She pulled her knees to her chin, burying her sobs into the swell of her skirts.
When a hand fell on her shoulder, squeezing it with warm strength, Greer’s breath caught.
He was back. Ellis had come back.
“I hate to say it, but I am impressed. You really did make me search all day.”
Greer pushed the tears from her eyes and gasped.
Standing over her, his hand now clutched round hers with possessive might, was Lachlan Davis. His face was flushed with triumph. “Caught you.”
Greer blinked with incomprehension.
There was no way Lachlan was with her now, claiming her as his.
There was no way Ellis had crossed through the Stones’ hold.
Not after sunset.
Not today of all days.
None of this could be.
And yet, somehow, it horribly was.
A dark shadow swooped overhead, and both Greer and Lachlan reflexively ducked, fearing another swarm.
But what flew through the sky was so much worse.
It was massive, wings spread wide as it circled over the forest beyond the Stones, like a vulture waiting on carrion. It scanned the area with dark intensity, and Greer could see the exact moment it found what it was looking for. She heard its quick intake of breath.
“Farewell for now, little Starling,” the Bright-Eyed murmured, then drew its wings into a tight dive as it silently began to stalk after Ellis Beaufort.
14
Greer stared atthe forest Ellis had ventured into after somehow breaking the Warding Stones’ hold. He’d wandered away, and the Bright-Eyed had swooped after him, leaving a trail in the brush that was wide and ragged, like a mouth snarled with screams.
Greer wanted to scream as well.
How had Ellis gotten past the Stones? It was a certain impossibility. No one could leave Mistaken after sunset.
But he had.
She’d seen him do it.
“Did you see that?”
Beside her, Lachlan’s voice was hushed with awestruck horror. Dragging her eyes from the tree line, Greer glanced at him, then their hands, still worryingly knotted together. She’d never seen Lachlan so stricken, stripped of his confidence and ease. Everyone in Mistaken treated him like a god, imbued with strapping charisma too powerful to ignore.
Now after seeing a Bright-Eyed, Greer knew she would never again think of Lachlan as the apex of anything.
“Was that…what…what was that?” he whispered, sounding like a little boy woken in the thrall of a night terror. His handtrembled, tightening painfully around hers. She tried to loosen his grasp, but it was as if an iron vise had clamped around her.
“Lachlan,” she prompted. “Lachlan, your hand.”
He didn’t hear, his focus still sharp on the trees ahead of them. Greer had seen that look once before when hunting with Hessel, a doe sensing their approach, frozen with anxious vigilance. A sheen of sweat broke over Lachlan’s brow despite the cold.
He’s just realized he’s not the predator but the prey.
