“And I said yes.”

“Yeah, but you guys were dancing together last night. And I didn’t know if maybe you—”

“I don’t like Wes,” I said. “Do you think I’d have let you kiss me that way if I did?”

A flicker of hope flashed in those stained-glass blues.

“Hello,” I said. “I like you. A lot.”

A beat passed. Then we each took a simultaneous step toward one another. Lucas reached for me a second time, eyes hungry. I drifted into him, allowing his arm to slip around my waist, his hand to press into my lower back, bringing us together once more.

We both halted, though, our progress toward a second and possibly even steamier kiss arrested by a distant first-floor shout. That of someone calling out for Lucas.

The two of us snapped apart. Grabbing our fallen sage bundles, we hurried for the door. On the way out, I caught sight of the desk from which Erik’s music had floated that first day I’d come up here. The desk now lay on its side—toppled. I frowned as Lucas and I wound down one set of steps after the other, halting only when we reached the middle of the grand staircase.

Patrick stood below, peering up at us. His words were enough to distract me from my questions surrounding the desk, which couldn’t have thrown itself over.

“It just opened,” he said.

Lucas and I didn’t have to ask what he meant by “it.” Instead, we both hurried down to the foyer, then streamed past him into the kitchen, where Charlotte and Wes stood facing the open basement door.

“Did you see it open?” asked Lucas.

“Heard it,” replied Wes.

“Patrick!” Lucas yelled to the front of the house.

Patrick’s steps pounded down the hall, slowing as soon as he reached the kitchen, a sage bundle in his own hand now.

“Watch this door, will you? I think . . . I think whatever we’re doing . . . it’s working. We’ve got this thing cornered now. But we don’t want it locking us in.”

“Yeah,” said Patrick, glancing back the way he’d come, probably thinking about the now unguarded front door. “How long have I been saying we need two of me?”

“If you hear us scream,” said Wes.

“Run,” finished Patrick.

“You’ll feed my fish?” asked Wes.

“If I get that far,” mumbled Patrick as he stared into the darkened doorway. With that, all of us grew silent in the face of our new task, one that Lucas had assured me would be our last. Was it possible the sage could eliminate the evil that resided here? I wanted to believe it could.

Lucas hit the light, illuminating the basement’s bare-bones wooden stairs. Emboldened, he then passed beyond the threshold of the cellar door. The three of us followed behind.

Once in the basement, all of us went from corner to corner, spreading the smoke, Wes muttering prayers under his breath. Then, with the deed done, we gathered in the center of the room, our backs pressed together, as if suspecting something would jump out at us, or that one of us would become possessed like Rastin.