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S he sat there in the quiet for the longest moment, watching him sleep. He seemed peaceful and at rest. When she was certain he wouldn’t wake again, she rose, placing the book in the seat of the chair. Then she removed her gloves and bonnet, dropping them on top of the book, and then padded to the door.

Once outside the room, with the door closed softly behind her, she paused in the shadowed hallway of blue light, the candelabras dancing overhead.

“My lady?”

Dickens’ voice startled her, making her jump. She pressed a hand against her chest. She hadn’t seen or heard him approach. He was a man of great stealth.

“Oh, Dickens, you startled me.”

He gave her an apologetic look. “Could I offer you some tea and scones?”

At that, her stomach rumbled. Her initial response was to decline, but she skipped breakfast to rush here and see about Leopold. She nodded, viewing this as an opportunity to talk to the valet. He motioned for her to follow him back down the hallway, to the stairs, and finally to the small dining room she had breakfast with Leopold only a day before.

After she was settled, the tea poured and the orange and cranberry scone on her plate, she waited for Dickens to make another appearance. He didn’t. So, she ate in the deathly quiet of the room feeling as though the old oil paintings of long-dead ancestors kept their watchful gaze on her. When she finished her tea, it was as though Dickens sensed it and returned to refill her cup.

“Dickens, is true about Leopold?”

He never reacted to her question as he continued to pour the tea. “Is what true, my lady?”

“That he’s a…” Beast . She couldn’t say the word aloud.

Though she knew the truth of it—she had seen it with her own eyes, after all. She picked up the cup letting the warm steam waft over her face while she peered over the rim at Dickens, her heart in her throat and her gut twisted into a tight knot. He looked as though he would rather be anywhere else than there answering her questions. She replaced the cup in the saucer.

“I must know, Dickens.”

Not that she doubted Leopold’s words, but she wanted to hear it from another source. And Dickens said he’d known him for many years. She kept her gaze fixed on him as he stood there, stiff as a starched shirt, his dark eyes shrouded in mystery.

“You have seen him at his worst, my lady. There is no one else in this realm who knows his secret.” His voice was reedy thin as he stood there, peering at her with a sort of defiance. “I trust you to keep it that way.”

She understood then. He wanted to make sure she never spoke of his friend’s transformation to anyone. He must worry that if she did, it would bring unwanted attention to him and the castle that was in perpetual darkness.

“I would never violate that trust, Dickens.”

It had taken a lot of willpower not to tell Emmaline what was happening here and why she was so desperate to return. She didn’t even tell her, Gerald, or Edith what had truly happened the night before. She let them think it was merely a tree branch that shattered the window. It was impossible to explain to them about the shadow monsters that tried to attack her.

“He said the curse is getting stronger. Is it?”

Her determination to get answers pounded through her. She needed to know what she was up against. She needed to know how much time she had left to translate the book.

Dickens seemed to buckle under her persistence and reached for the teapot. He poured a second cup of tea, dropped in a lump of sugar, stirred, and then sat at the table in the chair nearest her.

“It is getting stronger, my lady. I fear what it’s doing to him.” He took a sip of tea, giving her a look of contemplation over the rim.

“How did he know I was in danger last night?” She ran her finger around the rim of the porcelain cup.

“He sensed it.” He took a deep breath, expelled it, and then replaced his own cup. He laced his long, slender ghostly fingers and leaned on the table toward her. “My lady, since the moment you walked into his life, it seems the curse senses when you are near and when you are in danger.”

She blinked at that, trying to make sense of what he was telling her. “I heard wolves howling close to our manor house several nights and—”

“He was there. Protecting you in the darkest gloom of the night.”

Cold tingles danced up her spine. “You mean, he knew those shadow monsters were out there?”

“The day he saw you in the bookshop was when he sensed them enter the town. It was the night of the full moon. He insisted I bind him to keep him inside the castle, to keep him from breaking free. But nothing I did could keep him from breaking through his bonds,” Dickens said.

She thought of that first night as she tried to translate the book and heard the mournful howl of nearby wolves. It was so eerily close, it was enough to rouse Gerald from his bed. They stood there huddled together in the foyer, listening as the night pressed around them. Both shivering with fear of what was out there. And Gerald, being brave or foolhardy, thought to shoo them away with the flick of his wrist.

She thought of the book again. How she saw the shadow apparition skulking around the pier that first night her father was home. The night their house burned to the ground. And then when they learned of the destroyed ships.

These shadow things must be tied to the book. For she had it with her in Hawthorne Hall when she heard the howling wolves.

“These…monsters…they’re tied to the book, aren’t they?”

“They are the veil-shade . Neither living nor dead. Demons of the night. Creatures tied to the book that hide themselves in shadow and illusion. But they are dangerous. With lethal claws. Mindless enemies that have one thing only in mind—reclaim the book.” He sat back in the chair and reached for the teacup, taking another sip.

“Where did they come from?” she asked.

Dickens looked at her over the rim as he considered his answer. “My prince told you of the curse, did he? How and why he used the darkest magic imaginable?”

She nodded.

“They were unleashed with the curse. When the book disappeared that night, they were meant to hunt it down and find it again. Only when it resurfaced in your possession were they able to do just that.”

That night …he referred to the night Leopold used the old spellbook to try to save his brother.

“And it’s true about his brother, Albert?”

His face was solemn. “It is.”

With a shaking hand, she reached for her cup and sipped, trying to hide the fear that pulsed through her.

“Were you there that night, Dickens?”

He didn’t answer. When she glanced at him, she saw the unease shifting through his aged face. He didn’t want to remember. Or if he did, it disturbed him greatly.

“Yes, I was there,” Dickens said, quietly. His eyes were distant, his voice flat in a way that said he did not want to remember.

“It was far past midnight. The castle was silent. Everyone else had given up hope the young man would live. But not Leopold. He was desperate to save the only blood he had left in the world. He sent away the guards. He barred the door behind me and told me not to speak, not to stop him. He needed me there. He wanted me there. To bear witness. I know that now.

“He’d found the book, you see. Somewhere deep in the archives of an old monastery that had long since been deserted. When he opened it, it was as though the book had been waiting for him. He didn’t need to read the spell aloud. It already knew what he desperately wanted. What he was willing to give—himself.”

He paused there to take a sip of tea. His eyes didn’t meet hers.

“The air shifted from hot to cold to hot again. Then crackling with the fiery, metallic tang of magic. Dark magic. Acrid and foul. The veil-shade came first. Long, thin things, clawing toward him like smoke. They did not speak. But I felt them. So did he.

“He accepted his fate with a deep, unrelenting courage. He placed his hand on the page and waited. That’s when it took him. Light shattered. Every candle in the room snuffed out. A scream ripped from deep within his lungs. Just once. But I will never forget that sound. The sheer terror. The pain. The anguish of it all. Then a sound. Like bones breaking. Like skin ripping.

“When it was over, he still stood. But the mark was there. Burned into his forearm. The rose and thorns. And his eyes…” He paused again, swallowed hard. “His eyes changed to that pale brown. And deep within them the hint of something feral and savage.”

He fell silent then, his gaze fixed on the tawny liquid of his tea.

“He was no longer the man who walked into that room.”

Her cold fingers pressed against her trembling lips as he told the story. She didn’t know what words to say once he had finished. What could she say?

Leopold did all that for his brother. His brother who feared and loathed him and tried to kill him for his crown. Hot tears pressed against the backs of her eyes as she tried to imagine the horrible scene.

Dickens lifted his gaze to hers then. And in them she saw the desolation, the despair, the fear, the burden he had carried all these long years.

“The brand on his forearm…it steals a little more of him each time he turns. It’s taking a little more of his soul, of his very life essence. And he is running out of time.”

The conviction in his voice hit her like a spark to dry kindling. Sudden, searing, and impossible to ignore.

It lit something deep inside her. Not just hope but need. A pounding ache that pushed against her ribs, rising into her throat. The helplessness, the fear, the wanting to do something all crashed into her at once, fierce and unrelenting.

She had to find the answer. She didn’t know how. Didn’t care how. Only that it was there. Buried somewhere in that infernal whispering book, tangled in the thorns and the ink and the truth it never wanted her to see.

And she would find it. Even if it destroyed her. She would find it.

“How much time does he have?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Only the hourglass knows.”

The hourglass that was nearly empty. The hourglass that ticked away more of his life with every drop of sand.

He leaned forward, and for the first time since she’d known him, Dickens reached for her.

It startled her—not the touch, but the choice to touch her at all. His hand settled on her forearm, cold and light, like he wasn’t quite sure he was allowed to make contact. His fingers were long, too long, and there was something off about them. About him .

The chill of his skin bled through her sleeve.

Not cold from the draft. Lifeless .

Her breath hitched.

It felt like he was fading before her eyes. Like he’d been carrying this story for too long, and it had finally begun to hollow him out from the inside. His hand trembled faintly, and still he didn’t let go.

For one awful heartbeat, she wondered if death had already begun to take him, and he was simply trying to leave something behind before it finished the job.

“You must help him, my lady. You must break the curse. If you do not, he will roam this world forever in his beast form. And this…” He swallowed hard, shook his head, and leaned back in the chair releasing her. “This place will be no more.”

“This place?”

“This castle will disappear. And so will I.”