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He knew what that gold mist was.

Knew it with a surety that brought him to his knees.

That rush of warmth, of peace, of…of home…

Wolfe dropped his chin to his chest.

It was time to say goodbye.

For the very last time.

Chapter 33

Something was wrong.

It was that thought that ripped me from my sleep, breaths tearing from my throat.

The room was smudged in the hazy purple-gray of dawn. My breath clouded by my lips, temperature hovering just above freezing inside. The space beside me that Wolfe had been in last night was empty and cold. Hesitantly, I crept from bed. I dressed in his sweater and a pair of leggings and made my way down the stairs.

Everything was frozen around me. The stones, the air, like the castle had surrendered to whatever force was wrapped around it.

“Wolfe?” I called, voice rough with sleep. “Where are you?”

Only silence greeted me. I stepped into the sitting room and rubbed my hands up and down my arms to bring some heat back to my frozen limbs. The fire in the grate was barely alive, smoldering deep within the heart of broken logs.

I crossed to the study and shoved open the door.

This room was empty too.

So was the kitchen, the other guest bedrooms.

Panic hit me as I ran back and forth across the castle.

“Royan!” My yell echoed in the tall ceilings and rained back down around me. Panic clawed through my chest and trickled through my limbs. “No, no, no.”

I ran to the door and shoved on my shoes. I fumbled with the lock and finally made my way outside. The grass in the fields was tipped in ice and it crunched as I ran around the side of Kilmorran toward his grave.

This couldn’t be it.

Not yet. Not when I’d barely—

But there he was, hovering just by his grave marker, his back to me. He stared out over the horizon, the shape of him flickering in and out. Those strong legs were shrouded in mist nearly to his hips.

I skidded to a stop, cold biting deep into my bones. “Wolfe.” He turned at the sound of my voice, there and gone again in the next blink. A sob clawed its way out of me. “What’s happening?”

His smile was soft, peaceful. “You did it, Avery.”

I took another careful step toward him. “Did what?” My heart raced against my ribs with such force I thought I’d be sick.

“I wondered for so long why,” he said, not answering my question. “Why I was the one that was trapped here. Why everyone else was able to move on except for me. For a long time, I thought it was a punishment, that I’d—I’d committed some unspeakable sin and God had condemned me to a lifetime of waiting—of watching. It drove me mad for a long time. It made me angry. Hopeless.”

He turned back toward the horizon and I joined him at the edge of the cliff. The wind howled as it tore past us. This time, it didn’t touch him. His shirt remained still against his chest. His hair held its shape across his brow.

“It wasn’t until Moira’s first book club that I thought maybe I understood why. And then tonight,” he said, sighing, “it all clicked into place.”

“Wolfe, please,” I whispered. “Please.”

“I was waiting for you. You were my unfinished business.”