Sahvage looked around. Then promptly removed the lid once more—and picked up bags of flour that were close by, three of them, four of them, more of them still, laying their weight where his body should have been. Finally, he lowered the lid and used the stone from a grinder, wrapped in a sack, to hammer home that which he had disrupted. Finally, he retrieved the scabbard he had purloined. Utilizing its stout point, he carved his name in the lid and on the vertical panels, for that had not been among what had been inscribed.

Reshouldering the rifle, he took the torch and returned unto the corridor. Checking both ways, he confirmed that the resonant quiet persisted—although that would not last. Superstition would keep vampires away, and humans likewise, but only for a time. The greed of thieves would soon enough overwhelm their senses of self-protection, and there was much to be pilfered from within. And this would serve his purposes. In the course of such trespassing, his coffin would be found, and of all the things within the castle walls, it was the one that would not be touched. No soul would want to assume dominion over such an artifact. Yet word would get out.

Eventually, the Brotherhood would find his final resting place, but whether they accepted the remains—or whether they would discover his duplicity? Who could say.

Sahvage, however, would not be around to ascertain the outcome of his purported dead body. Instead, he was going to search for his cousin until he found her, and then, when she was thinking with proper logic, he would ensure that the pair of them stayed hidden. And his supposed death would ensure that was possible—

Tap.

Just as he was about to run off, Sahvage turned to the sound.

Tap. Tap.

In the unnatural quiet of the castle, the soft noise stood out far more than its soft volume would have permitted under any other circumstances.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap—

Leave it be, he told himself. His mandate with regard to a prompt exodus was clear—

Taptaptaptaptap—

As a cold premonition brushed the back of his neck, his will directed him unto the exit. His body, however, proceeded in another direction.

Such that he followed that strange, soft sound.

As Sahvage went silent and seemed to retreat into his own mind, Mae put her hand on the edge of the tub.

“I can’t let you go,” she whispered to Rhoger. “And I promise I won’t. I know how to fix this.”

She meant the words, especially the last ones, but the refrain was weak, as if she had used the syllables too often and was wearing out their strength. Or maybe they had never had any power to begin with, just the panic-fuel of her desperation—and how far did that ever take anybody in real life?

“No changing your mind,” Sahvage murmured.

She looked back at him. “Never.”

The word had more vigor than she did. But it was like if she stood up to him, she was standing up to Fate, and that had to be her mindset . . . in spite of the fact that she didn’t have the Book yet. And she was taking what Tallah had told her on faith.

“All right,” he said finally.

“Are you leaving?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Mae closed her eyes and sagged with relief. “I promise, it’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be fine. We’re going to be fine.”

Yes, and then what, she wondered. Even though she knew the answer to that when it came to the two of them.

Sahvage would go on about his life. She would go on about hers. And it was in the nature of nothing-in-common that the pair of them would diverge. As they had no intersections to begin with, nothing was going to keep them together.

Getting to her feet, she gathered up the ice bags. “Let’s go back to the cottage.”

Funny how normal it felt to say that. Then again, a person could get used to anything—and unused to it, too.

As she stepped out of the bathroom, he moved his legs to the side and then stood up, too. And when she shut the door, it was firmly—except did that change anything? Like she could lock out the awkwardness? The lie of hers?

Nope.

“I’m going back to my place,” he said.

“Okay, you don’t have to stay. I mean, at the cottage, or with—”

“Yeah, I do. Now more than ever. But I need clothes.”

He didn’t look at her as he walked out toward the garage, and she rushed after him, grabbing her purse and her keys from the washer. As she locked the house up, he nodded at her and dematerialized through the gap in the shutter. Left alone, she glanced at the trash that had still not been taken out—and remembered the reason why.

On impulse, she got in her car and started the engine. Maybe they’d need a vehicle. Or maybe she just needed to drive around.

As she was backing out—because she’d been so distracted coming back from the Shell station that she’d broken her father’s parking rule again—she thought about how the Book was taking its own damn time . . . and tried not to see the lag for what it was:

A sign this was all a big folly. And she was a desperate fool.

K-turning in the street, she thought of Tallah, home alone at the cottage. With a curse, Mae hit the gas and headed out of her neighborhood, consumed by obsessions about shadows and brunettes and huge males naked in bathrooms—

Unable to stand the chaos in her head, she turned on the radio. She’d left the station on NPR, and some dulcet-voiced woman was droning on about public funding for libraries, so she switched to FM.

“—serial killer here in Caldwell. The CPD reported that another man and woman were found dead last night. The bodies were discovered at club Eight-Seven-Five, and both of their hearts had been removed—”

Mae’s eyes went to the radio, and she cranked up the volume.

“—just as the others’ had been. The identities of the newest victims are being withheld at this time, pending the notification of families. The count is now up to five couples, including the most recently identified pair, Ralph DeMellio and Michelle Caspari. Allegedly, DeMellio was involved in an underground fighting ring, and authorities believe that he was killed shortly after one such fight. Footage found on Instagram suggests he had faced an opponent with a distinctive tattoo covering his chest—”

Mae’s left foot stomped on the brake—

The blare of a horn behind her drowned out the rest of the report—and then the world exploded, the strike of the rear-end collision blowing Mae’s head against the rest as the airbag broke out from the steering wheel and her car careened off her lane with a scream of locked tires.

All momentum stopped with a furious impact, the Civic’s front grille striking something that had no give in it.

As the airbag deflated with a hiss, Mae drooped forward, her consciousness fuzzing out . . . and then returning in a fog. In her car’s headlights, through some kind of steam rising out of the busted hood, she read a sign mounted on a brick wall: Poplar Woods.

She’d run into the marker for the development next to her own.

Fumbling with her seat belt, she released the latch on her door and popped things open. On a loose list to the side, her body fell out, her arms and legs not listening to the commands she gave them, and with all the grace of dead weight, she spilled onto the ground, dirt going into her mouth, her nose. She flopped onto her back and took some deep breaths.