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“I know you want vengeance for Aster. I want whoever did this to suffer, too.”

“It is not vengeance, Kade, it is justice. The right thing to do. I will not abandon Callum like I did my people.”

“Leaving to get reinforcements is not abandoning them, Evelyn.” His tone was gentle.

“It feels like it, like I’m running because things have gotten worse,” Evelyn whispered. She stepped closer to him, taking hold of his hand. “Kade, if we are right about a spell, they now have all four body parts from the witches’ creed. We still have no idea what they intend to do—”

“Which is precisely why we need to go home. This is beyond just the two of us. This mysterious White Lady knows who you are. Evelyn, you cannot dismiss the severity of that fact. You are Daughter of the Goddess.”

She did not need to be reminded.

“I will not abandon Callum!” Evelyn yelled.

Kade sighed, running his hands through his hair. He released Evelyn’s hand, bracing his hands on his hips. “I know you feel like you failed Aster, but staying will not undo her death.”

“No—I mean, yes, a part of me does feel like I failed her, but this feeling is different. I do not feel lost. I feel I need to do this.”

“Evelyn—”

“Going back will not be as simple as you believe. I left. There will be consequences. You think the Elders will allow us to shift their priorities because of some murders in Torren? No. All they care about is the prophecy. We will be wed within hours of arriving in Sorin—”

“Moons, I don’t give a fuck what the Elders want or what they think. Screw the prophecy. We will not marry until we’re ready, until you’re ready, if it is something you ever want, my duty be damned. All I want is us.”

Us.

Evelyn shut her eyes, swallowing her tears. Kade meant every word he said. Her magic soared from his conviction, and his tone sent shivers down her spine. She didn’t know how badly she had needed to know those things, be reassured of them, but it did not negate that they still had an unsolved murder and people to protect in Callum.

“Evelyn. I want us to be safe, to be together, and I know in my bones that these murders related to the witches’ creed are far more than they appear.” Kade searched her face, his own etched with worry.

Evelyn said nothing. She could not say the words he wanted to hear. At this moment, they did not agree.

After a few beats, Kade’s eyes widened, as if he too realized she would not change her mind. He moved past her, walking away.

“Kade, wait,” she said.

He stilled.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Kade did not turn back to face her. He continued walking, and in the thicket of trees, Evelyn watched his body shift into his werewolf form. Bleu sauntered over to her, nibbling at her hair. With one last glance at the pyre, Evelyn headed back to Callum.

She rode Bleu straight to Aster’s shop, disappointed that she and Kade had gotten into an argument. She thought of her parents, how they’d get in disputes when she was a child. They’d been cross but never yelled or used words to hurt the other. In fact, oftentimes they’d spend some time apart before coming back together. At such a young age, Evelyn hadn’t seen it for what it was, but now she understood.

Sometimes emotions needed time to settle.

Evelyn would give Kade space and hope the rift between them was not too vast.

She sighed, bracing herself in front of Aster’s shop. Being surrounded by the people of Callum and seeing Aster’s parents had made today so much harder. It didn’t matter that Aster had been murdered by someone else—Evelyn would carry the weight of her death as if she were solely to blame.

But as she’d told Kade, her grief and failure did not hold her down. It gave her resolve, a deeper eagerness to solve these murders once and for all. She entered Aster’s shop, the lock clicking undone in the presence of her magic. The shop still held no life, but Evelyn had worked hard to clean it up. Dead plants sat on the shelves, but no decay littered the ground and not a single stain of blood remained.

Evelyn recalled meeting Aster for the first time. She hadn’t met a fellow witch in so long, her magic had hummed to life in greeting. Frightened, she’d cowered from her own kind, but Aster had been welcoming—despite the slight attempt at blackmail, which Evelyn would be forever grateful for.

Staying in Callum, renting Aster’s spare studio apartment, and working with Kade had been the best decisions she’d ever made. She believed deeply that she’d been meant to make them as if all those years ago, maybe she had been supposed to leave in order to get to these moments. Fate had an interesting way of laying a path down.

She walked the perimeter of the shop, trailing her fingers over the pots Aster had painted, her delicate handwriting displaying the types of plants and prices, and the bookshelves threatening to lean and topple without magic to keep them up.

Even without Aster’s magic, it still felt like her.