I opened my eyes in the rear grounds of Starlight Academy.

Flora leaned against the ancient tree and yawned.

My appearance didn’t surprise her.

She studied me as though she could see right through my spirit.

“You’ve used another chance already.”

Anger rose immediately.

I rushed toward her.

“You said if I wanted something desperately enough, I could touch the physical world. Why can’t I save my mother? Why could I touch the man I hate most?”

Right now, I hated Lucian.

Flora rubbed one ear.

“Your desire is only one part. The other person must have a powerful attachment to you. The stronger it is, the stronger your ability to touch.”

I frowned.

She sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Remember Ellie? She was dying. She wanted you to save her. Her need to live bound her to you. Your wish to protect her supplied the other half. You need both.”

Slowly, I calmed.

So that was why I couldn’t reach my mother.

Her mind was lost. The pillow had become her daughter.

She wasn’t reaching for me.

No matter how desperately I wanted her, I couldn’t make that connection.

“If the attachment is strong enough,” Flora added, “the other person can even touch you.”

I looked at the back of my hand.

Lucian had touched me.

An attachment?

To me?

Impossible.

He had said it clearly in the car.

He didn’t even want to hear my name.

“Stella.”

I looked up.

Flora touched a fingertip between my brows.

Something passed through it.

My spirit began tingling and heating beyond my control.

“Go to the person who’s most bound to you. Use the three chances I gave you. Then…”

Her last words were almost lost.

“It’ll be your turn to repay me.”

“What?”

The vortex behind me pulled me in before I could ask.

When I opened my eyes, I was beside Lucian again.

Nothing was as I expected.

This had to be the Sterling estate.

Tonight was supposed to be a family celebration for the baby.

Instead, it looked like a killing ground.

Dozens of Lucian’s men stood around the grounds.

The household staff and guards had been locked inside a huge metal cage. They trembled together.

Lucian sat in a chair, long legs stretched out, turning a small lighter between pale fingers.

Blue flame flickered in his eyes.

He looked capable of drowning the world in blood.

I followed his gaze upward.

More than a dozen Sterlings hung above the outdoor swimming pool.

The women cried.

Theodore shouted.

“You animal. You rabid dog. I invite you to celebrate my grandson, and this is how you behave?”

His voice shook with fury.

“Put us down. Apologize. I might overlook it. Otherwise, I’m going to your father and demanding an explanation.”

Lucian smiled beneath the moonlight.

“Why go to the castle? Once you’re dead, you can visit him in a dream.”

Sterling looked ready to choke.

“You think you can wipe out my family? There are laws in this city.”

The smile deepened.

No warmth reached his eyes.

“Let’s see how much of you is left when the law arrives.”

He raised a hand.

Several men approached with large buckets and emptied them into the pool.

Fish thrashed in the water.

Hundreds of them.

Piranhas.

Teeth flashed beneath the moonlight.

Sterling went gray.

Several women fainted in their ropes.

This was Lucian’s gift.

He meant to feed them to the fish.

Every move he made defied what I expected.

“I had them go hungry all day. Especially for you.”

He lifted a large piece of raw meat from a plate and threw it in.

A second.

That was all it took.

The fish tore it apart.

Only a thin cloud of blood remained.

Sterling had seen what would happen to his family.

His defiance collapsed.

“Mr. Blackwood. Please. Let us go. We’ll leave Fairhaven. Never come back. Nobody will hear a word of this.”

A man decades older than Lucian was begging like a child.

Lucian rolled his neck and looked up.

His gaze cut straight into him.

“A little girl named Ellie disappeared from Starlight Academy this afternoon. Where is she?”

Fury struck me.

They had already taken her.

Guilt and panic crossed Sterling’s face.

“I don’t know what you—”

Lucian lowered one finger.

The rope holding Sterling’s son slipped.

The suited man dropped toward the open mouths below.

“Dad! Help!”

“Wait!”

Sterling shouted it.

His son hung barely three feet above the water, unconscious with terror.

The old man seemed to age before my eyes.

He gritted his teeth and began to speak.

“Lucian!”

Ellie’s clear little voice sounded behind us.

I turned.

Miles approached with her.

She was dirty from head to foot.

When she saw Lucian, she ran toward him, her face full of wounded relief.

She tried to throw herself into his arms.

He extended a hand and stopped her by the forehead.

“You’re filthy. Which hole did you crawl out of?”

His disgust was unhidden.

She grinned.

“The one by the kitchen. Aren’t I clever? They tied me up, but Stella taught me how to undo ropes.”

Miles paled at my name.

He looked cautiously at Lucian.

His face gave nothing away.

I didn’t understand either.

Had he done all this for Ellie?

“The girl’s here,” Sterling shouted. “Now let my family down.”

More than a dozen lives.

Surely Lucian wasn’t really going to kill them all.

He stood and approached the pool.

He looked at his reflection.

Slowly, he held out his hand.

The hand that had touched mine.

Understanding began to hurt.

I moved toward him.

His lips moved.

Close enough, I heard every word.

“Come and stop me, Stella.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

He didn’t believe in ghosts.

But on the roof, he had heard me.

For a moment, he had touched me.

Now he was trying to make it happen again.

His hand waited in the air.

For a miracle.

For me.

“Are you an idiot?”

I was frantic.

Knowing what he was doing, how could I reach the same desperate state?

His mouth twisted.

“So even dead, you’ll do anything to protect him.”

I stared.

He thought I had appeared on the roof to save Julian.

As I always had when alive.

Still blinded.

Still treating that bastard like something precious.

He closed his eyes hard.

“You hopeless, stupid woman.”

“No!”

Tears flooded my face.

“It wasn’t him I was protecting. It was you.”