While the air in the guest wing was thick with the musk of a premature shift and a mother’s desperate prayers, a different kind of darkness was slithering through the stone veins of the Blackwood Estate.
Selene did not walk, she glided, a wraith in emerald silk moving through the servant passages she had memorized years ago. She had waited for the perfect moment, the moment Cassian’s focus was shattered by the Healer’s presence in the garden to strike at the heart of the mystery. Her heels made no sound on the cold stone. Her breath was shallow, rhythmic, and cold.
She had slipped into the guest quarters like a serpent into a nest. The room had been empty, the children supposedly asleep, but the air had vibrated with a strange, humming energy that made the hair on her arms stand up. She
