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We disappeared into the tree line, creeping into the silent woods. Moonlight filtered through the leafless canopy above, casting eerie shadows across the chaff below. Somewhere in the distance there was a rustle in the underbrush. A hare, perhaps. A fox? My thoughts returned to the cemetery and the first time I saw the girl crouched behind a headstone. There had been a curious hare with her. Did it mean something? Or were Mr. Owen’s insinuations of the otherworld clouding my rational mind?

Good God, Ruby Vaughn, you’re sounding as superstitious as your housekeeper. It’s nature, not a sign.

I’d not been here since I chased Manon through the woods but still recalled the way to the lake. My breath grew uneasy as we drew nearer. At the edge of the clearing, through the barren branches, I could see the top of the broken spires of the priory church soaring into the night sky just like it had been in my dream. The structure battered during the war and years of disrepair. The silence was broken by an inhuman keening. A wail rending the night in two. Perhaps it was the creature I’d heard rustling. Or perhaps I should have put more stock into Mrs. Wauters’s talk of malevolent water spirits.

My gaze darted to Ruan’s. An unspoken question lingering on my lips when the sound came again. It wasn’t an animal at all.

It was human.

I took off after it. Running toward the clearing. The wind whipped in my hair. My shoes stuck in the soft ground. The man … creature … whatever it was, let out a third cry. I was close enough the sound of the screams seared themselves into my mind. The air here was fertile and green, pricking my nose with dampness, plucking at my memory. I’d been here. I’d …

Starlight reflected off the inky water’s surface as I spotted Félix several feet from the shore of the lake, with water up to his hips, his chest bare. In his arms he held another figure. A terrifyingly human shape. A second body floated farther out into the water, in the center of the lake.

My dream flashed back again. My mother had shown me this place during my near-poisoning. Two bodies. The broken spires of the priory church. I’d seen. My hands began to shake.

Félix’s dark hair was wet and curling to his shoulders from where he’d gone out to fetch one of the dead from the water. A bleak and broken expression on his face. He let out a final hoarse call for help as he stumbled forward, trying to pull the much more substantial figure from the lake. The body in his arms was dressed in a familiar dark oiled coat.

It was Narcisse. The orderly.

My stomach twisted in horror as I looked past the pair of them to the other body. The one floating in the center of the lake. Before I could think twice, I shucked out of my own jacket—throwing it backward at Ruan and running headfirst into the lake. The frigid water rose up around me as I swam furiously toward the figure floating in the center. The cold pierced my lungs as I struggled against the wintery depths, hoping against hope I’d reach the second figure in time.

That I wasn’t too late.

I reached him in seconds, not slowing to look at the identity of the soul, instead looping an arm around his chest and struggling to pull him back to the shore. From behind me Félix let out another inhuman keen, drowning out Ruan’s shouts. He was calling my name.

I could scarcely hear any of it over the thundering of my own heart. The body I held was cold. Unnaturally so. Lake water surged over his chest and into my mouth as I tugged him into the shallows. Ruan met me at the shore and took him from me, gently carrying the man onto dry ground. It was only then I stopped to look at who I pulled from the lake.

Bile rose in my throat.

I’d risked my life to save the man from the bar—the very one who had poisoned me. Alfred. I stared down into his sightless eyes. I suppose that was why Ruan failed to find him this morning. It made no sense. Why would Alfred be dead? The fellow had tried to poison me to keep his secrets unless … unless he wasn’t the one.

My teeth chattered hard in my jaw as I struggled to order my thoughts. Ruan dropped to his knees, searching Alfred’s lifeless body for a pulse—but there was no use. I knew he was dead. I could scarcely think. The air around us took on a sharp electric scent of power.

Ruan was calling upon his abilities. I took a tremulous step backward, allowing him space to do whatever it was pellars did over dead bodies, and turned my attention to Félix. He had ceased his cries and was watching Ruan in rapt attention. Could he sense what Ruan was doing too?

Félix’s mouth opened curiously then snapped back shut. He stood hip-deep in the lake, cradling Narcisse’s body like a child. Félix met my gaze and took an unsteady step forward toward me, disturbing the water’s smooth surface around him.

I was transfixed. Horrified. And quickly losing feeling from the cold. My shivers came in a rush, clattering my teeth so hard I thought they might crack in my jaw.

One of the orderly’s mud boots was missing, and his bare foot dangled into the water, skimming along the surface as Félix moved toward me. Step by jerky step. I rushed forward to help him, palms up to demonstrate I meant no harm.

Félix watched me with an unblinking rawness that frightened me. He managed a few more steps into the shallows before collapsing to his knees, cradling Narcisse’s lifeless body in his arms. Heart lodged in my throat, and forgetting all about the fact I was risking hypothermia, I rushed back into the frigid water. Narcisse’s face was gray, his lifeless eyes staring up into the moonlight. He must have died not long after we’d seen one another. Grief surged over me.

Was this my fault as well? First my mother, now Narcisse. The man had been nervous when we spoke, hesitant to say more than he had. He’d warned me to leave, to let things alone, but I’d pushed. Encouraged him to tell me his secrets and now he was dead.

Ruan’s gentle footsteps approached from behind, but he did not enter the water with Félix and me. Ruan was right to show caution, for as much as I did not want to believe Félix capable of harming someone, I could not discount that we’d found him with two dead bodies.

“Not you…” Félix murmured against the orderly’s cheek. Pale rivulets from his tears streamed down his face, brilliant in the moonlight. I took another step closer and brushed a hand over Narcisse’s eyes, closing them for good. His skin was ice cold.

The air picked up around us, growing sharp and electric yet again. A rush of wind raced through the trees, rustling the leaves. I didn’t pay it any mind and crouched down in the water beside Félix where he sat in the shallows.

I was shaking so badly from the cold I could scarcely form words, and yet Félix remained impervious to it.

“Eva…” he moaned, staring up at my face in the moonlight. “You should not have returned … it is not safe yet.”

I swallowed hard. Poor Félix was confused again, but I wasn’t about to disabuse him of the notion—not when he was in such a state. He meant me no harm, that much was clear. He must have cared deeply for my mother. I reached down, touching his wet face tenderly. His skin was as cold as Narcisse’s.

“Do you know who did this?” The water lapped at my thighs, plastering my dress to my nearly frozen flesh.