There’s no mistaking the ’67 Dodge Charger parked to the side of the inn. It’s bright as a beacon with its marigold paint, the sides and hood detailed in maroon flames that my dad did himself, to my mom’s never-ending horror. Seeing it now is like running into a teacher out of class—it doesn’t belong here.

Unless…

“Colin?” Anna asks uncertainly.

I move toward the car just as the driver’s door opens, my heart soaring—but it isn’t Liam who gets out.

A short, thin woman with blue braids emerges, clutching a clipboard. My heart plummets, and suddenly I feel sick. As she approaches, something tells me I should run, that I shouldn’t listen to what she has to say.

But then she’s standing before me and her soft voice is asking, “You Colin Pierce?”

I nod mechanically. She holds out the clipboard. “Sign here for delivery.”

“Delivery from who?” Anna regards her suspiciously.

She shrugs. “Couldn’t say. The car was left at our lot with instructions to deliver it to a Colin Pierce at Ravenfall Inn should it remain unclaimed, and let me tell you, this place isn’t easy to find.”

Unclaimed. The word reverberates in my head. Unclaimed.

There’s only one reason the car would be unclaimed.

Anna must see my rising panic, because she steps between the woman and me so that I’m looking at her. “There are a lot of reasons Liam might not have gotten the car,” she says. “We don’t know what happened.”

The driver proffers the clipboard impatiently over Anna’s shoulder. I take it, signing without looking, and she exchanges it for the car keys. A taxi rumbles up the driveway, and she waves it down. Then she’s gone, leaving me clutching the cold metal keys to my chest.

“Colin?” Anna asks quietly.

“I don’t even have a picture of him. Of any of them.” My parents had made us leave everything but the necessities at home when we left. I hadn’t thought to grab a photo—I hadn’t realized what was happening. The only phones they’d let us have since then were cheap burners with cameras older than Ravenfall. My old cell phone got smashed along with anything else trackable.

My hand closes around the Irish knot charm at my neck, the metal warm from the heat of the cab. As a kid, when I couldn’t sleep at night, my mother used to loop it around my neck and tell me it was a magical talisman that would protect me. Now the necklace and the car are all I have left of them.

“I should have been there. Why didn’t they tell me about any of this? I could have—” I stop. “I feel so stupid.”

Anna shakes her head. “You’re not stupid. Your family was trying to protect you.”