‘Get yourself settled, Lily,’ he said. ‘I’ll send Cass up with a tray of food now, but I’m sure you’ve got a lot to think about and then you need to try and sleep. If you’re anything like me, you’ll know that people are draining. New people are even worse. Rest will help, I promise.’

Lily managed a half-smile. Her rumbling belly was warring with her mind’s desperation to let her slip into oblivion.

‘Come down in the morning whenever you wake and there’ll be food left out. When you’re ready, I’ll be in my study. We can start then. Sleep well.’ He smiled, and then disappeared like a forlorn ghost back down the stairs, leaving questions still hanging on the end of Lily’s tongue, unsaid and unanswerable.

‘Goodnight, then,’ she said to the vacant space where Jem had stood. As she closed the door and gazed across the quiet room to the window overlooking the rolling sea, she felt his absence.

And it scared her.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Lily and Jem were both seated around the large oak table in his study. The others were busying themselves and were happy to let Jem take on the role of getting Lily up to speed. They would be joining in for the rest of the training in the latter stages of the week, when they felt they could really be useful.

Lily had recovered her battered carpet bag that she’d lost after the storm. Jem had found it washed up on the shore with its contents soaked but intact. She held it now, the only true attachment to her old life, and clutched it with white-knuckled hands. The documents and the old folklore book from Uncle Alf were damaged, but not beyond repair. Lily rooted around in the bag until she found the book and papers, and then handed them to Jem, who placed them with care onto the table.

The oak table had been cleared of its usual debris, but was now strewn with old, faded maps, books on local lore, compasses, and notebooks. Jem had been showing his research to Lily and together they had narrowed down the Shadow Sect’s location to two possibilities. Lily was uncomfortable looking at the locations because they both seemed inhospitable, mysterious, threatening. Every time they found themselves close to an answer, an image of Alice, cold and tortured, would flash through Lily’s mind. She knew it was her guilt-ridden conscience playing tricks on her, but it made her feel uncomfortable all the same.

‘My sister will be with her.’

Lily looked up. Had Jem read her mind?

‘I promise you, if Grace is’—he swallowed—‘still alive, she will be caring for anyone she sees as vulnerable or in need of a friend. It’s in her nature to take people under her wing.’ Jem ran a hand through his hair and sighed. Lily had momentarily forgotten that he, too, was experiencing the same pain that she felt at the loss of Alice. ‘Look,’ a flicker of a smile lit up his face for a brief second, ‘we’ve just got to hope that they’ve found each other, like we have.’ Their eyes met across the messy desk and Lily felt a real sense of comfort, knowing that she didn’t have to face the Shadow Sect alone.