The swamp fell so silent it felt like breath held too long. The Guthrie house, still half-broken and half-lit by flickering candles, seemed to sink deeper into the mud. Every board creaked under Rowan’s bare feet as she stepped closer to the ruined threshold, Maisie’s sleepy weight pressed to her hip, Lucien’s cold shadow at her back like a promise sharpened into a blade.
Outside, the cypress trees bent just enough to show flickers of shapes between their knees — tall shadows made of water and old bark, draped in veils of moss that never dripped. Eyes gleamed in the dark. No pupils, just the swamp’s pale glow caught in hollow sockets that had never seen the sun.
Edith’s breath hitched behind Rowan. “It can’t be. They’re just stories.”
Rowan didn’t take her eyes off the trees. “You raise
