But if we played our cards right, and rallied an army of epic proportions, we could do this. I know we can do this. A world where the IBSI was no longer needed, where they had no more work to perform, no excuse whatsoever to continue going about their activities, would be a much happier one. But more importantly, the hunters had proven themselves incapable of actually solving Earth’s problems—if anything they were bent on aggravating them by beginning to disturb innocent supernaturals minding their own business in their own territories. If we forged enough alliances, we could potentially solve the crisis.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so excited. All of us were, our eyes bright and starry, infused with optimism. The journey passed in no time as we mulled over the idea and imagined an Earth in which peace reigned. Harmony. Cooperation. We would no longer be a society ruled by fear or boundaries.

Before we knew it, the ogres’ kingdom had come into view, and we were nearing its shores. As the dragons circled, searching for the stretch of beach where the portal was located, Micah called out, “Look down there.”

Our eyes shot toward where he was pointing. With my vampire vision, even from this distance, I was able to make it out clearly. A stripe of dark reddish-brown trailing from the waves to a patch of bushes and trees.

My first assumption was that it was blood. Perhaps the ogres had caught some monster and dragged it across the sand back to the kingdom to eat.

But Micah said, “While we’re here, do you think we should see what it is? It wasn’t there when we passed by this way on our journey to The Woodlands.”

I exchanged glances with Derek, then shrugged. I did not see any particular reason to go and check it out—this was the ogres’ stomping ground after all, where bloodshed was a part of their everyday life. But since we were planning on taking a break anyway before storming the IBSI again, we were in no particular hurry. And Micah obviously had some interest in it. Derek agreed, and the dragons descended.

We all remained seated on the fire-breathers, while Micah leapt down and approached the trail of blood. He sniffed it and his brows furrowed. “Familiar,” he murmured, before he began following the trail toward the shrubbery that lined the beach.

He sped up to a run and disappeared from view behind a bush.

“Micah?” Rose called, after a minute had passed in his absence. “What are you doing?”

When he emerged about another minute later, we all gasped in unison—Vivienne loudest. For flung over his shoulders was a wounded, unconscious man. Bastien.

Grace

The time I had spent with Lawrence had been full of surprises.

But I never would have predicted what happened later that night.

Not because there had been no foreshadowing of it—indeed, there had been, thanks to the hunter’s warning—but because I had pushed the possibility to the back of my mind. I’d forced myself to brush it aside, discard it, forget about it.

But at about 2AM, after Lawrence and I had fallen asleep in each other’s arms, the hunter’s words came back to haunt me, blasting through our peace like a fog horn.

I was awoken by the feeling of Lawrence shaking. When I opened my eyes, he had let go of me and was lying flat on his back, face panned to the ceiling. His expression was contorted in silent pain, his eyes squinting shut. His whole body was shaking, and I had never heard his breathing so erratic. He was in the midst of some kind of fit.

I shot upright and yelled for Shayla. I rushed out of the room and burst into the witch’s, hurtling to her bed. I gripped her shoulders and violently shook her awake.

“Lawrence!” I yelled. “It’s Lawrence!”

“What?” she gasped, half asleep.

I dragged her from her bed and hurried back to the second bedroom. During the few moments that I’d left Lawrence, his shaking had increased tenfold.

“Oh, dear,” Shayla breathed, her jaw dropping, face lighting up in panic.

She performed various spells to try to calm him down, but he wouldn’t stop shaking and now his throat seemed so choked up that it was practically clogged. He was barely even breathing at all.

“Grab our stuff!” Shayla ordered me. “We’ve got to return to the hospital!”

My hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t even pack. I just grabbed whatever was nearest me, along with Shayla’s suitcase and the wheelchair. Then the witch gripped hold of the back of my neck and vanished the three of us from the castle.

Even as we spun through the air, countless questions circled around and around in my mind. What’s going on with him? What happened during the night? I even found myself wondering whether it was something that I’d done by mistake. What tore up my heart completely was that we were leaving that graveyard. He had been so excited to return there in the morning. And I had no idea what was going to happen now—when, or if, he would be able to return.

Worry was eating away at me as we reappeared outside Lawrence’s hospital room. Shayla bundled him inside.

“Go and fetch whatever witches or jinn are around!”

With that, she slammed the door behind her, locking me out. I wanted nothing more than to stay in the room with her. With Lawrence. But of course, I acquiesced, and raced to the phone in the hallway. I dialed down to the apothecary, which was where the witches and jinn usually were if they were at the hospital. Thankfully, five witches and two jinn were down there, and they came hurrying up. I directed them to Lawrence’s room and they hurried inside, crowding around the bed so much that I couldn’t even see what was going on. But although I couldn’t see, I could hear. And that was enough to cause the hairs on my body to stand on end.