reminded myself. My life wasn’t a gothic novel, no matter how many times I’d read Wuthering Heights and dreamed my way into Heathcliff’s arms.

“What’s happening?” I asked him, dreading the answer.

“How much do you remember?”

I shook my head, ready to say “nothing,” but then I realized that wasn’t true.

“Do you remember that each time you come to me with a different story? An art student wanting to catalog the castle’s paintings. A hotelier hoping to find the perfect spot for a bed-and-breakfast . . . you’ve inherited from a long-lost cousin . . . you were given the key as a tip.” He laughed, the sound harsh and unamused. “Once you came to me as a horticulture specialist looking into a new species of poplar.”

My brow furrowed.

“She has a terrible sense of humor. They all do. Sometimes you remember who you really are late into the night and sometimes you never do.” His voice deepened. “And sometimes you remember early in the evening, like now.”

I glanced around the study, gasping when my eyes landed on his massive desk. I walked over to it, spread my hands across the surface. “You’ve made love to me here.” My cheeks burned red before the words left my mouth. “A dozen times.”

“A hundred.” He came up behind me, pulling my back against his chest. “I’ve made love to you everywhere in this castle, Emily,” he whispered in my ear. If his arms hadn’t been crossed around me, I’d have fallen. Not just from the words, but from the memories.

I nodded, the ache in my chest almost unbearable.

He spun me then, lifting me onto the desk and stepping between my legs. His lips took mine in a frustrated, furious kiss—one I gave in to without question.

After a long moment, he pulled me tight to him, as though he could hold me fast enough to keep the world at bay. The world—or whatever else was out there. “This castle is darkness,” he spoke to the top of my head, with barely there sound. “You are light.”

I clung to him, hating the words. The pain. The weariness. “This castle is a curse, Emily.” His breath was hot against my neck, sweet in my ear. “And you are my savior.”

My heart pounded, blood roared, and as he spoke, the memories tumbled through me.

He took my hand and placed it to his chest, at his heart. His gaze was hot, fierce. “We’ve been here before. Done all of this before.” His fingertips curled into my hair, desperate. “Every evening you come to me, and every morning you leave.”

No. Impossible.

He was everywhere: the smell of him, the feel of him, the taste of him, and I shook my head, desperate to clear my thoughts. To find reason. Logic.

None would be found, but I knew one thing. “I could never leave you. Not here.” Not to this. Memories surged around me: Owen leading me up the staircase, Owen lowering me to his bed, Owen leaning over me, deliciously playful, then deliciously serious.

Night after night.

Again and again.

First pleasure beyond my wildest dreams, then anguish, so powerful that it took the breath from me. “Why?” The word was so simple, and yet I feared the answer wouldn’t be easy. For a hush of a heartbeat, I thought I heard howling in the distance. I shuddered.

Owen pulled away from me, the answer on his face. He knelt in front of the fireplace, stoking the fire until it roared. “I’m not a good man, Emily,” he said, “and every day . . . you realize it. And you leave.”

His eyes were fixed on the flames. “You leave the way you did when I was alive.”

I didn’t want to believe it. But how else could I explain why I knew his name? How I knew the corridors of this place as though I’d lived here before? How else could I explain the way I felt in his arms? That I would give up everything to be near him?

“How?”

He wrapped his arms around me and buried his head in the crook of my neck. “All I know is that it is always dark and gray and cold. And when you arrive, you bring a taste of the sun with you.”

All those years of loneliness . . . a lifetime of emptiness, and here, now, with him . . .

Home.

His eyes shone when he looked back up at me, his lips against mine in fevered, frenzied kisses, as though we were running out of time.

“Please, Emily . . .” His words broke and my tears spilled over, and I was filled with the fear and desperation pouring from him. “Don’t leave me. Not again. Not this time.”

Or maybe it was me talking. Maybe it was me, my lips against his, and the words, “I love you. Please, don’t let me go.”

Or maybe it was both of us.

I COULD HEAR his heartbeat as we lay together, and it occurred to me that ghosts shouldn’t have heartbeats. Nor should their skin feel warm on sturdy bone and threaded muscle. Nor should they bring the kind of deep, undeniable comfort that he brought.

We were wrapped in a hunting plaid I remembered from other places—stunning green and black in his portrait, and on the bed in which I started the night, and draped across a chair in the library. It was warm enough beneath the tightly woven wool for us to spread out across the mammoth bed, but we remained tangled together, a mass of breath and limb, of stroking fingers and teasing hands.

He was reciting Shelley again, the words tumbling in rhythmic beats beneath my ear. I have drunken deep of joy, and I will taste no other wine tonight.

I laughed as he rolled me to my back with a nip at my jaw and another at my ear, “The man was mad; I fully intend to have another taste,” and sighed at the pleasure that pooled deep in me at the words, as though the joy of which Shelley wrote and that Owen felt could not help but find egress through me, like a raven into the dark sky.

I froze, hating the thought. Not a raven. Not anything so ominous.

With a shiver I remembered the earlier storm, the monstrous hounds crawling across the fields for us. The woman in red leading them, her mouth a gleaming slash in her face.

Owen had promised me it was a nightmare. But for a moment I thought I could hear them again in the wind outside. The sound of them howling. Coming for us.

For me.

Owen sensed the change in me, lifting his head, worry furrowing his brow. “Emily?”

I swallowed around a heavy weight in my throat. “How did we get here?”

He smiled, the expression lopsided, making him look younger. More dear. “Well, first, I removed that robe . . .”

I laughed, but not for long before the tears came, quick and painful. “Stop. How did this happen?” I paused, one tear welling over, falling back into my hair before he could stop it, and then I whispered, “What did we do to deserve this?”

He kissed me then, as the answer came. As though he could make the truth disappear along with fear and disappointment and devastation . . . and betrayal.

I gasped against his lips. Betrayal.

“You lied to me.”

He looked away.

I kept talking. “Every night. We do this.”

“We love.”

Love. Love and distance. Love and fear. Love and sadness. Love and betrayal. “And every day, I leave.”

I could see the pain in his beautiful eyes—those eyes the color of the sea I cross every day. “Every day.”

“Every day I remember.” And I did remember. I remembered all of it, suddenly, and he knew it. He saw the memories come and he rushed to stop them. To explain them. Like he had a thousand times before.

“I neglected you.” His voice cracked. “I ignored your pain, your sadness, in part because I did not know how to chase it away and in part because I was terrified of what it would do to me.”

The words hurt. They hurt as much as the memories that came with him. The nights alone, aching for him. The days of wanting him. The way I had to stand by and watch him become less and less of the man I’d loved . . . more and more of the man I married.

The way he’d changed.

The way I had.

And then, the night I’d left, tired and angry and filled with sorrow and unwilling to go another moment here, in this house with this shadow of a man who resisted love and passion. Unwilling to live without it.

Unwilling to ask him for it.

I’d left. And he’d died.

And I had vowed to forget him.

Since then . . . years . . . centuries . . . we’ve danced this dance. Given what we thought we wanted. Every night: me, alone in a changing world without memory; him, alone in an unchanging one, remembering everything. Filled with regret.

How we were both filled with regret.

And then, after we’ve finally found each other and seen the mistakes we made—

“I leave. And I forget you. I forget the truth.”

That I hate him. That I love him.

“But I never forget you,” he said, and pain seeped through me like dye cast in the ocean, infecting every drop. “I never forget what I’ve done. I never stop regretting that I did not cherish you. I never forget what I feel.”

“What do you feel?”

He leaned back against the massive pillows on the bed, the tartan baring him to the waist, revealing a wicked scar crossing his chest from shoulder to hip. The wound that killed him. The wound that took him from me.

The wound that brought him back.

I reached out to touch it, and he caught my fingers, bringing them to his lips. Kissing their tips. “I feel the moments we have missed. The eternity we have been apart. I feel the way I long for you when you aren’t here.”

He punctuated the sentences with soft, lush kisses. And, finally, he said, “I feel the way you ache for me when you leave.”

The words were the worst possible blow. We had lost everything but the memory of what might have been and lived in a place where everything was gray and we were so alone.

Each lost in the mist without the other.

And yet . . . “I would live this night again and again—forever—if it was all I had of you,” I told him.

“No,” he said. “No more,” he whispered at my temple, holding me in strong, steel arms that seemed able to keep everything at bay. “Not again.”

“Of course again,” I said, refusing this words. “This is how we have each other.”

“But, Emily, you can have so much more . . . the other side . . . away from this dark place and its hounds and its wickedness . . . you can have it.”

He lifted my lips to his, kissing me again, as though the caress could force me to understand. To choose. To leave him.

As if it didn’t make me want to stay forever.

I pulled away. “I don’t want it. Whatever it is. I want you.”

He cursed, soft and sweet in the waning candlelight. “This is my hell, not yours. They were my sins, never yours. You deserve paradise.”

I shook my head. “You always thought I was the perfect one.”

He pulled me to him, holding me as tightly as he ever had, strong arms, harsh breath, fierce love. “You are perfect.”

But I wasn’t. I was as imperfect as he was. Blessedly so.

And because of that I did not have paradise.

I had him.

“I WON’T LEAVE you,” I said, eager to start again. To throw open the sash and toss ourselves through. “Not again.”

Outside the sky was turning a dishwater gray as the sun struggled to rise. Inside, Owen and I lay tangled in the sheets of his massive bed. He traced a finger down my neck, along my collarbone, over my ribs. His lips followed in the wake of his caress, stilling at the hollow above my hip, his words like a prayer there. “Please, Emily, I beg you. Please leave.”

The words stung. Lacerated. Demolished. “You want me to leave?”

“Don’t you understand? This is agony. Every minute with you is unmatched pleasure and unbearable pain because I know that you shall leave, and I shall be alone again, weeping for your loss, aching for you. Desperate for more than a handful of hours. For a lifetime. For an eternity where we don’t have to worry about time or torture or hell.”

He looked to me, eyes full of anger. “And every day I know it will happen again. You will come and I will love you and I will lose you. And perhaps I could face it, if it weren’t for you. If I did not know that you, too, ache. If every bright memory were not clouded over with the memory of your tears day after day. Tears I have caused.” His voice wavered, more breath than sound. “It’s been this way for centuries, Emily. And I am so tired.”

A tear trailed down my cheek, and he pressed his lips to it.

“I don’t want you to suffer.”

At my words he left the bed, paced across the room before coming to kneel by me, my legs now dangling over the edge. He gripped my knees with his hands, dropping a kiss onto each of my thighs before saying, “That’s the torture of it. Not my own pain—but the pain I cause you. Every morning I break your heart and I can’t . . .”

His voice cracked and he squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his lips together. His entire body was quivering. When he finally looked up at me, his eyes were bright, anguished. “I can’t keep hurting you like that. Please. Please, you have to end it.”

I slid from the bed until I, too, was on my knees.

“Why can’t I just stay here, like this?” I asked him. “Never leave, never go to the dock, never get on the ferry?”

He shook his head. “We’ve tried that before. Hundreds of times. The woman in red always comes for you with her hounds and drags you away screaming.” His thumb traced circles at the base of my throat. “We’ve tried resisting, we’ve tried tricking and outsmarting. We’ve tried it all so many times that I’ve lost count. And the end is always the same.”

A sad smile played across his lips. “Every morning I beg you to leave me and never look back, but you always do. But please, Emily, please, this once . . . step onto that boat and stare only into the fog. Don’t look back. This island is a curse—a hell that imprisons both of us. Across the water is paradise—it’s love and light and everything you deserve.”

“Except for you,” I whispered.

He dropped his gaze. “I bring you nothing but misery. That’s all I’ve ever brought you.”

I cupped my hand under his chin and raised his head until he met my eyes. “Not now. Now, you are paradise.”

His lips found mine, desperate and yearning. He trailed kisses across my jaw, down my neck, across my collarbone. His hands dug into my back, pulling me closer as if he could somehow make us one being.

Around us, the morning light grew stronger, and I heard the trace of a dog’s howl in the distance. Owen stilled, his muscles going tense. “I love you,” I said, wishing I’d said it in life. When it might have changed this.

There were tears in his eyes when he pulled away, stood, and helped me to my feet. He thrust my clothes from last night into my hands. “If you truly love me, Emily, please, board the boat and don’t look back; it’s the only way for you to be happy.”

“And what of your happiness?”

“My happiness means nothing if it comes at the cost of yours.” He paused, the words catching in his throat. In mine. “I should have seen that in life.”

Sadness coursed through me. Regret. Anger.

Fear.

Outside, the hounds gathered.

OWEN WAITED FOR me just outside the front door. Fog lay heavy on the ground, but it wasn’t thick enough to block out the glow of the eyes of the hounds standing near the edge of the forest. Their breath turned to cloud in the chill morning air, and I could almost smell their rancid stench from where I stood.

I latched onto Owen’s arm, and he slipped his fingers through mine. “They won’t bother us. They’re here to make sure we go.”

True to his word, we followed the path into the tangle of trees without incident. The hounds kept their distance, shadowing us through the damp forest.

I’d remembered the hike to the castle as being long and arduous, but on our return we found the shore too quickly. Already the boat was there, bobbing at the end of the dock. The man I’d seen before—the one with the three Labs—stood to the side and he tipped his hat when I glanced at him. Next to him stood the woman in red. Hounds paced behind her, anxious and ready.

I hesitated, and one of the dogs bristled, taking a step toward us. The woman in red stopped him with a hand on his head, a smile in her cold, black gaze. She was enjoying our torture—the prolonged pain of our endless good-bye. I wanted nothing more than to run at her and gouge her eyes out.

But I knew Owen was right. That would solve nothing. It would merely rob me of these last moments with the man I loved.

Owen faced me, his hand cupping my cheek. In his eyes I could easily see the question: Would I leave him? Would I stop this agonizing cycle?

I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know.

The pain in him was overwhelming, and my heart ached with it. His anguish was more devastating than anything I had ever experienced—this moment worse than I could endure. But when I stepped onto that boat, it would vanish. I’d forget. I’d heal.

But he wouldn’t.

And if I looked back, I was dooming him to another morning of torture. A day of agony. So I could see him again. So I could touch and taste him and feel his hands on my body.

“Leave me.” Owen’s mouth pressed against my own; his tears salted our lips. “Save yourself from this nightmare. Please . . .”

It was his last request . . . that I leave him here, to this hell. To the fog and the gray and the hounds.

I stepped back and took my last look at him, my chest tight, tears stinging my eyes and closing my throat. How could I leave this man? Our love? How could I accept an eternity without him?

What was heaven without him?

I turned and began the long walk down the dock. Charlie waited for me at the other end, his hand held out to bring me aboard.

And this pain was nothing compared to what Owen suffered each day, compounded. His hell grew worse every time I arrived.

I was the instrument of his torture.

I had to leave him.

The tears came as I slipped my hand into Charlie’s, feeling his strength in opposition to my weak knees, my trembling body. I lifted a foot and placed it onto the boat and I took a deep breath.

Behind me I could feel Owen waiting. Wanting.

He wanted to save me. But he didn’t understand that the only time I was saved was in his arms. That he could never save me by pushing me away.

My heart screamed against my ribs, wind off the sea stinging my face.

I knew I was being selfish. I was dooming him again, as I had every day before.

But I couldn’t let him go.

When I turned back, Owen was on his knees. Behind him, the man with the dogs stood next to the woman in red: his face streaked with tears, hers awash in triumph.

But it was Owen I cared about, Owen I needed to see, and in his eyes I saw it all: the agony and the elation. Devastated that I would not leave him, even as he rejoiced that tonight, I would return.

That he would have another chance to beg me to leave. That I would have another night wrapped in his arms.

In our twisted paradise.

Owen’s lips moved and even though I couldn’t hear him, I knew it was the word he said each morning. Every time. “Farewell.”

And then he was drowned by the fog.

I stood alone in the gray, surrounded by cloud. My throat burned and eyes watered as the frigid wind snapped at my face. I’d never felt emptier in my life.

Behind me a voice sounded, all smoke and whiskey. “You’re headed for the castle.”

I turned, startled. I’d been lost in my thoughts, though what they were I couldn’t remember. I shook my head, trying to clear it.

“I’m Charlie.” He extended one hand, the size of a tree trunk, and added, “And you’re Emily.”