Chapter 17
What the hell was that?
A joke, presumably. A bet, perhaps. Some private amusement between rich, bored people who have spent their entire lives inventing new ways to humiliate anyone unfortunate enough to wander into their orbit.
There is no other rational explanation for Silas kissing me the way he did on the dance floor at the Blackhollow Ball.
Before tonight, he had never shown anything even remotely resembling attraction or affection toward me. Contempt, absolutely. Irritation, definitely. Reluctant tolerance when circumstances had forced it, certainly. But actually wanting me in that way?
Yeah, no.
Anger quickly replaces any heat from his touch that still lingers beneath my skin.
He’d said he wanted to see whether I would let him.
Maybe Georgina put him up to it. Maybe Van did.
Maybe half the room is in on it, hiding their laughter while I stand here alone wondering why my heartbeat has not yet returned to normal.
A few people glance at me, curiosity sharpening their gazes, but most of the ballroom remains absorbed in its own glittering performance.
Champagne still flows. Candles still flicker.
The conversation rolls on as though nothing at all has happened, while my entire world has quietly tilted off its axis.
I look around for a familiar face, suddenly desperate to find my friends.
I search for Lena first. She and Jonah had been by the dessert tables only moments ago, but neither of them is there anymore.
My gaze continues around the ballroom, expecting to find them somewhere else in the crowd, until I realize, with a creeping sense of dread, that they aren’t the only ones missing.
Lucien has disappeared. The Ashcrofts are gone.
Georgina and her parents. Lena and Jonah and their families.
Even Van. They’ve all vanished without my noticing, and although Silas hasn’t returned since I slapped him, his absence feels less personal and more like part of the same pattern.
The ballroom is still crowded, but suddenly, it feels strangely hollow, as though the people who mattered have quietly left and everyone else has been placed here as decoration.
Only Rowan remains.
The relief that moves through me upon spotting him is immediate. After everything that has happened so far tonight, Rowan feels like the closest thing I have to solid ground.
“There you are,” he says, smiling as I approach, but the smile disappears the moment he sees my face. “What happened? Are you all right?” His expression hardens. “Did he do something to you?”
“I’m fine,” I say, because telling Rowan about Silas kissing me is not a conversation I want to have. “Where is everyone? Lena and Jonah are gone. Their parents. Georgina and her parents. Lucien. Van. Silas. Your parents.” I gesture around us. “Where did they all go?”
“People leave parties, Jack.” His tone is light, but he doesn’t quite meet my eyes.
“Did something happen to Lena and Jonah? They didn’t even say goodbye.”
“They’re fine.”
The certainty in his voice makes my stomach tighten.
“How do you know?”
“I just do.” He glances toward the nearest doorway before looking back at me. “It’s getting late. You should head back to campus.”
The unease that’s followed me all evening returns, stronger now. Something is happening. Maybe it’s already started. Whether Rowan is part of it or not, he knows far more than he’s willing to admit, and I’m tired of being the only person stumbling around in the dark.
“Where did they go?” I repeat. “And don’t lie to me.”
Rowan plucks a glass of champagne from a passing tray, watching the bubbles rise before taking a slow drink. “You’re upset.”
“I’m tired of being played with.”
The music swells behind us. Around the ballroom, couples turn beneath the candlelight while friends laugh and take shots at the bar. I wait, watching him.
“There’s another part of the evening that’s about to begin.” He hesitates. “A very… private gathering.”
“Veil Night.”
He goes still, his reaction confirming my suspicions. His gaze settles on me with a new intensity. “How much have you learned from those books?”
“Not enough.”
“Good.” There’s an edge to his voice I’m not used to hearing. “Keep it that way.”
He is no longer looking at me but sneaking glances around the room, as though measuring who might be watching us. A tiny bead of sweat forms on his forehead, though he wipes it away quickly.
“Go home, Jack,” he says quietly. “Get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“No.” I step closer, forcing him to meet my eyes. “Everything has been leading me to this. I know Josh disappeared on Veil Night. What happened to him?”
Rowan studies me, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly.
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“I don’t, Jack.” His voice drops. “I know he came to Veil Night last year. From what I was told, he followed someone there. After that, I don’t know what happened to him.”
The ballroom seems to recede around us. Every muscle in my body goes taut.
“You told me you didn’t know anything about his disappearance.”
“I told you what I thought you could handle.” His words are careful, almost gentle, which somehow makes them worse.
I stare at him.
“Take me there. I want to see Veil Night for myself.”
Rowan doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he searches my face as though hoping to find some trace of hesitation.
“Jack,” he says, “if I take you there, you don’t get to unknow it.
You can’t walk back into your old life and pretend you never saw what you’re about to see.
” He holds my gaze. “I’m asking you one last time to think very carefully about what you want.
Because if you ask me again, I’m going to believe you mean it. ”
My heart pounds against my ribs. Every instinct tells me to listen to him, but I’ve spent a year wondering what happened to Josh. If this is what I have to do to find my brother, I don’t have a choice. Maybe I can still save him.
“Show me.”
He leads me through a service door and out into the night, the party’s warmth and music falling away behind us.
Cold air bites at my bare shoulders as he cuts through the trees crowding Strega’s Hollow without hesitation.
He knows exactly where to step, which paths are real. He’s clearly done this before.
The chanting reaches us before we see anything.
Dozens of voices, low and rhythmic, unlike any language I’ve ever heard.
Rowan follows the sound to a massive, gnarled tree, its roots curled over a small, rusted door set into the earth.
The Mark of the Veil is etched into the metal.
He reaches down and the door groans open, releasing a gust of cold, metallic air.
He descends first down the stone steps disappearing below. I follow, the chanting swelling around us with every step, until the stairs give way to a narrow stone corridor. Two men in black robes and hoods block the way ahead, but neither stops Rowan as he takes my hand and walks me past them.
Wherever we are going, he belongs here. That much is clear.
At the end of the corridor, the passage opens into a vast chamber.
Dozens of figures in black robes stand in a wide circle around a candlelit stone altar.
Some faces are hidden behind hoods and smooth, expressionless masks—the same masks my kidnappers wore my first week at school.
Something cold moves through me at the sight of them.
A small, insistent voice claws for attention, certain it already knows what this means.
But then my eyes land on the uncovered faces, and the thought slips away before I can hold on to it.
Lena, no longer in her beautiful plum gown, now in a black robe like the others, standing near her parents.
Jonah in his robe beside his parents. Georgina.
Her parents. Wren, standing among what I presume is her family.
Van, standing alone. The Ashcrofts, on the far side of the circle.
And at the center, Lucien Blackhollow at the altar, Silas at his right hand, his expression giving nothing away.
The chanting stops the instant Rowan guides me into the room. Every face turns toward me. Silas’s gaze flicks from Rowan to me, and something alarmingly close to fear crosses his features—gone before I can be sure I saw it.
Then Van steps forward.
“An outsider has breached the Ritual Ceremony on Veil Night,” he says, his voice carrying through the chamber. “She is forfeit.”
I look at Rowan, confused. I have no idea what Van means, but coming from him, it can’t be good.
Rowan meets my eyes, something like regret passing across his face as though accepting a decision he wishes had gone another way.
Then he drops my hand and turns away, crossing the chamber to stand beside his family.
An older man steps forward beside Van. I can see a faint resemblance—the same flat, emotionless eyes, the same unimpressed set to his mouth.
“The Hawthorne heir is correct,” he says, his voice cold and flinty. “The law is unambiguous. The punishment for any unclaimed outsider who dares to enter the chamber on Veil Night is death.”
Death?
Reality falls away and the chamber ceases to feel real.
The torchlight, the black robes, the blood-red candles—all of it blurs into some kind of imagined nightmare I might wake up from any second.
But when I blink again, I remain there, trapped underground with a deadly cult, and everyone is still staring at me.
My gaze darts desperately toward my friends—Wren, then Lena and Jonah—searching for help, but they look almost as terrified as I feel. None of them moves. Whatever’s going on, they seem as powerless as I am. My gaze flies back to Rowan, the horror of what is happening just beginning to hit me.
He tricked me.
Rowan knew what crossing that threshold meant for me. He knew what would happen when these people saw me. He used Josh’s name because he understood I would follow it anywhere.
Oh my god.
I’ve been such a fucking idiot.