He knew what I knew. That I could not have withstood the sight of Stephanie’s face had she seen mine.

Valor would have cracked, and Wrath would have won me. But . . . was there truly not one other shard of my soul that wished for her freedom? Was there no other glimmer of light amid the shrapnel of my ravaged spirit?

It would seem not.

Delayed and parried, attacked and detained, I won my way to the kitchen at the great cost of time, certain I would find her already transported to the bowels of the house. Miraculously, though, I arrived at Stephanie’s side in time, if only just.

A gentle tug on my part was all it took to dislodge the porcelain facade of the mask whose likeness and name I now could no longer deny. With the dispatching of Desire, I turned to the real Stephanie.

My plan from this point had been to flee with her, to put as much space as possible between her and the greedy hands of the distorted soul that wanted her at all costs. From there, I would fling open the first door I encountered and see her through to her side. But the execution of that plan was not to be. And this time, it was none other than Stephanie herself who thwarted my efforts. Or the efforts I would have made, if she had not, in that moment, devastated me utterly by canceling the distance between us with a swiftness I could not have stopped, her arms lifting to wind around my shoulders and draw me into the first embrace I had experienced in over a century.

Time fell away, the world as well, while within me, bliss warred with agony.

Had I ever known either of them until that instant when her fiercely beating heart crashed against my nonexistent one?

Warmth. I had forgotten what it felt like.

“Human,” Rastin had called me. This moment suggested that, perhaps, against all odds, the medium was right. For human was how she made me feel.

Distantly, I became aware of the masks unfurling around us, each of them dispersing as if suddenly relieved of their power to be. Why? I could not know.

Stephanie. This girl who embraced me in spite of now knowing what I was.

She had to be the reason why.

Masks or no, though, she needed to leave.

My hands. They trailed up her arms, gloved fingers unable to help stealing a forbidden caress on their way to wrapping her wrists. With gentleness, I undid the link of her arms. That I was able to do so gave me hope. For her.

I turned from her then, staying connected to her by one hand only. With it, I drew her from the kitchen and into the darkness of the hall.

“You must go,” I told her without stopping or looking back. Because I could not risk vacillating for even one more instant. Not when it was her freedom, her sanity, on the line. “You must leave here tonight. Take Charlie and your father and never return.”