Narrowed it right down.

The ocean’s serenade unknit a few of the knots in her shoulders, anyway. She’d missed that sound. More than she’d known.

More than she’d admitted.

A creak snapped her eyelids open again. Maybe it was just something outside, swaying in the wind . . . but the wind was only a breeze. And she wasn’t hearing it through her open window. She was hearing it from her bedroom door.

Her breath caught even as her heart pounded. Another creak from the short little hallway connecting the bedrooms to the rest of the cottage. Probably just Libby, needing a cup of water.

But she knew Libby’s step. Even Libby’s quiet, trying-not-to-wake-her step. This wasn’t it. She eased a bit closer to her door, cracked open from habit, in case she had to slip out for water. There—a shuffle, like shoes on the wood floor. Libby certainly wouldn’t be wearing shoes at this time of night.

Her eyes well used to the dark after hours of staring into it, Mabena skirted her bed and hastened to the entrance, silent as a fish. She wrapped her fingers around the door’s slab, pulled it open all at once, as she’d learned that kept it from squeaking. Stepped into the hall.

A figure was silhouetted in the dark, barely more than a shadow. But enough to see that it was no taller than Mabena. Slight build. And reaching for Libby’s door.

There was no time for thinking—just for doing. She launched herself toward the figure with a guttural cry, tackling it to the ground. Given the size, it must be a lad. No, given the squeal, it must be a girl.

Whoever it was kicked her, pushed at her, but she held on, flipping them both toward the main room and away from Libby’s. She dodged a hand to her face and shoved at the intruder’s head. Her hand caught on something knit.

“Meow.” The little monster pounced, batted at something. What was he doing out of Libby’s room?

The knit thing pulled away, and Mabena saw in the scant moonlight that it must have been a cap, because hair came spilling out. Fair golden hair that she’d know anywhere, any time of day.

Mabena pinned the girl’s arms. “Elizabeth Tremayne! What in blazes are you about?”

Beth went still—then pushed her off, eyes wide. “Mabena? What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? Quite a question from the amazing vanishing girl!”

Beth scrambled to her feet, full panic in her face. The kind Mabena hadn’t seen from her in a decade, since the time they were nearly caught while swimming at night in only their knickers in the Abbey Gardens pond. Her gaze skidded from Mabena to Libby’s door.

No. To Libby, who stood there with chest heaving and her dressing table stool held up like a weapon.