Prologue
The Darkness stirred.
For months, since that wretched night on the beach, he had spiraled into nothingness, his own reality turned inside out, bled dry, desiccated.
He had retreated, forced back into a strange, liminal space.
For a time—how long, he could not say—he had been lost and disoriented, drifting in a void, drained and awash in confusion.
She had defied him. She had nearly defeated him. He had underestimated her, and he was paying dearly for it.
But now, even from where he hid away, burrowed like some lowly animal licking its wounds, he could sense a change. He unfurled the tendrils of his senses, reaching into the emptiness that surrounded him, and probing tentatively at the vibrations of magic in the air.
Something had shifted. Awakened. For the first time since her power had banished him to this space, he could feel her.
In spite of himself, his heart—if he could be said to have a heart—leaped. How this tenuous connection had formed, he could not say. But it was the tiny glimmer of light he needed to press on and begin again. If he could find her, perhaps he could find himself again as well.
The Vesper witch would be his, but he must act quickly. With every day that passed, she mastered more and more of her power. If he delayed too long, he would not be faced with sheer instinct and animal fear, but with skill and mastery.
He had despaired, he realized, but no longer. Now he must build himself back up, ready himself for a renewed attack. He had waited four hundred years for a second chance, and he would not squander it.
This time, he would not fail.