Chapter Fifty-Six
Lilith
Lilith reread the last line of the grimoire.
No matter what happens, seek solace in the honeysuckle grove.
She knew that clearing, recalling how the night before, it had been awash in moonlight, brimming with an unmistakable hum
of power—otherworldly.
Was that where she needed to go?
The candles flickered and went out abruptly, before she’d even left the room.
While strange, she couldn’t focus on that now. Not when she needed to get to the clearing.
She rushed from the secret room and came to an abrupt halt at the figure standing in the middle of the library.
Asher.
Asher, who had not told her early on that the magistrate had been his ancestor. No wonder he had been so cagey about the manor,
so evasive with her questions.
The rush of anger was instantaneous and blistering.
His eyes widened when he saw her. “Lilith, what—?”
“You lied to me,” Lilith snapped.
Asher frowned, blinking.
“Don’t you dare ignore me.” She stomped over to him, her feet somehow muted on the wood floors.
She stopped in front of him, and he put his hands out. “Lilith? What is the matter with you?”
“What’s the matter with me?” she repeated. “I’m angry that you failed to tell me that the magistrate’s last name was Walsingham, the same as yours. Your ancestor murdered Sybil Brantham.”
He shook his head. “You didn’t know that? But can we talk about—”
“Is this why you’ve been so cagey about coming here?”
He pulled his head back in surprise. “No, I didn’t think it was of any consequence. Lilith, it happened nearly four hundred
years ago… But why are you—”
“Then why do you act all weird about the manor?” She softened. “Asher, did you live here?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and exhaled a defeated sigh. “I did. For most of my childhood. I was the creepy kid who lived
in the old haunted manor.” He looked away, shamefaced.
“I went on the third floor,” she confessed. “And the attic.”
His gaze snapped back to her.
She held his stare. “I saw the paintings.”
“I’m sorry you saw those.” He rubbed a hand over his face.
“Wait—you painted those?” Lilith asked in shock.
He sighed. “I wasn’t honest before about the house. I…I didn’t want you to leave.” He offered a helpless shrug. “I didn’t
want to lose you.”
Lilith pulled in a quiet breath and the heat of her anger cooled into something that twisted in her chest. “Why would you
lose me?”
“My father obsessed over the legacy of Brackenmere Manor. When he died, the manor became everything to me.”
“You obsessed over it too?” Lilith asked in a whisper.
Asher nodded. “Aunt Jacqueline had the other house built and moved me out. But there was this draw, this need to be there.
Until you.”
Lilith swallowed. “Me?”
“Since you arrived, the house has let me go. I don’t feel its pull and I don’t have that dream anymore.”
Her heartbeat quickened. “What dream?”
“The one where a woman fades into the house.” He gave her an odd look. “It’s why I painted the canvases. But now…looking at
you…”
Lilith arched a brow. “What do you mean?”
“Why are you…?” He lifted his palms toward her in presentation. “Why are you…almost invisible?” There was a crack to his voice,
a pitch of fear.
“Huh?” Lilith glanced down at herself and saw the floor through her feet, the wall through her ribs.
Terror gaped within her, a black hole she fell into.
“I’m…disappearing.” The explanation came out of her mouth in a soft whimper, one of helplessness and raw understanding. “I’m
ceasing to exist.” Those familiar words caught in her throat.
Asher’s eyes bulged. “What?” He shook his head. “How? Why? Aunt Jacqueline didn’t…disappear? Did she?”
“What happened to Aunt Jacqueline?”
“She’s missing.” Asher shook his head. “What is even happening right now?”
Lilith’s birthmark stung, the sensation sharp with urgency. “We have to find her.”
A breeze swept through the room, fluttering her hair.
“I’m not missing, you silly fools.” Aunt Jacqueline appeared in the doorway, nightdress belling out around her skinny frame, her hair unbound and floating around her shoulders like finely spun cotton.
At her feet were three familiar animals: Lord Wimbleton the third, who sat in front of her like a squat pile of white and black fur, with Toby and Dragon on either side of her.
Aunt Jacqueline tsked at Lilith. “Look at you—you’re already fading. We’re running out of time.”
“What is this all about?” Asher demanded. “Aunt Jacqueline, where have you been? What are you doing?”
Aunt Jacqueline stepped closer, sure-footed and confident as she lifted a metal lantern. A thick plume of gray smoke billowed
from punctured holes. With a slender, aged hand, she swept the smoke toward Lilith, the scent of burning bay leaves both acrid
and fragrant as the smoke washed over her.
“Be seen,” the older woman intoned in a melodious voice. “Be seen. Be seen.”
A sense of reassurance coiled through Lilith. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the aromatic smoke, inviting its infusion
of strength.
“That’s better,” Aunt Jacqueline said with evident satisfaction.
Lilith opened her eyes to find Asher gaping at her. She looked down, relieved to see her body entirely visible once more.
The swirling pit of despair in her stomach downgraded to a bubbling simmer.
“The effect is temporary,” Aunt Jacqueline cautioned before Lilith could allow herself to embrace a sense of relief.
“I need to find Jacinda,” Lilith said. “I discovered what she wanted.”
Aunt Jacqueline shook her head. “You won’t find her here. Not now, not after Sybil’s arrest.”
Lilith blinked. “How do you know that?”
“Stop,” Asher said vehemently. “Will someone explain to me what is happening right now?”
Aunt Jacqueline gave Lilith a soul-suffering look before addressing her nephew. “I’ll tell you on the way to the honeysuckle
clearing.”