Without the Gray Lady, Dena Nehele will fall to the twisted ideas Dorothea SaDiablo spews. It won’t happen next year, or the year after that. The dreams and visions I see in my tangled webs all show me the same thing—Lia’s granddaughter will hold the land for a while. Long enough to keep the bloodline from dying out with so much else that will die in the years ahead. And Jared and his grandsons will continue fighting to keep the shadows at bay.

I will die before the seasons change, slaughtered here at Grayhaven, which should have been the safest place, while Jared, Blaed, and Talon are fighting elsewhere. I will not tell them because if they are here, they will not survive—and they must survive a few years longer. They must.

Lia is dead. Tomorrow I will grieve. Tonight I will set in motion all the spells we created to keep the treasure safe—and the hope that is hidden with it.

Thera

Cassidy closed the journal and started to put it back. Then she hesitated. If she left it all where it had been safely hidden for so long, would the key work a second time? Or was this part of the spell done, and this was the only opportunity to retrieve these items?

Not willing to take that chance, she pulled all the journals out of the compartment and set them aside before she removed the last item—the trinket box.

During all this, Vae stayed with her, not really interested or curious, but still watchful.

Cassidy opened the trinket box and smiled as she lifted a few pieces from the jumble of jewelry.

No expensive pieces here, no precious stones. She imagined that, during Lia’s lifetime, the pieces weren’t jumbled to deceive someone into thinking they weren’t important. Because these trinkets were important. When she went through the journals, she’d find each piece recorded. Gifts from Lia’s children. Sentimental presents from her husband. Not expensive, but priceless nonetheless.

She spent an hour wiping the journals and trinket box clean of dust before hiding them in the bottom of a trunk of her own belongings.

Then she put the piece of floor back in place.

*The smells are gone,* Vae said.

The key was embedded in the wood, and when she tried to remove it, it broke cleanly, becoming nothing more than an odd gold glint in the wood.

She put the rest of the key in her own trinket box, then finished putting the room in order.

Time had made its shift from late night to early morning before she finally climbed into bed withVae stretched out beside her.

Just before she fell asleep, she realized why the servants had acted so oddly when she’d chosen these rooms over the fancy Queen’s suite.

This must have been the suite that had belonged to Lia.

CHAPTER 25 - KAELEER

CHAPTER 25

KAELEER