A man she had trusted, a man who had been her friend. Or so Megan had believed. But after their one afternoon together, after Megan had “come back to my senses” and told that other man she’d made a mistake . . .

He hadn’t taken it well. And though Megan hadn’t gone into detail, it had been clear that whatever had passed between them had scared her. Scared her enough to prompt her decision to leave Salem.

But . . . it had still not seemed such a serious situation to Aylia. Young people hurt each other. They were careless. They were selfish. They got over it. Usually. Now, looking back, Aylia wasn’t at all sure she herself had taken the situation as seriously as she should have.

Because Megan was dead. And the shock of that was compounded by the fact that she had apparently been killed last summer before she could leave Salem.

Had Aylia’s own counsel somehow made a bad situation immeasurably worse? And if so, was there, now, anything she could do to make up for that? Was there anything she could tell Finn, tell the federal agents? She had never known who the man was, just that he had been . . . possessive. Possessive enough to have refused to allow Megan to leave?

Aylia went out her back door, still frowning in thought, and headed across the yard toward her little cottage. She knew she needed to settle her mind, to think clearly so that she could decide what to do.

Perhaps she could tap into her farseeing again and that would help her to decide. Her Talent had helped her in all the difficult moments of her life, after all. Surely it could help her now.

She was vaguely aware of how cold and still the air was, a glance upward showing her gray clouds growing darker and heavier. It was supposed to snow. There hadn’t been much snow this winter, though lots of bitter cold, and she had the notion that the valley needed a good storm right now.

Everyone was so tense—

It was no more than a faint sound behind her, but suddenly Aylia felt a wave of overwhelming cold that had nothing to do with the gray day, and before she could do more than begin to turn, something struck her head, pain exploded in a red burst, and everything went dark.

—

“WAIT. WE NEED to stop here.”

DeMarco immediately pulled into the lot beside a small and beautiful old church not far from downtown Salem, but even as he was parking in the otherwise deserted lot, he asked simply, “Why?”

Hollis was staring at the church, unconsciously rubbing her left temple. “Hmm? Oh . . . just a feeling. We need to talk to the pastor.”

“Why?” DeMarco repeated.

She looked at her partner, then gestured toward the sign outside the church where there was an invitation for all to attend Sunday school and Sunday services. Atop the sign was perched a large crow, staring at them.