Lucian tossed the talisman back into the drawer.

“A fraud, if you ask me. If he can predict so much, why didn’t he foresee me turning up?”

“Even if he did, how was he supposed to escape? You sealed off the surrounding sea and airspace.”

The duchess sighed.

“Why wouldn’t you let me tell Stella? That it wasn’t the rescue team who jumped into the water to save her. It was you.”

The words struck me so hard I could only stare.

Lucian had saved me from the shipwreck.

Lucian.

Together with the kidnapping two years ago, that made twice.

I drifted around the room, unable to stay still.

Why?

I rushed up to him until our faces were almost touching.

“Tell me the truth. Are you in love with me?”

He gave a cold, unreadable laugh.

“Tell her so she can find some way to repay me? It won’t be that easy.”

His voice was sharp with mockery.

“What the hell is Julian to me? I want Stella to owe me more than she can ever repay. As long as we’re alive, she and I aren’t finished.”

The obsession in his eyes was savage.

I stood frozen.

I had always known he was insane.

I hadn’t known he was this insane.

He had risked his life to save me again and again so that I would remain in his debt.

Without my knowing it, he had made me part of his game.

He understood me too well.

I hated owing anyone. If someone helped me, I repaid them, often twice over.

So he had created a debt I could never clear.

I only had one life.

He had saved it more than once.

A bitter laugh escaped me. My whole spirit shook with it.

I backed away from him.

How ridiculous.

I had actually thought he might love me.

This lunatic had simply found another way to play with me until he destroyed me.

He was sparing no expense to find me because he wanted the game to continue. He wanted to save me a third time and leave me owing him through lifetime after lifetime.

“You bastard.”

I wished the miracle would happen again.

Just long enough to give him one very solid throw over my shoulder.

Suddenly, my spirit lifted off the floor.

Heat flooded me.

I looked down.

The red streams that had entered my body were coming out again.

Only two remained.

Before I could understand why, they swallowed me.

When I opened my eyes, I was back at Starlight Academy, standing before the ancient tree.

A woman in white stood beneath it, her back to me.

There was no trace of life about her.

“Who are you?” I asked warily. “Did you bring me here?”

She turned and stepped out of the tree’s shadow into the moonlight.

Her face was extraordinarily beautiful and utterly bloodless.

I looked at the ground.

She cast no shadow.

“Stella Whitmore.” She smiled, her voice hollow and unearthly. “We meet again. I didn’t expect you to die so young. Or so horribly.”

I retreated half a step.

She extended a hand.

An invisible force pulled me straight toward her.

“Where are you going? I helped you teach that bitch a lesson today. Have you forgotten already?”

I stared, then brightened.

“You let me touch Pearl!”

“Of course.” She lifted her chin. “How else would a little wandering ghost like you manage it?”

So there was a way for me to take revenge myself.

I refused to celebrate too soon.

“Are you a ghost, too? Why are you so powerful? Why help me?”

“I’m not a ghost.” She drew back her hand indignantly. “My name is Flora. I’m an earthbound spirit. A considerably higher order of being than you. I’m bound to this tree. My existence depends on it.”

She explained, with the air of someone doing me a favor.

“Four years ago, people wanted to cut it down and build here. You bought the land and saved the tree. Which means you saved me.”

Her eyes rested on me.

“I gave you three spirit essences containing my power. Consider the debt repaid.”

I remembered.

I had bought the lot and stopped the tree from being felled.

“Everything has a spirit,” I had said. “It took this tree so long to grow. Let it stay. Maybe it’ll watch over the school.”

I had never imagined there really was a spirit inside it.

Or that it would help me after I died.

My thoughts raced.

The three essences had to be the red streams.

But just now, I had seen only two.

One touch had used up one essence.

I had two chances left.

Two chances to expose the truth about my death.

Flora saw exactly what I was thinking.

She rapped me on the head.

It actually hurt.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. You can’t use them whenever you please. They only activate when your need is extreme. When you want something desperately enough.”

She held up a finger.

“And you can touch only one physical thing. The moment you accomplish what you wanted, the essence disappears.”

I stared at her.

So many conditions.

And such a short time to act.

“Anyway, you have two left. Make them count. Off you go. I don’t owe you anything now.”

“Wait—”

I still had questions.

She waved a hand.

I flew backward.

The two red streams wrapped around me and swallowed me again.

When I opened my eyes, I was back in Lucian’s bedroom.