“Oh dear, you have a knife…” Rowena said in her sweet Charleston accent, raising her hands, feigning dismay and confusion as she slowly backed up. “I don’t understand. What’s happening?”

“I know who you are, Rowena,” Braeden said, holding the knife out in front of him, his hand trembling and his eyes wide with the fear of facing down a sorceress who could throw a spell at him at any moment.

“Braeden, listen to me,” Rowena said in her normal voice.

“You can wear as many masks as you want, Rowena, but you’re always a monster underneath.”

“I’m not going to hurt you…” Rowena said, trying to calm him.

“That’s just what the cloak says!” Braeden shouted at her, pressing toward her with the knife in sudden panic, filled with more fear and agitation than Serafina had ever seen in him.

“Don’t kill her, Braeden, we need her!” Serafina shouted, but he couldn’t hear her.

“Please let me explain,” Rowena said, moving away from him as he pushed forward.

“Then spit it out,” he said, shaking the knife at her. “What are you doing here? What do you want?”

“Tell him the truth or he’s going to stab you!” Serafina shouted frantically.

“I came to tell you that my father is back and he’s going to kill you and your family,” Rowena said.

Serafina sucked in a breath of surprise. That definitely wasn’t the calm and reassuring explanation she was expecting.

But then Rowena’s words begin to sink into Serafina’s mind. She’d had her suspicions, but now she knew for sure: Uriah had come back. The storm-creech she’d seen in the forest had been him, his talons and scaly skin the remnants of his old owl form. The unhealed wounds across his face had been inflicted by her own panther claws. Uriah was the one bringing the storms, flooding the rivers, and tearing away the trees. He had come to wreak his vengeance on Biltmore.

“This is how you’re trying to win my trust?” Braeden said. “By telling me that you and your father are going to kill me?”

“I’m not going to wage my father’s war anymore,” Rowena said, her voice sharp. “I’m tired of the fighting and the blood, the endless cycle of hate and retribution.”

“Another lie,” Braeden said.

“I know that I tricked you, I attacked you, I harmed you in so many ways, but I’m through with all that.”

As Serafina listened to Rowena’s words, everything began to make so much more sense. Uriah had been the one who had inflicted the terrible wounds on Rowena the night Waysa found her and helped her. Uriah had punished Rowena for failing to kill her on the Loggia and for losing the Black Cloak to their enemies. He was the one Rowena was hiding from in the bog, who had been threatening her, attacking her, the one she’d been screaming at the first time Serafina came to her in spirit form. Serafina couldn’t even imagine what Rowena had been going through all this time. The girl had become a powerful sorceress in her own right, but it was clear that her father had been twisting her heart and her body for many years. He had a terrible grip on her, and probably always had. Serafina couldn’t even imagine her own pa doing that. It was threat, it was hurt, it was a thousand things, but it was not love.

“Then why have you come?” Braeden demanded.

“I need the Black Cloak,” Rowena said.

“I don’t have it,” Braeden spat back.

What surprised Serafina wasn’t Rowena’s trickery or Braeden’s fierceness, but the fact that Rowena hadn’t thrown a potion, cast a spell, or tried to outright kill him. So far, she had not only refrained from attacking him, she had told him the truth. This was the weariness, the loneliness, that Serafina had seen in her before. Much has changed, Rowena had said. Serafina realized now that she’d been talking about herself.

“You said that you don’t want to hurt anyone,” Braeden said. “But you want the Black Cloak. That doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m trying to help you, Braeden,” Rowena said, and even to Serafina’s suspicious ear it sounded strangely sincere. Rowena seemed to truly care for him.

“Help me?” Braeden snapped at her in disgust. “You killed Serafina!”

Braeden screamed the words with such powerful emotion that it broke Serafina’s heart. All the fighting and deception between them, but this was the offense that he could not forgive. You killed Serafina. The words were so final, so devastating to him. She realized now how deeply his heart had been damaged.

For as long as she had known him, he had always been the trusting one. He had defended his friend Mr. Thorne. He had trusted Lady Rowena when she first came to Biltmore. He had always been the person to open his arms to someone new.

And Serafina knew that she had always been the suspicious one, the one who didn’t trust people. She had suspected Mr. Vanderbilt was the Man in the Black Cloak because of the type of shoes he wore. She had suspected the footman Mr. Pratt, and the coachman Mr. Crankshod, and the detective Mr. Grathan, and all the others. She was always hunting for the rat.

But now she realized that she had changed, too, maybe just as much as Braeden had, but in the opposite direction. She could feel herself starting to listen to Rowena, wanting to believe what she was saying. She had seen Rowena that first night in the forest walking alone by the river, her spirit so changed. And she had heard the fear in the girl’s voice when she shouted out into the darkened forest. And she had seen Rowena fighting off her father’s attacks, screaming at him in savage defiance.

Could all of this have been an elaborate trick designed to gain her trust? Serafina knew it could be, but it felt like Rowena was telling the truth.

But more than all that, Serafina knew that it didn’t matter how scared she was, how uncertain or suspicious: she needed Rowena. If Rowena didn’t succeed tonight, Uriah was going to kill Braeden. That much was certain.

But here was Braeden on the opposite side of it. He hated Rowena. Rowena had harmed him, scarred him, and killed his friend.

Serafina tried to think. What could she do? How could she talk to Braeden? How could she show him that she was here?

She looked around the softly lit room, the guns in the glass cases, the sizzling embers and gray ashes in the fireplace, the upholstered chairs and the wooden table, and the Persian rug on the floor. She could see Braeden and Rowena’s reflection in the cases, but she couldn’t see her own. She was just a glint of light in the glass.

Then she looked at the fireplace again.

Ashes to ashes, she thought as an idea sprang into her mind.

“Rowena, listen to me,” she said, “we need to get Braeden’s attention. Get him over to the fireplace.”

Rowena didn’t seem to understand and didn’t respond.

“Do what I say,” Serafina demanded. “He’s never going to listen to you alone, not like this. You need my help.”

As she watched Rowena pause and think it through, she realized that even the sorceress had to be careful about whom she trusted.

“Braeden,” Rowena said finally. “I need to show you something by the fireplace.”

“Good, that’s perfect…” Serafina encouraged her. “Just get him over there and I’ll do the rest.”

“No!” Braeden said, pointing the knife at her.

“It’s about Serafina,” Rowena said.

“What about her?”

“Come over to the fireplace and I’ll show you.”

“I’m not going to do what you say,” Braeden said.

“You’ve got to convince him,” Serafina told her.

“He’s not going to do it,” Rowena said.

“Who are you talking to?” Braeden asked her.

“Find a way,” Serafina said. “Act harmless. Lay on the floor!”

“I’m not stupid,” Rowena said. “I’m not doing that!”

“You’re not doing what?” Braeden demanded.

“Get on the floor!” Serafina said again. “If I’m going to trust you, you need to trust me.”

“Fine!” Rowena snapped resentfully, but then she spoke to Braeden in a softer, gentler tone. “Braeden, I understand that you’re frightened of me. I would be, too, if I were you. So let me do this. I will not resist you. Hold your knife to me so that I cannot harm you.”

Watching the sorceress carefully, Braeden moved the knife toward her. Rowena slowly lowered herself and lay flat on her back in front of the fireplace. Braeden followed her down, kneeling beside her, and pressed the blade against her throat.

“Your move, cat,” Rowena said.

“What are you saying?” Braeden asked.

“Now, ask him to blow into the ashes,” Serafina said.

“Braeden,” Rowena said, “I need to show you something that I know is important to you. I will not move in any way. I want you to blow into the ashes of the fireplace as hard as you can.”

“Who are you talking to?” Braeden asked.

“I’ll show you,” Rowena said.

Braeden stared at her malevolently, then finally sucked in a deep breath, and blew into the ashes. The ashes and the glowing embers went flying up in a great, swirling cloud into the room.

“That’s perfect!” Serafina cheered.

As the embers and ashes floated down, she moved her hands back and forth through the air, guiding the way they fell. Filling her lungs, she blew here and she blew there, bringing new life to the glow of the embers and pushing the ashes up into curling, floating motion, until they all began to fall into tiny lines onto the hardwood floor.

“What’s happening?” Braeden asked, his voice trembling with the mystery of what he was seeing.

Serafina guided the ashes and embers down until they fell together into small, scratchy, glowing lines:

ITSME

“What is that?” Braeden asked in fascination. “Does it spell something?”

He leaned toward the glowing ashes and tried to make out the rough letters in the faint, flickering light of the candles.

“I…T…S…M…E…” Braeden said as he deciphered the letters one by one. “It says…It’s me…But who is it? Who’s me?”

“Well, you definitely have his attention now,” Rowena said as she sat up.

“Who are you talking to?” Braeden asked again.

“The answer to all your questions is the same, Braeden.”

“What?” Braeden asked in frustration.

“It’s Serafina,” Rowena said.

“What do you mean it’s Serafina?”

“Serafina is here.”

“Here?”

“She’s here now, in this room with us.”

“You’re lying!” Braeden said. “You’re a nasty liar!” Angry and disgusted, Braeden blew the ashes away contemptuously, as if to say, I don’t believe a word of this!

The ashes and the flaring embers swirled up into the air and floated around the room. Over the next few moments they should have gone dark and fallen randomly onto the floor and furniture, but Serafina moved her hands and blew with her lungs and brought them down right back on the floor where they had been before, glowing with new life.

TRUSTHER

Braeden gazed in wonderment at the letters, but then he caught himself.

“Oh, stop it!” he said. “This is just more of your tricks!”

“It’s the cat,” Rowena said flatly.

“No, it isn’t. Serafina’s dead. I buried her myself.”

“I thought she was, too, but we were both wrong. She’s not totally dead. Serafina’s spirit is in this very room.”

“Just stop this!” Braeden screamed at her, his voice shaking with indignation as the two of them got to their feet and faced each other. “You’re always lying!”

“But she’s here…” Rowena said.

“How do I know that you’re not lying to me like you have so many times before? If she’s truly here, then prove it to me.”

“Rowena,” Serafina said. “Tell him to ask you something that only Serafina would know.”

When Rowena said these words, Braeden’s expression changed. He thought for several seconds, then narrowed his eyes suspiciously at her.

“What were the first words I ever spoke to Serafina?”

Serafina thought back. What were the first words he’d ever said to her? She tried to think. It was the morning after she’d seen the Black Cloak for the first time. She had just crept upstairs into the daylight…

“‘Are you lost?’” Serafina said. “That’s what he said.”

“‘Are you lost?’” Rowena said.

Braeden’s eyes widened in surprise; for a moment he almost believed her. But then he remembered who he was dealing with and became distrustful and angry again.

“It’s a trick,” he said. “I’ll do another. The second time I saw Serafina, I came upon Mr. Crankshod shaking the living daylights out of her. What did we pretend she was?”

Serafina smiled. This one was easy. “A shoeshine girl.”

“We pretended I was the shoeshine girl,” Rowena said, not just repeating Serafina’s words, but taking on the exact sound of her voice, allowing Serafina’s spirit to speak through her.

Hearing Serafina’s voice, Braeden gazed around the room in shocked amazement.

“Serafina is in this room at this very moment,” Rowena said to him softly in her own voice. “She arranged those letters in the ash. She’s asking you to trust me.”

“But how are you able to do this?” Braeden asked.

“A wise man once said, That which does not destroy us makes us stronger.”

“I don’t understand,” Braeden said.

“After you and the two cats struck me down during the battle for the Twisted Staff, it took time, but I came back, and I was stronger than ever. I’m not just a sorceress now, I’m a necromancer.”

“What is that?”

“I can sometimes speak to the spirits of the dead and the in-between.”

Braeden stared at her in dread, clearly not sure if he should believe her. “I want to do another test,” he said. This time he spoke to the room, like people do when they speak to ghosts at a séance. “Serafina…If you’re here…I once gave you a gift, long and red…”

Serafina thought back.

A gift, long and red…

What had he given her?

“The red dress!” Serafina said excitedly, and Rowena repeated it in her voice.

“This is amazing…” Braeden said, spellbound by the sound of Serafina’s voice. “And when was the first time you wore it?”

“I used it to trap the Man in the Black Cloak,” Serafina said, and Rowena repeated the words with haunting emotion. “The morning I brought the children back home, I was standing at the forest’s edge, with Gidean on one side and my mother in lion form on the other. I saw you up on your horse as you gathered a search party to look for me.”

“And you looked so fierce and beautiful standing there at the edge of the forest in your torn dress…” Braeden remembered.

Hearing her friend’s words, and feeling the ache of his heart in her own, Serafina began to cry.

“Oh, please. You’re not beautiful, you’re a cat!” Rowena snapped. “He likes cats. That’s all it is! Now do get hold of yourself or this whole thing isn’t going to work!”

Serafina wiped her eyes and toughened herself, knowing that Rowena was right.

“Look,” Serafina said to Rowena sharply. “If I ask Braeden to give you the Black Cloak, what are you going to do with it? What is your plan?”

“You may be fast with your claws, but you sure are slow with the rest of it,” Rowena said in a scathing tone. “Have you been following along at all?”