“Why is she calling to you?” I asked him. Because I had a right to know if I was reading this all wrong. If Stephanie was shouting for him because he was in the process of killing me already. But then, in that case, wouldn’t Stephanie have been shouting my name?

“She senses your plan,” the monster said, surprising me by answering. “She senses it because I sense it.”

Confused by these words, and by Stephanie’s panic, I risked a glance in the direction of her distant shouting. If Stephanie knew what we were going to do, though, why would she want to stop us?

As though in answer, an echo of Charlotte’s words from the hotel room swam through my mind, banishing the remnants of my doubt that she had known what she was talking about—that she’d been able to perceive something vital that I hadn’t.

And Stephanie—she’d said he, Erik, had let her go. She’d also said he’d told her to leave.

Now here Rastin and I were, more defenseless in this phantom’s presence than either of us had thought we would be. Still, he’d yet to make an attack. Or even a threat.

His having a heart. According to Rastin, didn’t that mean his soul was, for now, intact?

What, though, did it mean that he and Stephanie could now sense one another’s whereabouts and, in a way, each other’s thoughts?

“Mr. Cheney.”

Numb, I snapped my attention to him, the figure whose mask hid the face of a dead man. A creature who had called me by my name. And had so far refrained from cutting my throat.

“Rastin,” it—he—said next. “Both of you. This way, if you please. So she cannot interfere.”

With that, he stepped suddenly between Rastin and me, his shoulder, real and tangible, faintly brushing my own as he went. I turned my gaze to follow the sharp path he cut past us, my expression of astonishment briefly mirrored in the polished side of his iron mask.

Then he vanished around the corner, heading in the direction of the rear door.

Rastin moved ahead of me to follow after him. It took me an instant longer to jar myself into action.

Though Rastin went straight through the open back door, passing into a world of rain and melting snow—a world that had inexplicably turned to night—I hesitated.

“The girl,” Rastin called after Erik, following his cloaked form down the path and into the dark. “How did this connection come to be forged between you?”

Drawn to the lip of the doorway, the one leading straight into his domain, I hesitated before drifting through, ending up outside on a perfectly restored porch.

Ahead, he waited on the muddy pathway leading to the conservatory.

Rastin was halfway to him when all three of us turned back to the open door at the sound of his name.

“Erik!” Stephanie called, her shouting growing near. Along with the thump of running steps.

“Mr. Cheney,” said Erik. “I find myself incapable of shutting the door. Her will to reach me keeps it open. And so, the task falls to you.”