kellan and bethan stood outside the gates of Rennigan House. They vowed they would not utter a word of what they’ll find to the Rennigans but would report it straight to Edington.

They walked up the familiar decadent path, and Bethan marvelled at the home’s beauty in the daylight. She felt like she was walking through a palace garden. Every plant, tree, stone and flower was placed in symmetry, with nothing out of place. She admired the hardworking gardeners on the Rennigans’ payroll.

They journeyed closer to the door, and Kellan’s face returned to coldness, a mask that was quite unusual for fae with fire-wielding powers.

Kellan knocked twice on the door and whispered, ‘Don’t show you’re afraid.’

Bethan gazed at him, dumbfounded.

‘I can hear your heart.’

Bethan hadn’t realised how fast it had been beating until he said it. The twin doors swung open, and Elnora’s face greeted them.

She was dressed just like she was that morning. If Kellan wore his mask of cruelty, Elnora wore one of utter professionalism.

They walked through the high doorway. Her stomach twisted when she turned the corner and came face-to-face with Kai and Sunni.

She was deep in the lion’s den, and the vultures were swarming and circling. Her sister’s murderers greeted them with fake smiles and pleasantries, and Bethan wondered if they could feel her anger steaming out of her. Or perhaps she was just the same awkward girl she had always been.

But Bethan couldn’t detect anything strange in their behaviour, which meant they didn’t know anything about what she and Kellan had discovered.

They were leading them to their personal libraries, and Sunni bragged that the family acquired many of the books from the fallen library in the Old Kingdom.

‘The fallen library once belonged to the Devil himself, and those books are dark books.’ Bethan offered that slither of information she recollected from her days at university.

Kai cringed at the mention of the Devil, like many witches did.

Elnora led them through a long corridor that wound around the home; it was the first time Bethan had gotten that far into her friend’s house. They, thankfully, didn’t pass the room where Kellan had to kill Canden in. Bethan was thankful for that, at least. She didn’t know if she could bear it. She wondered if there were still blood stains or if Elnora had cleaned it up. The sight of that blood never indeed left her.

She hoped that Dana didn’t bleed like that when she died. Bile rose in her throat at the thought, and she did her best to swallow it down.

A hand touched her back; she gazed up at Kell, who didn’t face her but continued to walk forward; his line of vision was directed at Kai, and Bethan wondered why he felt the need to hold her this way.