Rebeka staggered back as the ruins seemed to repair themselves around her, building into what she could only describe as a temple. Intricate designs had been painted over the granite, geometric shapes that might have been some kind of text. The creature swept its hand again, and more creatures flourished around her, standing in the circle of the chamber, and she got the distinct sense they were passing some sort of judgment.

The presence in her mind grew more insistent. Memories of her own life mixed in with images she didn’t recognize. She saw herself watching from the window of her uncle’s farmhouse as her crush, Joachim, worked in the garden next door; he’d been killed by Einsatzgruppen during the seizure of Luxembourg. She saw the creatures arranged in a circle once more, only they were recognizable now, their faces almost human, their expressions guarded, as an oddly dressed human man—breeches and livery—bargained before them. The man looked through Rebeka, and she tasted a name on her lips: Tomasi Sicarelli.

His bargaining concluded, he turned from the creatures with a cruel smile, and they collapsed, screaming and writhing, as their features were torn away.

Fire. The fire consuming their synagogue in Berlin. The fire and ravage of human hands tearing through the shadowed forest. The creatures aching as Sicarelli pillaged their world, the color and life gone from the lands, their muscles and faces shriveled.

Rebeka closed her eyes, shaking. This world . . . it had suffered, too.

Then the presence retreated from her mind. The creature drew itself up, cartilage snapping as it straightened high. Was she going to be punished for what had been done? For being another intruder and conqueror, like Sicarelli, like whoever this other man was?

But with a flicker of violet, that world disintegrated—the shadows lifted like veils parting wide.

And then it wasn’t the ruins at all, but a narrow stone path. Buildings pressing in on either side. The buzzing was gone, the current was gone. She felt nothing now, heard and saw nothing except the dull twilight muffling the town of Hallenberg.

Rebeka gulped down stale autumn air. She wasn’t in the bell tower anymore, but looking at the church head-on from the other side of the town square. Her mouth hung open as she tried to piece together what had happened the past few minutes. The soldiers, the shadow, the forest, the ruins—and threading it all together, her.

The shadows were inside her—and she had a home in them.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

LIAM