“My father?”

“Not an issue for now.” There was a pause. “We won’t make it back to the Cove, but there is…” He faded out briefly. “We’ll have to make it work just in case she… Do you think you can move?”

There wasn’t an answer for a long moment. “I…I don’t know.”

I fell again, slipping back through the years once more.

“Stay with your momma, baby.” Papa touched my cheeks, drawing me away from the voices. “Stay with her and find your brother. I’ll be back for you soon.”

Papa rose and turned to the door—to the man who stood there, watching from the small crack between the panels. “Do you see him?”

The man at the door, whose hair reminded me of the beaches of the Stroud Sea, nodded. “He knows you’re here.”

“He knows she’s here.”

“Either way, he’s leading them here. If they get in here…”

“We don’t let that happen,” Papa said, reaching for the hilt of a sword. “They can’t have her. We can’t let that happen.”

“No,” the man agreed softly, looking over his shoulder at me with strange blue eyes. “I won’t.”

“Come, Poppy.” Momma pulled on my hand—

The voice pulled me beyond the colors and the nothing.

“I don’t know what will happen from here.” He sounded closer, but even more tired than the last time his voice had reached me. Each word seemed to require an effort that he was quickly losing the ability to give. “She breathes. Her heart beats. She lives.”

“That is all that matters,” the other voice said, less strained. “You need to feed.”

“I’m fine—”

“Bullshit. You were barely able to get on your horse and stay on it. You’ve lost too much blood,” the other argued. “She’s going to wake eventually, and you know what will happen. You won’t be able to take care of her. Would you like Naill or Emil to service you, or would you prefer that they service—?”

“Naill,” he barked out. “Get Naill, dammit.”

There was a rough chuckle, and I slipped away, only to hear sometime later, “Rest. I will watch over both of you.”

I was gone again, but this time was different. I slept. I slept deeply, where only fragments of words reached me. But in that place, I became…aware that I had parts. A body. There was a warm, damp touch to my brow, my cheek. It was soft. A cloth. It swept over my lips and under them, along the side of my throat and between my breasts. It disappeared, and then there was sound. A trickling of water, and then the cloth returned, gliding over my bare arms and between my fingers. The touch felt nice. It lulled me, letting me slip back into the heavy sleep and fall once more.

I was that child again, grasping at my mother’s bloodied arm. They had gotten inside, just like the man had warned. The screams. There were so many screams, and the shrieks of those things outside the window, scratching and clawing at it.