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“Just a bit further now. You’ve got it.” He raced ahead, finding a quiet, dry spot that faced the sea. The overhang wasn’t much, but it would keep her dry.

When the church was whole, there’d been an arched window in the back of the building. The glass and walls around it were gone, crumbled and lost to time, but the arch remained.

It stood like a gateway between worlds.

This was the place.

He felt it sear through him, power and life and sunlight all swirled together.

Avery made it under the awning, boots squelching over the stone and mud.

“Okay. Focus.” She dug out the candles and found dry places to hide them, wicks burning low amid the wind and rain. It was a miracle they managed to stay lit, that the fire managed to hold.

Everything around him began to hum, the sound a swarm of bees in a hive.

When the last candle was lit and the circle was complete, he was yanked to the archway by an unseen hand. He hovered there, mists swirling, body aching, and watched.

Avery lifted his pocket watch, journals, and portrait. She covered them as best she could, offering them up in the middle of the ruins like tokens to the gods.

Every part of him began to vibrate with a frequency that made it hard to see straight—hard to focus on anything else but the pain lacing through him.

“Call for me!” he pleaded. “Call for me and I will come!”

“Please work,” she whispered, words barely audible. She was shivering now, teeth clacking together.

He was a wretched, foul little creature.

Avery closed her eyes, fingers curling into her sleeve. Rain dripped from her nose and chin, plinking to the stone beneath her feet.

“Royan Wolfe!” she called. “Are you with me?”

Thunder shook the very earth below him. Lightning lit up the entire sky, arcing and twisting through the clouds until the world went white. Around him, the archway began to pulse, then glow. It reminded him of moonlight on the sea, a pale silver that felt like stars and dreams and his head in his mother’s lap.

There was a choice before him now.

To step through the arch, to be as real as he possibly could be, or to step back, to hide and live amongst the shadows.

She’d risked herself for this.

The spirits in the trees moved closer, eyes hungry on the open doorway between their worlds.

When she swayed, there was no other choice.

Royan Wolfe answered the call and stepped through.

Chapter 10

Icy rain soaked into my clothes, rolling down my spine in rivers.

Every part of me was shaking, teeth clacking together as I stood in the church ruins. Lightning split the sky and the world slowed down. I watched each branch form then stretch through the clouds. Thunder rumbled with such force the ground beneath my boots began to tremble and vibrate.

The archway in front of me became hazy, coated in fog.

Whatever had been inside the ruins when I arrived was looking now, hungry mouths open.

I’d never felt air like that before. Heavy and weary, all at the same time.

There was a quiet here, a somberness, that I’d never experienced.