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When he peered through the window by the door, he saw that the house was empty. No furniture.

And as for Darien?—

He was nowhere to be seen.

9

The Purple House

YVESWICH, STATE OF KER

The momentDarien set foot in the purple house, he wondered if Roman was right. Maybe thiswasa Crossroads. Maybe he’d wandered into some ancient beast’s lair. The air had the same feel—as if a gate had swung open with enough force to cause a sharp breeze. It even smelled like magic in here.

But the devil was in the details, and these details didn’t add up. Crossroads were always located someplace old, someplace with a long and complicated history. And yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d gone someplace...other.

His boots thumped as he crossed the foyer... The empty living room... The kitchen.... Everything in here smelled new—new paint, new floors, new carpet on the upper levels.

He turned in place, listening for Ivy… But the house was so silent, he swore he could hear his own blood coursing through his veins.

And then the screaming began again. He couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from. It seemed to be all around him, echoing from hidden spaces above, below, and beyond what his eyes could see.

It was Ivy—he was sure of it. Only this time, she sounded…young. And this time, she wasn’t callinghisname.

She was calling for their mother.

“Mom,Mom!Somebody help—my mom—Please! She’s hurt, we need a doctor!—”

“Ivy?” Darien called. His voice clapped through the house. His blood cooled, the hairs on his arms rising under his bodysuit.“Ivy?”

Heart pounding, he hurried down the hallway, toward the sound of his sister’s voice. His magic—what remained of it—threaded between his fingers like shadowy serpents.

He’d made it halfway down the hall when suddenly, the house vanished into smoke. And then that smoke began to change, morphing into a different setting.

Darien stumbled a step, blinking in disbelief as a street slowly took shape.

It was nighttime. Location: an apartment building in Angelthene.

This was his old home—the building where the Slade family once lived.

Utterly confused, he watched as a cab rolled to a stop out front of the apartment building.

And then his stomach dipped, his heart breaking in two, as he realized?—

This was the past. Somehow, he’d walked into the past.

To the very worst day of his fucking life.

The passenger’s-side door of the cab swung open, and a human woman stepped out into the balmy, late-summer air.

So many years had passed since he’d seen her, Darien had forgotten how much she resembled Ivy. The tilt of her eyes, her kind smile...Ivy. Though her hair—reddish-brown and gently waving to the middle of her back—was all her own. A feature that had skipped her two children in the gene pool.

Darien’s eyes fogged with moisture as he watched his mother enter the apartment building, handbag in hand, her long coat fluttering behind her.

“Mom?” he called.

But the mocking echo of his voice was his only response.

He squeezed his eyes shut, willing this to go away. He didn’t want to see anymore, didn’t want to witness her die again?—