Chapter 006 — The Night Prowler

Old Tom had been missing for three days. The town was doing the small-town version of panicking — a board up at the sheriff's office, a jar for Marnie at the diner, a meal train organized by the church ladies.

The prints came back the second night.

She saw them at dusk, when she took the trash out. They were in the mud below the back step again — bigger now, deeper, more of them. They went around the shop twice. They went around the house next door. By morning, every family on the north side of the street had prints in their yard.

Booth put up a notice on the town board. Large animal on the ridge. Do not go into the woods alone.

Evelyn looked at the notice. Then she looked at Elias, who was reading it over her shoulder with a worried expression.

"Elias. You are not to leave the yard for the next week."

"Not even to water the birds?"

"Not even to water the birds."

"Can I water them from the porch?"

"From the porch."

He nodded. He took his watering can out to the porch. Evelyn watched him from the window and told herself she was being paranoid.

At midnight, she slipped out.

She put on the long black coat, the silver-bundled herbs in her pocket, the thin silver blade strapped to her forearm. She left a note on the pillow: Back soon. Don't panic. She knew he would panic anyway.

The night was cold. She walked the back roads to the north edge, where the old oak stood, and she found what she was looking for.

The prints were there. Dense. Confident. In the center of them, a patch of blackened earth — burnt, glossy, still faintly glowing. It was the mark. The dark-magic beacon the hunters left to let the pack know where the prey was.

She knelt. She scattered the silver herbs over it.

The reaction was immediate. The herbs hissed. The blackened earth steamed. The glow dimmed, like a coal being doused. She waited until it was dark. She stood up.

Her wrist burned.

Not the bond mark. The other one — the witch-sense, the thing that had been in her blood since she was seven, that made the hair on her neck stand up when something wrong was watching her.

She turned.

There was a figure under the oak.

Tall. Still. Half in shadow. It did not move. She could see that it was too big to be a deer, and too still to be a normal human, and that it was not running.

Her hand went to the blade on her forearm.

The figure did not approach. It just stood there, for a long, watching second. Then it stepped back into the trees and was gone.

She did not chase it. She walked home.

She unlocked the back door at two in the morning.

The lights were on.

Elias was standing in the middle of the kitchen in the deer-print apron over his pajamas, barefoot, his hair a disaster. When he saw her, his face broke.

"Evelyn."

"Elias —"

"Where were you." His voice was shaking. "I woke up. You were gone. I looked everywhere. I went up and down the street. I looked in the shop. I looked in the truck. You were gone."

"I went out for —"

"Don't lie to me." He said it loud. He said it desperate. "Don't tell me you went for milk. Where were you?"

She closed the door. She leaned against it. She was so tired of lying.

"I was at the edge of town. I was checking something."

"What thing?"

"Elias —"

"What thing, Evelyn."

He was looking at her. His eyes were gray. They were wet. And she watched, with a slow horror, as the gray around the edges of his irises began to lighten — to go gold at the rim. Just a flicker.

He did not seem to notice. He was too upset.

"I woke up and you were gone, and I thought they came back. I thought whatever it is that's been leaving the prints in the yard took you. And I was —" He stopped. "I don't remember anything. I don't have anyone else. If you go, I don't know who I am."

The gold flickered out. He blinked. He looked confused by his own outburst.

She crossed the room in three steps. She took him by the apron strings. She pulled him down to her.

And she kissed him.

It was a real kiss. She stood on her toes. She put her hands on his face. She kissed him like she was drowning.

He made a small, startled sound. Then his arms came around her — hard. He held her like he was afraid she would dissolve. His mouth moved against hers, clumsy, eager, and then not clumsy at all — like something in him remembered how to do this even when his mind did not.

She pulled back. They were both breathing hard.

"Evelyn," he said. His voice was wrecked. "I think I have wanted to do that for a very long time."

"Have you?"

"Every night. I lie on the couch and I think about it. I think about whether I am allowed to. I think about whether I deserve to."

She put her fingers on his lips.

"You deserve everything."

He closed his eyes. He leaned his forehead against hers.

"Don't leave me."

"I won't."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

He held her for a long time in the kitchen. Outside, the wind moved in the eaves.

She did not tell him about the figure under the oak. She did not tell him about the burnt earth. She did not tell him that the beacon would be replaced by morning, and that the people looking for him were not going to stop.

She held him. And when they finally went to bed, he slept with his arm over her waist and his face in her hair, and he did not dream of thrones.

Evelyn lay awake. She looked at the ceiling. She counted the days.

Three months of peace. A week of prints. Three days since Old Tom walked into the woods.

The seal was loosening. The hunters were at the door.

And she had exactly no idea what to do about any of it.