“I’m fading, aren’t I?”

Tessa caught me looking.

She took my hand.

We were both spirits. We could touch each other.

Beside hers, my hand looked much more solid.

Mine was a cold, deathly white.

Hers was nearly transparent.

A little paler, and she would be mist waiting for sunrise and wind to scatter it.

She smiled faintly.

“Let go of your hatred. Let go of what binds you here, and you can be free. So the blind monk was telling the truth.”

The blind monk?

I remembered the old monk who had saved my soul at the midnight market.

Perhaps we had met the same man.

I studied her face.

Pale.

Lifeless.

But no longer filled with hatred.

Watching Owen pay had eased most of it.

Mine ran much deeper.

“I won’t let go.”

Every word carried a hatred that seemed to eat into the bone.

“I want to see every person who hurt me, used me, and killed me pay for what they did.”

She didn’t argue.

She looked at me with unbearable sympathy.

Then she put her arms around me.

“You poor thing. You must have suffered even more than I did.”

She felt sorry for me.

I stood stiffly, unsure what to do.

When I was alive, work had consumed nearly all my time. I had no real private life. No time for friends.

Apart from Julian, I had almost never held anyone like this.

Her ghost had no warmth.

Yet my spirit was colder than hers, so somehow I felt a little.

Unused to it, I shifted backward.

There wasn’t much room.

I ended up pressed against Lucian, who had kept his eyes closed since getting into the car.

He was so close his breath passed through the side of my neck.

That was worse.

I nudged Tessa gently.

She released me and looked at him.

“Your husband is gorgeous. The most handsome man I’ve ever seen. Better than anyone on television.”

She patted my shoulder as though she understood everything.

“No wonder you can’t bear to leave. Who’d want to die with a husband like that?”

I glanced at the wedding ring still on my finger, even in death.

So that was the misunderstanding.

“He isn’t my husband. My husband is the animal who killed me and took my heart.”

I paused.

“This man… he was the person I hated most when I was alive. We were enemies.”

Fate had a cruel sense of humor.

My enemy in life had become the only person I could depend on in death.

Tessa turned toward the window and murmured, almost too softly to catch, “What kind of enemy keeps your photograph over his heart? I saw it myself.”

“What did you see?”

“Nothing. We’re at the hospital.”

She pointed to the bright red hospital sign outside.

“I don’t have much time. I want to see my parents while I can. They’re the only people I can’t bear to leave.”

She had grown fainter again.

Her hatred was gone.

Love for her parents was all that held her here.

I was different.

I was full of anger. Hatred. Refusal.

“Stella.”

I looked at her.

She must have learned my name from the file beneath my photograph, hanging directly below hers.

She gave me a meaningful look, then glanced at Lucian.

“Some people are very good at saying the opposite of what they feel. Don’t listen to what he says. Look at what he does.”

Then she vanished from the car.

I turned her words over in my mind.

Did she mean Lucian?

After dying, I had discovered so much about him.

Twice he had risked his life for mine.

As Mr. L, he had built the Starlight Project with me.

And the birthday fireworks.

If anyone else had done those things, I would have been deeply moved.

I would have known what they meant.

But this was Lucian.

Long before meeting him, I had heard the stories.

He was reckless to the point of madness.

To test his limits, he sought the most extreme dangers. He had even deliberately made himself dependent on an addictive substance, then forced himself through withdrawal.

They said he tied himself to an electric chair and used the pain of the current to overpower the cravings.

And won.

Physically and mentally, he demanded absolute control over himself.

“Lucian.”

I looked at him.

“Am I another experiment? What are you trying to prove by doing all this?”

There was no answer.

We returned to Rosehaven.

The heavy, ornate metal gates swung open.

As the car began to enter, Pearl darted out from the side and spread her arms in front of it.

“Mr. Blackwood!”

The driver braked hard.

Lucian opened his eyes.

All the darkness he had contained while resting returned at once.

He looked furious at being disturbed.

After the photographs she had sent, Miles could barely stand looking at her.

“What does that woman want now? I’ll get rid of her.”

He reached for the door.

“Drive,” Lucian said coldly. “If she wants to die, let her.”

Last time, he had been willing to amuse himself with her.

Tonight, he was in no mood for anyone.

Pearl saw the car stop and hurried toward the rear door, calling his name.

The horn sounded.

The car surged through the gates.

The headlights swept so close she had to leap aside.

Another second, and it would have hit her.