“So, what now?” I asked. “You fill me in on your dastardly plan, because you’re obviously a genius and I don’t stand a chance of defeating you, even if you spell it out?”
“I’m not foolish, young woman. I have no intention of telling you anything.”
Wren pulled her hand from mine. “He’s going to use the energy from the concert and the fact that it’s All Hallows’ Eve to fully cross over into this world, where he’ll finally take revenge on Emily and Alys by destroying you and me, Nan, Mom, Dad and everyone in that line. And then he’ll set the ghosts of Haven Crest free, and once he’s harnessed the power of the buildings and the land, and all its dead, he’ll make certain that any living person who sets foot on those grounds never leaves.”
Noah glared at her. I watched as my sister smiled as smugly as he had just a moment before. She bent down so her face was right beside mine. “You infected me with your corruption to make certain I’d return to you, but you didn’t realize just how strong that connection would be? Oh, my dear Noah—who’s the ignorant one now?”
Noah’s expression turned as hard and cold as stone. His gaze locked with mine. “Return her to me, breather. Or she’ll only get worse, until she’s nothing more than a mindless wraith.”
“You have the power to stop him!” Emily cried. “The two of you together—”
They were gone, and I was left staring at myself and Wren in the mirror. My sister slumped to the floor, great sobs racking her body. I slid from my chair to the carpet beside her, pulling her close as I wrapped my arms around her. She might be a being of pure energy, but she was flesh and bone to me, and her tears soaked the shoulder of my shirt. I didn’t need to ask her what was wrong. Any girl who had ever had her heart broken would recognize those sobs.
When she finally quieted, she lifted her head. The sight of all those black veins jarred me again—I’d forgotten about them somehow. Her eyes were red, but that was better than the black I’d seen lately.
“He’s right,” she said with a sniff. “I have to go back to him.”
I shook my head. “No freaking way.”
“Lark, if I stay here, I’ll only get worse, and I can’t help you. If I go back, I can help you stop him.”
“No,” I insisted. “He’ll use you.”
She actually smiled. It was sad. “At least now I’ll know I’m being used. I can find his remains. I need to face him. I need him to know he didn’t break me.”
“I’m going to torch his ass,” I vowed. My voice trembled with rage. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to turn him into a pile of smoldering ash.”
Wren’s bottom lip trembled, but she nodded. “He’ll keep me from the appointment with Special Collections.”
“That doesn’t matter right—”
She stopped me—put her fingers against my mouth. “It matters more than ever. You have to go. You have to be the one to find out about Emily and Alys and how to help them. How to help us. Tell me you’ll go.” She removed her hand.
Was she nuts? “I don’t know how to go to the Shadow Lands.”
“Yes, you do. If I’ve always known how to come here, you know how to go there.”
She made it sound so freaking easy. Instinctual. Maybe it was. But it was obvious that she couldn’t tell me how to do it, and I would have to do that on my own—and it was going to mean more missed school.
There was a knock on the door. I looked up just as Nan stuck her head into the room. “Can I come— Oh, my dear girls. What’s happened?” She might have been in her sixties, but our grandmother was in great shape, and as soon as she saw us, she was right there on her knees beside us, holding us both.
The only person I loved more than her at that moment was Wren.
“Nan, you’ve got to remove the binding spell,” I said. “Wren has to leave, or she’ll get worse. And I need you to show me every book, journal and possible ghost-related item that belonged to someone in our family.”
Nan nodded. Her expression, which had been full of concern as she looked at Wren, turned to one of steely determination when she turned to me. “We’re going to fix this, right? And make whoever is responsible for it sorry they ever crossed my girls?”
I smiled, blinking back tears I couldn’t afford—not at that moment. “Yeah,” I said, taking one of her hands in mine and one of Wren’s. “We’re going to make him very, very sorry.”
WREN
The moment my grandmother wiped the blood from my forehead and said, “I release you,” I felt myself pulled from the warmth of her house to the familiar ghosts of Haven Crest. A few hours ago I loved that building and its inhabitants. Now I despised it, and them.