“Handle me?” my words are a whisper and she smiles again.

“A sacrifice must be made,” Eleanor says bluntly. “And you must make it. We’ll shelter you and strengthen you until then, but when the time comes, you will be strong, girl.”

It’s a directive, not a question.

I will be strong.

I’m not strong now as I fumble out the door and trip down the long halls to my bedroom. When I arrive, when I tumble through the door, Dare is sitting in my window seat and he’s pale and he’s troubled.

“Something isn’t right,” he says, and his British accent is clipped. “Something is very wrong.”

“I know,” I agree, and I collapse next to him and he rubs my back and we stare out the window together at the moors and the moors growl.

“We’re all related,” I tell him, and he stares at me in surprise.

“That’s not possible,” he replies, but I can hear the doubt in his words.

I nod. “Eleanor just told me. Only she said that your mother died young and that you don’t exist.”

“I’m as real as you are,” he says firmly, and his hand is on my back and he does feel real.

“She says we’re like the Egyptian pharaohs,” I explain. “Our bloodline is pure.”

“What does that mean?” Dare asks, and he’s dubious now.

“I don’t know.”

And I don’t.

Chapter Thirteen

Days turn into weeks, and with every week, things get stranger. All traces of Dare have been eradicated from Whitley. Not a picture, not a mention. I’m so convinced that I’m crazier than ever that I even stop confiding in Finn.

It’s not something my brother appreciates.

“You’re not yourself,” he announces one day in the library. “Something’s wrong and you’re not hiding it very well.”

He’s so worried that it twinges at my heart. I want to tell him, I wanttowanttowantto. But I can’t. Can I?

“Have you ever imagined someone into existence?” I ask him carefully, grabbing his hand and squeezing it ever so softly.

“No,” he answers slowly. “Have you?”

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I thought we had a cousin. A step-cousin. But everyone is acting like he doesn’t exist, like he never did. And I’m starting to wonder if I made him up in my head.”

Finn takes a breath, then another, and he squeezes my hand, and squeezes it hard. “Delusions are common with your condition, Cal,” he finally answers. “It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if you dreamed him. You’re fine. I promise, you’re fine.”

“But you don’t know who I’m talking about?” I ask softly.

Finn shakes his head slowly.

No.

But Dare is so real.

Dare is real now as he sits across the library and stares at me, listening to our words and smirking.

He’s real when he follows me back to my room, and he’s real as he leans against the door.

“Come with me back to Astoria,” I suggest. “We’ll get this sorted.”

“What a British thing to say,” he grins.

“That’s the meanest thing you’ve said to me all day.”

He laughs, completely unoffended.

On the night before I leave for home, Eleanor comes to my room, creeping in the dark, moving in the shadows. Her skinny arms are like limbs, the shadows scraping the walls like dead leaves.

“Calla, I have something for you,” she tells me. I sit up in my bed, startled because I’d never even heard her come in and she’s never been in my room before.

She holds her hand out, and a ring glistens in her palm.

It’s silver and shiny, a plain band, thick and heavy.

I look at her questioningly.

“It was your grandfather’s,” she says simply by way of explanation. I take it immediately, curiously examining it by moonlight. It feels cool in my hand, significant somehow.

“Did my grandfather die because he wanted to?” I ask. “To get away from you?” Because that’s what people say.

Eleanor actually laughs, a husky noise in the night.

“Child, your grandfather never did anything he didn’t want to do. And that included dying. He was like you, you know.”

This grabs my attention with both hands and holds it.

“What do you mean?” I ask sharply. “How was he like me? He was crazy, too?”

She sits next to my bed. “Don’t say you’re crazy, Calla. It’s demeaning and you’re a Savage. You aren’t understood, and I can’t explain it. That doesn’t mean you’re crazy. Your grandfather was a good man, and he was just like you, only he wasn’t strong enough to sustain. He couldn’t keep going on. But I know that you are. Keep his ring. It will hold you to the ground, and help you to always remember where you are. When the time comes, you’ll do what is right.”

This is confusing and I tell her that. She smiles again.

“Give me your hand.”

I obey and she strokes the palm, her brow knitted together as she examines me.

“Your heart line is broken, child,” she murmurs, tracing it with her fingers. “It forks into two, then three. It’s as I’ve always said. One for one for one.”

“What does that mean?” I ask. I’m sure it’s a valid question because how confusing.

She ignores me. “Your life line is long and deep,” she announces. “It indicates you are stronger than you know, that you are cautious.”

“I don’t feel strong,” I tell her.

“I know,” she answers. “But you are. Your life line breaks into many branches, which means you have to choose. You have to choose, child. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“I have to choose what? Choose what? To live?”

What a silly thing.

Eleanor stares at me, unflinching. “Take your grandfather’s ring. It belongs to you more than anyone else.”

It will hold you to the ground and make you remember where you are.

“Who am I?” I ask, and my question is desperate and my words are hot.

Eleanor shakes her head. “You’ll figure it out, and it will all be as it should.”

Her words swirl and twirl, and an image comes into my head, something I’ve never seen, but I have. Somehow.

Files, in a drawer, in Eleanor’s desk. My name, and Finn’s name and Dare’s name.

My eyes meet her and I’m defiant.

“If Dare isn’t real, why do you have a file in your desk with his name on it?”

She looks at me and her gaze is hard, and it’s like rocks, like pebbles, like stone.

“You don’t know what you’re speaking of.”

“I do,” I insist, and I think harder, and they’re like memories, and I don’t know where they came from. “Finn and I inherit your fortune, but Dare doesn’t. Only if we die.”

It’s proof it’s proof it’s proof.

“Calla,” she sighs. “You don’t understand.”

She pulls me up and I go with her to her office and she opens her drawer and there are files in there. Two. One with my name and one with Finn’s. We inherit the fortune, but Dare

But Dare

But Dare.

I’m confused and my grandmother’s lip twitches as she stares as me in the dim light from the lamp.

“Your riches don’t come from money anyway,” she assures me. “So don’t fret. Your riches come from your blood.”

I go back to bed and I pray for Dare, I pray that he’ll come to me, but he doesn’t. I fall asleep in confusion, but that’s nothing new it’s nothing new, I’m used to it.

The night passes slowly, and Dare doesn’t come until the next morning.

“I’ll miss you,” he murmurs as I climb into the car and my head snaps up and he’s gone.

His brilliant smile is the last memory I think of before I board the plane for America. It’s the last thing I see before I fall asleep that night, and it’s what I dream about as I sleep in the familiarity of my room in the funeral home.

Dare. I need him.