Aunt Ellena eased herself carefully into bed. I caught her wince, and she tried to hide it from me with a smile that was too tight. "Really, Tabitha, I'm—"

"Don't argue."

Worry twisted my insides. She'd grown thinner this last year. There was more silver threading through her hair, and despite trying to brighten her complexion with makeup, she couldn't conceal the purple smudges beneath her eyes.

I walked over to the window with its glossy painted sill. Just as I was about to snap the heavy curtains together, I stilled and stared up at the night sky and the wisps of clouds across the moon. Most people loved the moon and romanticized it.

Not me.

The moon—I hated it.

I hated seeing it sitting in the sky, full and fat and mocking me. As it waxed, it increasingly brought with it an anxious feeling that wouldn't go away, and only intensified the closer it got to a full moon.

This evening it wasn't quite full, but it wouldn't be long. Only a few more days and then it would come out.

I shut the curtains with a violent snap.

Quickly digging out a handful of pegs from the little tin box we kept on our desk, I used them to clip the two curtains together, all the way down its length, to ensure there were no gaping slits for anyone to see through.

I grabbed a smooth round stone from the pile we kept within a chest of drawers, as well as a thinly threaded towel we kept there, rolling the towel as I strode to our bedroom door. Locking the door, I squatted down and tucked the towel tightly against the gap beneath the door. Going back to our bunk bed, my bare feet scuffing through the soft threads of the rug, I carefully, quietly, dragged my battered and worn leather trunk from beneath it. Carrying it over to the door, I jutted it against the plane of solid wood as another precaution to stop anyone from easily getting in, if for some reason the lock gave out.

Aunt Ellena lay in her bed, head cushioned by pillows. Her golden hair, a shade darker than mine, was spread over her bony shoulders. I knelt on the rug beside her bed, folding my knees beneath me, and rested my hip on the ground. Cupping her hand in mine, I loosely curled my fingers around the back of hers. My aunt's hand felt fragile in mine. Her skin papery-thin. Wrong.

With my other hand, I held the stone.

I had a few talents. But this one was particular to me. I was an other. Nothing exciting or in-your-face like being able to weave storms or alter someone else's moods. Nor was I a fire-torch or an earth-trembler. I had a very quiet kind of power, one I kept hidden. Only two people knew about it—my Aunt Ellena and Marissa. Both fiercely guarded my secret, for if I was discovered, not even Marissa from a Lower House could intercede with the ruling that I be immediately turned over to the Horned Gods. Because none of us were allowed to be other—no one was allowed to have dark powers, magic, as they did. That was the canon dictated by the Horned Gods. An absolute law. Anyone born as other had to be turned over to them at birth.

And if I were to be discovered my life would be forfeit.

As well as anyone who had harbored my secret.

Diving mentally deep, I drew on this strange power of mine. It moved beneath my skin, my blood, my bones—hunting and hungry—a roiling mass of thrumming power. Whatever this thing was inside me, it was like a bloodhound; that's the only way I could describe it.

My aunt squeezed her eyes shut. Her brow was furrowed deeply with pain, and she breathed out a raw, wounded sound from her nose as she wince.

My thumb stroked across the back of Aunt Ellena's hand. "Tell me something about my mother," I asked quietly.

I liked to keep Aunt Ellena talking to distract her from what I was doing. Not so much to take her mind off her pain, but the guilt that assuaged her every time I used it to steal her pain.

There was always the slightest of pauses when I asked her to tell me about my mother. A moment of hesitation before her lips parted and she fell back into memory.

My mother had disappeared when I was seven years old.

No trace of her could be found on the Szarvas estate, nor within the ancient forest, the mansion resided within.

"She loved you very much," Aunt Ellena whispered hoarsely. Licking her dry lips, she cleared her throat and continued, "Used to slip you sweets while she read to you. She was always reading to you, any chance she had."

The strange power residing within me gathered and surged forward through the hands that linked my aunt and I together.

Otherworldly threads of power, a golden glow like shafts of sunlight, wavered around my figure. And inside me, that power lanced from my body to hers, leeching the pain that ran rampant through my aunt's and pulled it into mine.

My aunt hummed a sound of relief and contentment. Her body eased, taut muscles relaxed—while mine tensed, my muscles spasming as horrendous pain slammed right into me. I smiled, always smiled, as pain as sharp as shards of glass slashed through me, grinding into my bones and joints, tearing apart my mind, and crushing the air from my lungs. It was by force of will alone that I managed to keep my fingers from gripping hers like a vice, to ensure I didn't tremble, and keep my breathing slow and steady when all I wanted to do was scream.

Scream at the agony shredding my body with razorlike fangs and claws.

Scream at the injustice that this thing, this terrible thing had happened to my aunt.

Until...

Finally...finally, that strange power of mine carried my aunt's pain through my body and into the small stone I held in my hand, and the intense agony became a dull aching throb.

I was a conduit that stole pain and transferred it into an inanimate object—usually a stone, easy to find and accessible. The stone vibrated in the palm of my hand, dancing between my fingertips, heated up and scorched my flesh. And still, I held on.

An hour into it, my hip ached, my knees and bones were sore and throbbing, and my eyelids were heavy with sleep. The stone cracked in half. Tiny shards of dust spilled over my hand and scattered over my skirt.

Aunt Ellena was fast asleep, the pain that deeply lined her features had smoothed away. She looked rested and at ease.

I rose gingerly, tucked the blankets around her fragile body, and gently swept aside a loose silvery lock of hair that had fallen across her forehead.

Padding wearily toward the bathroom, every single part of my body aching, I got ready for bed.

After brushing my teeth and washing my face, I leaned my exhausted body against the washbasin. A headache pulsed against my temples, diminishing as I released my hair from the bun, plucking out the pins one by one and letting them plunk upon the small vanity. Combing my hair until it was smooth and glossy and shone like gold, I changed into cozy flannel pajamas. I decided to read for a little bit, as I had a book I was almost finished with—Jackie Collins would have to wait until tomorrow night.

Kneeling down in front of my trunk which was still pressed up against the bedroom door. I lifted the patchy-worn lid and rifled through the contents, shifting them about until I dug down to the false bottom. Amongst the treasures and strange items I'd collected over the years were my romance novels—the more heated ones than the sweet, innocent romances Aunt Ellena allowed me to read. These were the ones with bare-chested men, their powerful and ripped bodies pressed against swooning women.

My fingers curled around the novel, and before I lifted it out from its hiding place, my attention slid to a piece of paper, creased and yellowed with age, neatly folded. I didn't need to pull the paper out and unfold it to read it—I knew what was written on the page by heart.

It was a list.

Nothing that House Simonis could make with their science and magic would help my aunt. She suffered from something unnatural, and I had, I hoped, the way to heal her. I had been gathering the ingredients for years, and there were only a few items on the list left to find.

Then—

As my fingers tightened around the novel, a ticklish unwanted feeling scratched at my nerves, much like when a small flying insect landed upon bare skin. I glanced up, a growing fear gnawing at me.

All the fine hair on the back of my neck rose.

Overhead the bedroom's lightbulb crackled and fizzed.

The light in the room stuttered and faded and become dimmer. The shadows in the room seemed to deepen and grow blacker. The atmosphere grew colder. Gooseflesh prickled my arms. My breath began to condense in cloudy puffs.

A terrifying feeling like a chilled fingernail scraped down my spine.

I felt it then.

An eerie sensation strummed through the room—a pulse that kept time with my ricocheting heartbeat. Shadows crawled across the ceiling like dark misshapen fingers.

A voice speared across the room that wasn't quite my aunt's. "Tabitha..."

I dared not move. Dared not breathe.

"Tabitha..." it sing-songed.

Fear and terror knotted tightly in my throat. "Yes?" I replied quietly, my voice nearly cracking.

I was frozen in place, my trembling hand still inside the false bottom of the trunk. My shaky fingers curled around the battered romance novel. My chest rose and fell in quick shallow breaths.

Behind me, the bedsprings creaked. The noise of a body shifting, and the sound of fabric whispering as sheets and blankets fell away. On the wall in front of me, I watched in horror as a hazy silhouette of some thing slowly sat up.

Don't look, don't look, don't look...

I squeezed my eyes shut.

The padding of approaching footsteps was softened by the rug.

My breath froze like icicles in my throat as I felt it, reaching for me.

A swirl of chilled air buffeted my cheeks as whatever it was lifted a single lock of my hair.

"It's drawing nearer..."

Soon shooting stars, the forerunners to Cernesse, a wandering spirit that appeared every seven years, would cross the night sky. And I needed everything prepared for that fateful moment. Time was running out for this one chance to set everything right.

"Do you have what we need?"

I'd been working on gathering the items for a spell for years now, and luckily one more was within reach.

I nodded, a short, jerky movement. "Tomorrow night, after the dance."

"I want that crown..."

"I'll get it for you."

"You won't fail, will you Tabitha?"

"No... No..."

"Good girl."

A lock of hair fell onto my shoulder as the thing behind me let it go, and then retreated.

The rusty squeak of bedsprings.

The sound of blankets shifting, tugged and patted down.

And behind my tightly squeezed eyelids, the light changed and seemed to grow brighter and banish the shadows.

My heartbeat slowly, so slowly, eased back from its panicked pace.

I ran my tongue against dry lips and blew out a pent-up breath in a low hiss.

I knew when I opened my eyes I'd find my aunt reclined and fast asleep in bed. I pried my eyelashes apart, staring down into my trunk at my trembling hand. Beside the midnight-blue velvet bag where I kept all the items I'd gathered for a dark spell, there was something else, long and sharp with plastic handles.

I pulled out the pair of dressmakers scissors I'd borrowed from the Deniauds' craft room. The blades were thick and heavy and razor sharp. I ran the flat of my palm over the blades. The burnished metal shone dully with the poor light in the bedroom. Slipping my finger and thumb through the handle, I scissored them—Snip-snip.

To save my aunt, once more I'd become a thief.

Tomorrow night, under the chaos of the servant's dance, I'd slip into Laurena's bedroom.

And steal the crown of a princess.