Before the sun had even risen, I was out tramping through the forest. Careful not to swing the canvas bags gripped in my gardening-gloved hand, I hastily moved between trees. The sun gathering beneath the horizon turned the sky into a dirty wash of gray and the glow of my flashlight blended into the oncoming dawn.

The soft crunch of pine needles and wet leaves beneath my bare feet spilled through the shadowy understory as I hurried onward. The thick shawl wrapped around my shoulders to keep the chilly air at bay ruffled with my quick movement. Sage trotted ahead of me, his wispy ears pricked forward as his lupine figure cut through fern fronds, grasses, and weedy saplings damp with dew. The rousing bird call as the feathered creatures sang to one another welcoming the rising sun didn't ease my irritation. Nor did the forest's refreshingly crisp smell soothe the toxicity burning inside my lungs.

A few days had passed since learning of Zrenyth's mites in the old book Dustin had slyly given me in the library. And my failure to discover the escape tunnel continued to wear on my nerves.

I kicked a stone, sending it skittering into the undergrowth with a rattle of leaves as spiteful anger slashed through my veins. It wasn't just anger I felt, it was a noxious plume of disheartenment and frustration that poisoned every hopeful thought that I was going to get myself off this estate.

When I'd been trapped on my family estate by my parents, I'd filled in my time with little things, simple things. Runs first thing in the morning and evening to burn out the savage power of the wyrm before it could overwhelm me. I'd played cartographer and mapped the entire estate, tracked animals in the woodland and checked on their nests. Swam in the water well and basked on sun-heated rocks. In the mornings there were lessons with my governess and online classes where I'd try to learn a new language, though it was mostly the cursing I was interested in. Afternoons were spent in my father's office, reading and keeping him company while at the same time eavesdropping on the matters of the Houses. Then I'd chew through the remainder of my day in the library hunting monsters.

Right now, life wasn't so different, it was just a new estate and a new objective to fill in my time.

I'd gone for a run in the forest every morning and evening for the past few days as I used to at home before everything. During the morning run, I took my notebook with me and sketched out a basic map of the Crowthers' estate, traveling as far as I could—which wasn't very far—shadowing the enormous boundary with its adamere walls ranging the rolling hills. I hadn't been able to capture all of it but I'd made a good start.

Though in reality, it did me no good. With the rope around my neck, I couldn't even get within 10 feet of the adamere wall enclosing the estate like a compound. Every time I drew near the imposing barrier the noose snagged and tightened. Even if there was a hole blasted through the stone wall I wouldn't be able to escape.

So, Dustin Reed, no matter if he was my sister's spy and there to help me escape, couldn't free me with Zrenyth's rope tying me to the estate. Dustin hadn't returned from the Wormwood Driads with a case of Absinthe, either.

Later in the mornings, I mapped more of the Keep with its rabbit-warren hallways while I pretended to admire their home, which was pretty much a fucking museum with all the artifacts and treasures they'd collected throughout the millennia. It put my own family in its place, nouveau, compared to the Crowthers' long lineage.

I couldn't quite wander freely around the Keep like I initially thought I could. There were places inside the Crowthers' home that were guarded with sentries denying me entry.

And then there was the library.

The moment Graysen headed off to the garage for the evening, I snuck out and went straight there. I still hadn't found an escape tunnel within the vast space dedicated to books and knowledge. I'd carefully shifted tables and chairs and rugs, feeling with my fingers for an edge of a hatch on the stone floor. Then I had moved to sconces and the fireplace, anything ornamental that could be set up as a trigger, searching for a secret doorway, before I began with the books themselves. I'd pulled one book at a fucking time. With how immense the library was it would take me months to double-check the entire room.

Graysen had spent the past few days off the estate too. He'd come back every night, dragging himself through the door, grimy and filthy with the stench of stale air clinging to him. But there'd always be some underlying scent lingering as if he'd finished whatever business he'd been on with a different activity. The musty, earthy scent of the lake as if he'd taken a stroll around its shore, a cloying clay smell as if he'd hung out in a pottery studio, or a distinctive industrial odor of coal and molten iron. Graysen would clean his dusty adamere armor and then go take a shower before eating and catching up with business emails.

With him so busy, we'd spent very little time in each other's company, but whenever we were in the tower together we continued to exchange answers for questions.

"What's your favorite color?"

"Hmm I can't choose, I like them all. Why are there so many guards and sentries?"

"The Children of the Harbinger and your Barbie Doll Ken friend Silas Boon were after you—more than likely are still after you. If you could take one drink, and one drink only with you to a deserted island which would it be?"

"Bergamot Tea...oh, and honey too if that's allowed. Why are parts of the Keep locked off from me? You said I could wander anywhere."

"You can wander anywhere, just not my family's quarters or places where you'll be fucking tempted to steal a weapon. Honey would be allowed, I know you're fond of a teaspoon of honey with your tea. What's your favorite song?

"Set Me Free by House Boulevard." It wasn't my favorite song, but he didn't need to know that, and by the tick in his jaw I'd struck hard. "How did this tower get infused with wild magic?"

"I'll tell you if you kiss me."

"Fuck you, Crowther!"

"Is that an offer?"

As I rounded a weeping willow, ducking beneath the draping fronds slick with moisture, despair trembled along my bones like a melancholy note singing from a cello. The Crowthers' estate was truly set up like a fortress and the Keep was thick with sentries patrolling its hallways and soldiers on the ramparts. Now that the Crowthers were aware of Silas Boon and his intention regarding me, everyone was on high alert and extra vigilant. Unfortunately, it meant the soldiers' domain was as heavily protected as Fort Knox. There had been no way past the sentries posted outside of it. I'd tried sneaking in, cajoling Penn to take me, and still no way inside.

Discovering the existence of Zrenyth's Mites wouldn't do me any good if I couldn't get anywhere near the Crowthers' armory.

Glancing upward at the blue-gray sky poking through the rippling canopy of leaves above, I realized dawn was swiftly approaching. I needed to get back to the tower before Graysen returned from the garage and got ready to leave the estate for whatever the hells he was up to during the day.

Picking up my speed I pushed on, weaving through the savage forest with its gnarled and twisted trees. This was a much more sinister forest than the airy woodland back home. Half-bending over to avoid the Spanish moss dripping from an oak, I stepped unexpectedly into a clearing with a small cottage right in its center. I stopped walking, startled by the surreal experience. Curiosity stirred my senses and pricked my ears.

The rustic cottage had banks of windows and a little porch with leaf-littered steps that led down to a domestic garden that had broken free from its borders and was growing untamed. The cottage was charming in an abandoned kind of way. The forest was now encroaching on the clearing with saplings and spindly trees sprouting between the rushes and wildflowers.

My eyebrows nudged together as I strode through the dewy grass that wet my bare feet and swiped at my legs, looking at the derelict cottage from all angles. Sage kept pace, his nose lifted to smell the air, steeped with the scent of wild roses. Some of the wooden slats running down the cottage's sides had lifted, along with a few lining the porch, or were missing altogether. A few higher-up windows had long spiderweb cracks and grass poked out between broken roof tiles.

The condition of the cottage struck me as odd because from what I'd seen of the Crowthers and the maintenance of the Keep, this was the only building I'd come across that had been left to the elements to bring it to disrepair.

I wondered if anyone had once lived it in. It looked small, yet big enough for someone to comfortably reside within. The steps creaked in protest when I walked up them. Pastel blue paint had peeled away in long strips, and Tabitha's white roses were twined everywhere, clambering over the cottage walls and porch posts, and grew outward, strangling the forest that crept in on the clearing.

The dirty porch squeaked beneath my light weight as I strode across the wooden planks. The front door's metal handle was cold as ice beneath my palm, and when I tried to turn it, I discovered it was locked.

Placing the bags and flashlight down carefully on the porch I shifted closer to the windows that ran up to the roofline. I raised my gloved hands above my eyes, cupping them like a visor and pressing their edge to the window. Squinting, I peered through the dust-clouded glass, surprise trickling into my lungs to see a vague impression of open space inside the cottage...no, not a cottage, I realized as I took in the myriad of glass windows. This was an art studio.

It took a bit of time to decipher the shapes. The dusty glass muted the natural color inside and dulled everything to gray. Canvases hung haphazardly on the walls as if they'd been abused, long tables tipped over, and cans lay on their sides too. The dark patches on the floor and walls were in a ripple effect as if paint had been thrown about.

An art studio. But whose?

A faint memory of Graysen mentioning something artistic about his aunt tickled the back of my mind.

Valarie's perhaps?

A swishing sound had me turning around to my wraith-wolf. Sage's tail brushed back and forth against tall reeds and he gave a half-hearted bark as if warning me that I was wasting time investigating the art studio. The sun was slowly rising and pale buttery light was turning the forest into a vibrant green. Sage was right, I was losing valuable time

Picking up my bags and the flashlight, I left the cottage and hurried through the forest, stepping out of the treeline only to plunge back into dimly lit greenery as I jogged through Tabitha's shared gardens and its stone paths.

The muscles in my legs burned as I ran up the steps to the Keep, Sage bounding beside me, and then I slowed down to stalk through the eastern gate to catch my breath. The yellow glow from the flashlight slid over the dangerous spikes of the portcullis hanging overhead and along the dark walls. The stone was freezing beneath my bare feet, setting a shiver to shoot down my back. The inner courtyard was like the forest, not alive with the dawn chorus of birds but with voices and scraping footfall as servants and soldiers started filing out of the Keep to begin their morning drills with a warm-up run. Interestingly, everyone, including all the servants, took part in the training. Everyone was deadly, every single person on the Crowthers' estate, as I'd personally discovered with Penn when I'd foolishly tried to attack her.

They jogged on the spot, rotating arms and hips, some of them leaving and running through the gateways, casting curious glances my way as I passed by. Sage bristled and snarled low. There were a few furrowed glares from soldiers. Not everyone was at ease with me wandering the Keep alone. But for whatever reason, Graysen kept up the pretense that he had me under control, and I played my part. I shrank my shoulders inwards and let my hair fall forward to hide behind the swaying curtain of blond locks, keeping my eyes averted as if I were afraid.

I felt him before I saw him, that incessant prickling feeling whispering to me that he was nearby. I glanced sideways to see Graysen saunter down the steps from one of the Keep's inner entrances wiping the grease from creases in his palms with a soft cloth before he shoved it into a pocket of his dirty overalls. His expression was impassive and cold when it fell on me and I picked up my pace, hurrying across the cool cobblestones toward the lofty tower, darting a terrified glance at him over my shoulder as he leisurely stalked the space, a cruel slant to his mouth.

The smell of grease pinched my nostrils, wafting up from Graysen as his heavy footsteps thudded upon the tower's spiral staircase behind me. I quickly ran up the tower, round and round and round, the flickering wildfyre flames still burning in sconces whereupon they'd be extinguished when the sun rose fully. There was only one room at the very top of the tower. I didn't know why the rest of it wasn't carved out with further chambers. It seemed a waste of space to me.

I made it up to the top landing just as Graysen finished barreling up the staircase with his excessive speed.

Our gazes slid to one another. Mine narrowed. "Morning," I spat, with a churlish tone.

"Morning," he replied with a warm smile, ignoring my snarkiness. The menacing expression he'd worn down at the inner courtyard had been wiped from his features. Now Graysen just looked like him, the guy who lived with me up in the tower. A guy that had returned from a night shift of fixing cars, just how I'd imagined at the cottage by the lake—him a mechanic and me working at a diner.

After being in his company for the last week I knew his routine. He'd shower off the dirt and grease, and then climb into his armor and join in the drills going on down below in the training pit, teaching new defense moves to the servants or assisting with sparring practice and weaponry, before he headed off the estate for the day.

There'd been a change in him too. Ever since my first excursion to the library, he carried himself differently. He was still his confident, cocky self, but there was an ease about him and some other feeling suffusing his carriage. It was similar to the way you'd step out of home, greeting blue skies but feeling the air tremble against your skin as if a storm was brewing beyond the horizon. You couldn't see it, nor know from what direction it would come, but you accepted that change was on its way and were eager to see the clear sky torn to shreds by wrathful black clouds.

I couldn't figure out what was going on with him and what he was up to, but I knew there was something. Graysen Crowther always had an agenda.