I froze, though, paralyzed by sudden movement in the darkened hallway, and I turned my head to find something lurking there, watching me from within the shadows.

A silhouetted figure.

With lights for eyes.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Zedok

Had I possessed the capacity to breathe, I would have stopped forever at that instant.

Lips parted and eyes wide, Stephanie Armand herself stood in the flesh before me, inexplicably transported to my side of Moldavia. Terrified, she watched me in silence, the glow from the winter moon streaming in through the stained glass encompassing her in the most befitting of halos. Even locked within the grips of alarm, she was beautiful.

She saw me now, though. At last she believed. But what she saw—no doubt it was the source of her terror.

“Stephanie,” I said, forcing myself to formulate words. “How did you get here?”

At the sound of my voice, she stiffened. Her frame, now ramrod straight, became still as death, her face white as talcum.

“Erik?” she whispered with barely any voice at all.

“Yes,” I told her, uncertain of what else to say, though petrified of what this interlude would lead to next. Somehow, working outside of my cognizance, the masks had conspired to lure her onto this side. And now where were they? In entering the house, had I, too, fallen prey to their trap? No matter the answer, this crisis demanded of me one thing and one thing only. I had to get Stephanie back to her side at once.

“I don’t understand,” she half gasped. “This . . . this doesn’t feel like another dream. Is it?”

God. What to do? What to say? If only this was a dream. I could go to her. I could—

“Your eyes,” she said. “Charlie said—”

Knowing better than to sheath my sword, I tightened my grip on its hilt. Then, left with no alternative, I took slow steps toward her, allowing the gloom to peel back from my form. At the sight of my mask, Stephanie pressed her back into the front door, her chest rising and falling with greater frequency.

“I am not the monster,” I told her. A lie. But I would have said anything to keep from triggering the utter panic that was reaching its boiling point within her. In order to return Stephanie to her side, I would need her to trust me. Allow me near enough to take her hand. “Please. You must believe me.”

“Stop,” she commanded, holding up a palm to me.

I complied. “Stephanie, there isn’t—”

“Take off the mask,” she demanded. “If it’s really you, then . . . show me your face.”

I stilled, an unbearable silence elapsing within the boundary of several seconds.

“That’s . . . not possible,” I said at last.

Her jaw setting, she pushed off from the door. Then she came at me, reaching toward me as she had in last night’s dream, this time with the hopes of winning my mask. A victory I could not allow. I would have stopped her had she not halted herself, her attention stolen by something at my back.