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Evelyn’s legs moved, her boots clattering against the cobblestones. An instinct she’d left dormant awakened, propelling her forward. Maxie and Miss Patricia followed close behind her as townsfolk began to flood the streets. Half still wore their nighttime clothes while others looked half-dressed in Callum’s signature knitted wool.

Brenna sobbed, unaware of the crowd growing around her. Her braided hair streaked with gray wisped in the wind while a stream of tears cascaded down her lined face. Shocked murmurs rang out around Evelyn, and she followed the distraught woman’s gaze.

A whaling-hook protruded from a young woman’s chest, securing her to a rope that dangled from the bell tower. The sharp tip was stained, stark and grim against her white nightgown. Her arms hung lifeless at her side, her head bowed, and her matted hair obscured her face, making it difficult to determine who she was or what had happened.

“McKenna, my poor sweet McKenna!” Brenna wailed.

Goddess, it was McKenna McCarthy, Brenna’s daughter. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, five years younger than Evelyn, and by the looks of her stiff body, she’d been dead for some time.

Evelyn had seen death many times before, but those of Callum were jarred, riddled with shock and horror. Mothers shielded their children. Some wept. Others retched and prayed to their spirits. Murmurs trembled through the crowd.

Who would’ve done such a thing?

McKenna McCarthy was the beauty of the town, with dark ringlet hair and jeweled eyes, and every young man had yearned for her heart, the one no longer beating.

Evelyn looked at the entire town congregated around the bell tower. She couldn’t fight the pull to say something, do something. Her magic thrummed with anticipation. Unlike the humans around her, witches followed a strict birth order practice that determined their role in their coven and greater society. Gender didn’t matter, and as a third-born, Evelyn was a protector—or at least, she’d been a protector, her urge to help just as innate as her magic.

Miss Patricia comforted Brenna McCarthy as best she could, and Evelyn focused her attention back on the body. There was hardly any blood, not a drop on the nightgown. The young woman’s bare feet peeked out from under the white nightgown, and Evelyn froze. She shook her head and blinked a few times to regain her focus. Evelyn grew colder than the air, disbelief coursing through her.

It can’t be.

“Move aside!” a thunderous voice boomed.

Charles Doyle, Callum’s commissioner, barreled through the crowd, wearing a leather tanned trench coat with a large silver brooch sewn above the right side of his chest, above his heart.

He looked between Brenna and McKenna’s dead body.

“Cut her down!” he yelled.

Some townsfolk hurried up the bell tower. The young woman’s body twirled as they worked to cut her down. She dropped like a puppet, once, twice, a third time, before she reached the ground.

At this distance, Evelyn saw the unmistakable pale blue hue of McKenna’s skin. Fucking flames, she’d been killed by a vampyr. Evelyn took a step forward, wanting to explain what she saw, but stopped.

She couldn’t.

Heat prickled on Evelyn’s skin. She clenched her jaw and balled her fists. It was evident McKenna had been killed by a vampyr, the very enemy Evelyn had trained all her life to fight against, but the people of Callum didn’t know she was Evelyn Carson.

Third-born.

Protector.

Daughter of the Goddess.

Destined to marry the Son of the God, Kade Drengr, a third-born werewolf, and prophesied to defeat the darkness.

She hadn’t faced a vampyr since the day her parents died, and she hadn’t used her true name and title for two years, unworthy of it after losing her flame and failing her parents. She wasn’t the protector she once was.

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe the lack of light during the morning hour or the distance between her and the body only gave the appearance of a vampyr attack. Callum sat on the human continent, far out of reach of the vampyr. Traveling from Drystan, their homeland, across the Sapphire Sea would be impossible between the harmful sunlight and their hunger for blood.

It’s not possible.

They laid McKenna out on the cobblestones. Her head angled south, looking away from the crowd. Evelyn kept sight of her feet and hands—robin’s-egg blue skin and a blatant lack of blood on her body, as if she’d been drained.

It didn’t matter how hard she tried to deny it. Vampyr bites held a poison that turned a victim blue. Evelyn’s magic felt the familiar darkness that surrounded vampyrs, too. No matter how much time had passed, she could never forget the sharp coldness, that feeling of wretched darkness.

The growing questions of the crowd snapped her out of her thoughts. Some were terrified, hoping for answers. Others were angry, demanding retribution. She battled between wanting to help and wondering if she even should. Was it worth the risk?

You’re nothing without your flame.