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“You’ll come back and visit soon?” asked Sigrid, walking Amelie to the door after she’d said her goodbyes.

“Oh.” Amelie would’ve liked to visit again, but did not want to make a promise she couldn’t keep. “I live quite far away. Perhaps one day.”

“One day soon,” replied Sigrid, as if that settled things.

Amelie touched the girl on the shoulder affectionately. “We shall see.”

“Be careful out there, won’t you?”

Reylene’s voice rang strong and loud through the cottage. She’d interrupted her conversation with Oskar to call the warning to Amelie from the table. She and Benoit might’ve encountered raiders on the road, but did not wish to worry Sigrid and Julie with such talk. Amelie had the silver rose and would be riding with Trésor, though. She’d be safe.

She gave the healer a nod of understanding, and left the cottage.

The day was nearing its end. By the grace of summer, enough sunlight would remain for Amelie to return to the castle for the mare. As she turned a corner toward the square, a movement behind her caught her eye. Julie was following her several paces back.

“Sweetheart, what is it?” asked Amelie. “Does your father need something?”

Julie beckoned to her, then ducked into a smaller path off the laneway. Afraid of losing the child, Amelie hastened after her. Did Oskar know his daughter was out here? Was it safe for her to be on her own?

Amelie emerged from the path onto another laneway, more sparsely populated than Oskar’s area. There were only a few rundown dwellings, and no other people outside. Julie waited for Amelie at the end of the lane, next to a tiny cottage—the roof sagging under the weight of creeping ivy vines.

“Julie?” Amelie slowed her pace, a chill of premonition stealing over her body. “Is someone in trouble?”

She wanted to draw the girl away from the bleak-looking cottage without causing her alarm. The windows were dark, and the only sound was the chirping of crickets in the surrounding trees. Perhaps no one was inside. What was Julie doing? Playing a game?

“Julie, dear one, should we perhaps fetch your Papa?” asked Amelie, trying to keep her voice lighthearted. She scanned the tree line, half expecting to see a hooded figure lurking in the shadows. “Or Benoit?”

To her dismay, the girl dashed to the cottage and went inside, closing the door with a slam. Amelie cast around for help, but the laneway was desolate. She would have to bring Julie back to Oskar herself.

Not wanting to scare the child, Amelie left her silver rose sheathed, although she did move it from her satchel to her pocket, where she could more easily access it. She stepped off the path to the worn patch of ground in front of the cottage door.

Very suddenly, the crickets stopped chirping, leaving a ringing silence in their wake. Even the leaves in the trees stopped whispering. Amelie heard only the thudding of her heart.

She badly did not wish to go inside the cottage, but she could not leave a child in there alone.

“Julie?” she called, rapping on the door. “Please, come out.”

There was no answer.

Stomach churning, Amelie opened the door and stepped inside. The cottage was dark and consisted of a single room, gutted, and the floor was made of packed earth. A pungent odor filled her nostrils, like rotten eggs.

She squinted at the small figure in the corner of the room. It was Julie. The child stood immobile and silent, facing the wall.

Amelie crept closer.

“Julie? Please, let’s go.”

The girl said nothing as she slowly turned around. Amelie flinched, as if burned. Where Julie’s pretty blue eyes were supposed to be, there were now widening pits of black. And when the child smiled, a howling dark hole split her face open.

This child—this thing—was not Julie at all.

CHAPTER 15

Amelie dashed for the door, to find it had disappeared, along with the windows and walls and even the floor. She hung suspended in swirling, putrid darkness, like she’d been swept up by a demonic cyclone. The Julie-thing shed its disguise, taking a form the size and shape of a human, comprised only of shifting black vapor.

The Dark One.

“Amelie,” it rasped, moving closer. “Loved one. So pleased to meet you.”