It was clear to Serafina by the keen look in Mr. Vanderbilt’s eye that he had figured out that something significant had occurred while he was gone. Mr. Vanderbilt knew she had been the one who found the missing children a few months back, and that she’d helped rescue Cedric and Gidean from the cages up in the pine forest. Now that he’d returned from his trip, she was pretty sure that he had noticed the strange scratches on the windowsill above the Banquet Hall and the tears in the room’s Flemish tapestry.
“Well, for my part,” Mr. Vanderbilt said finally, “I’m just glad that you’re back, Serafina. Your home is here with us at Biltmore. And I must say, I feel that Biltmore is a safer place for it.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said, nodding slowly to him. “I truly appreciate it. I was gone for far too long, but in my heart, it felt like I never left you and Mrs. Vanderbilt and Braeden.”
Later that night, Serafina and Braeden walked up the Grand Staircase to the fourth floor and then into the Observatory. From there they climbed the circular wrought-iron staircase to the room’s upper level, opened the window, and climbed out onto the roof.
Serafina remained quiet as they walked in the moonlight past the copper dome of the Grand Staircase, among the mansion’s tallest towers and slanted slate rooftops, its many reaching chimneys, and its carved stone gargoyles of mythical beasts.
“Do you think we’ve actually defeated him for good, Serafina?” Braeden asked her. “Is it truly all over?”
“Yes, I think it is,” Serafina said, nodding. “But you and I are both the Guardians of Biltmore now, the protectors of this house, its people, and the forest all around, so we must keep a watchful eye and stay ready for whatever danger comes.”
“Do you think there’s other evil out there?”
“I’m sure there is,” she said.
“But what will it be? What form will it take?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But whatever it is, we’ll face it together.”
She and Braeden sat on the rooftop to enjoy the warm evening with its graceful breeze rolling through the tops of the trees. She could feel it lifting her long hair and gently touching the skin of her neck. She thought about the wind and earth and water. For a little while, she had caught a glimpse into the movement and flow of the world, and the power of her own soul, and she looked forward to learning more about what she could do.
They gazed across the sweeping lawns, and the gently flowering gardens, and the deep forests that surrounded the house, with the glass of the Conservatory below them glinting in the moonlight and the glow of the house’s lights touching everything around. They looked out across the darkened canopy of the trees and the layers of rolling mountains in the distance, with the glistening sweep of the glowing stars and planets rising above.
Suddenly, she remembered a moment from the previous autumn. It seemed so long ago now. She was just a lonely little girl, so small and quiet, standing in the basement at the bottom of the stairs listening to the crowd of fancy folk above, wondering whether she should go up there and tell them that she had seen a girl in a yellow dress get captured by a sinister man in a black cloak.
She remembered that all she wanted to do at that moment was to help.
From that very first moment, with her looking up at that stairway that led from the darkness of the basement to the brightness of the world above, all she wanted to do was to be part of something. That was all she ever wanted, not just to see, but to be seen. Not just to hear, but to be heard. Not just to feel, but to be felt by other people, to touch them, affect them in some way, to make their lives different, and to be made different by them. And here, on this night, at this moment, on this rooftop, she knew that time had finally come.
She remembered how it felt when her soul was split from the rest of her, when she was but a lost spirit wandering the living world, but never truly touching it, never truly feeling it or engaging with it.
And she thought back to the conversation she’d had with her pa, that many things changed over time, always becoming something new and always becoming something old. She realized now that the physical things were always changing. Even we ourselves change, learning and growing, getting pulled down and then rebuilding ourselves again.
But for all that, there was a rare and hidden thing, maybe the most important thing, that never changed, and that was the spirit deep inside us, the thing we were when we were a child, and the thing we were when we grow up, the thing we are when we’re at home, and the thing we are when we go out into the world—it’s always with us—that inner spirit stays with us through it all, no matter how our body changes from year to year or how the world changes around us.
And through all of this, there is one thing we seek. To be connected to the people around us, to touch and be touched, to have a true family and friends of all kinds with which we share the world and its changes. Like our own spirit within us, our family is the hidden, inner core that deep down never changes, the river that is always flowing.
She turned and looked at Braeden. She studied his face, his hair, his eyes, the way he gazed off into the distant forest.
Her heart began to beat strong and steady in her chest.
Her hand began to tremble.
Then she slowly reached over and put her hand on his.
She felt the warmth of it, the living pulse of it, the soft skin and the bones beneath. This was her ally, her friend, the boy she fought her battles with.
Braeden turned and looked at her, somewhat surprised.
Nervous, she felt like she needed to give him a little bit of an explanation of why she had touched him in this way.
Thinking back on everything they had been through, she said, “I just wanted to make sure that I was truly here.”
Braeden smiled, understanding.
“You are,” he said. “We both are.”
Thank you for reading this third book in the Serafina series. I hope you enjoyed it. This concludes the story of the conjurer Uriah and the Black Cloak, but it is not the last you’ll hear from me, or from Serafina and Braeden.
Disney Hyperion will be publishing my next book, which is called Willa of the Wood. This next story takes place in Serafina’s world in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but is focused on a new character named Willa, a twelve-year-old forest girl with special powers that I think you’re going to like. In the future, Willa’s story will blend and intermingle with Serafina and Braeden’s story. I hope you’ll join us for these future books.