"You're staring," Alexander said with a slight smile and an affectionate glance in her direction.

Charlotte shrugged, propped her chin in her hand.

"After everything that has happened, I believe I'm allowed that luxury."

"I didn't say I was complaining."

She sat across from him at the thick oak table in the kitchen. A simple meal of bread, cheese, apples, and tea was spread out before them.

"Is Jonathan here?" Alexander said, turning to look over his shoulder.

Charlotte reached across the table and took his hand, drawing his attention back to her. Until she was certain, absolutely certain, that it was safe, Jonathan would stay in his room behind a warded door.

She didn't put any faith in her judgment yet.

The logical part of her mind insisted that something wasn't right and she knew she couldn't afford to ignore it.

Her heart said otherwise.

For that reason, despite Charlotte's fatigue, she hadn't removed the wards around The Endless One's room or Jonathan's room. Though she couldn't sense his presence, she hadn't carried out a thorough search yet either.

Alexander mirrored her position—elbow on the table, chin in hand—and fixed her with a steady look. She held his gaze, studying him openly. His dark brown eyes were clear, bright, and only belonged to him. No lingering shadow.

"Papa is fine," she said. "He wasn't harmed at the wedding."

She slid her chair around the table, set it down beside him. She turned his hand over, absently reading the lines across his palm as she had done thousands of times before without thinking.

"I know what you're doing," Alexander said quietly.

Charlotte hummed in question as she smoothed a lock of hair away from his forehead.

"What do you mean?" she said.

She couldn't stop touching him. Drifting her palm over the line of his shoulders. Fingers curling into the crook of his elbow.

Did she hope to find something? Some mark? A scar? After the brutality of The Endless One, after the crossbow bolt in his heart, it was hard to believe he would come away unchanged.

Or was it to reassure herself? To gather enough proof that she wasn't dreaming and she could finally relax?

Despite her constant vigilance, she saw no existence of the curse or the fallen god who had possessed him.

Alexander took her hand in both of his, thumbs brushing back and forth over her knuckles. His hands were so large, wrapped around hers in warmth and solidarity, as if he could protect her from the horrors she had already witnessed, the dangers she had already faced to free him from his bonds.

"You don't have to worry," Alexander whispered. "I can't feel him anymore."

"I can't either," Charlotte replied. "But The Endless One has plagued your family for generations despite many attempts to throw him out. You must forgive me if I don't believe he's gone that easily."

"There has never been a witch in the Prescott family before. We were mere humans attempting to do away with that...that...thing. You know better than I do what a useless effort that would be."

Charlotte smiled faintly, leaned over and pressed a kiss to the back of his hand as she had done on the altar days ago.

Although Alexander must have seen the doubts still written so clearly on her face.

"You think it's a trick," he said.

"I—" she started.

He sighed and inched closer, pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead, then to her cheek, and finally to her lips.

"None of this was easy," he said. "You were so weak when I found you, that you could barely walk from the library to the kitchen. I'm still not convinced you should be in your room resting instead of talking to me."

Alexander nudged his chair a little closer until his knee bumped hers. He slid one hand against her cheek and she nuzzled into his palm with a contented sound.

It had only been a few days since the last time she had seen him. They had managed longer intervals apart than that before.

But this time it was different.

Charlotte had no idea when—or if—she would ever see him again. She supposed she had been harboring more reservations than she realized, guarding herself against the reality that he was gone for good.

Could this nightmare truly be over?

The wards she had placed around Laeves Keep shivered. She loosened her hold...

She could let go. Let her guard down. Believe that something good had finally happened tonight.

No. She squeezed her grip tight again and the wards sizzled with a fresh surge of witchcraft. Not yet. Soon, perhaps. She just needed more time.

"Do you remember anything?" Charlotte ventured.

The Endless One had been capable of accessing Alexander's thoughts and dreams, fears and memories. He had turned Alexander inside out, stripped him of self-preservation and defenses until he was exposed to rot, decay, and darkness that would make any mind go mad with grief.

But what if The Endless One had exposed himself to Alexander in return?

If he had, perhaps Alexander had noticed something that would indicate The Endless One was dead. There wouldn't be a body to find. Gods didn't have them.

That was the reason for the Prescott's dreaded curse—it needed a body to operate properly. Otherwise, the god—with no home, no people to worship him—he would be forgotten, the equivalent of death.

If Charlotte wouldn't find a dead body, then she needed some other form of evidence to convince herself the spell had worked.

Alexander considered for a moment, his fingers stroking up and down her wrist.

"I felt...cold," he said at last. "So cold that it hurt. Like my veins were being frozen from the inside out."

"Anything else? A voice? Pain?"

Alexander shook his head and a frown pulled his features tight. He grimaced and withdrew his hands from Charlotte, rubbing at his forehead.

Charlotte fought her instincts to lean forward and kiss away the worry on his face. She forced herself to remain perfectly still.

Was this the sign she had been waiting for? Would the curse return as she had expected it to all along?

"What is it?" she asked lightly, as if dread wasn't sitting like a stone in her gut.

"Nothing," he muttered. "Just a headache." He summoned a small smile for her benefit. "Tired, I think. Surely you must be as well."

"A little," she admitted. "I should send word to Papa that everything is all right."

A lie. A lie that tasted so sour in her mouth that it made her gag and she forced herself to swallow past the foul taste. She was still skittish with things as they were...too unsettled.

"You mean Jonathan isn't here?" Alexander said. "You're alone?"

Charlotte opened her mouth, one hand sneaking behind the volume of her skirts as she twisted and twined a thread of magic to her fingertips. The effort it took to conjure even that small amount of witchcraft made her grip the edge of the table to remain upright in her seat and not fall off of her chair, asleep before she hit the floor.

"You're here now," she said. She paused then added, "And I have the crows of course. They're always with me."

Alexander's jaw twitched. Charlotte crooked her fingers, prepared to make a fist and send her coiled magic bursting outward to form a sphere of protection as soon as he moved even one inch towards her.

Alexander never showed his temper when she was around him. If he got angry during an argument, he would clamp his mouth shut and walk away without another word until he was calm again.

But for a moment—just a fleeting blink—Alexander appeared to be seething.

Then something...shifted. Whatever Charlotte had seen in his face before was gone.

"I owe you both an apology," he said. "For putting you through what I did."

That sounded exactly like something the Alexander she knew would say. Maybe she hadn't seen anything after all. Maybe she was simply tired after a long week.

"That's not necessary and you know it," Charlotte replied. "It's not your fault."

"Sometimes I wonder if it is," he mumbled so softly that Charlotte almost missed it. Then Alexander shook his head. "But it's over now. And we can finally move on with our lives. It's—Charlotte, is it really over? After all this time?"

He looked younger than his eighteen years in that moment. A young boy, seeking comfort, reassurance, in the wake of a nightmare. Her fingers ached to reach for him but she didn't move.

Although she couldn't find it in her heart to lie this time.

"We'll have to wait and see," she said. "Curses and magic, it's a complicated mix up that isn't always clearly black and white. For now, sleep will do us both some good."

Alexander nodded. "You're right." He laughed softly, ducked his head in that way he had that made him seem a little shy. "You're right so often that I've lost count."

"I'll keep a tally for you if you'd like," she replied.

Alexander's smile grew as he stepped towards her. "I don't doubt that you already do."

His hand slid around the back of her neck with the faintest pressure. Charlotte tried not to tense and reveal that she didn't trust him as the man she knew and loved.

Alexander kissed her cheek, nosing at her jawline.

Then his hands fell away from her without conflict and he wandered up the stairs. She watched him turn the corner to the east wing where the guest bedrooms were. He had been given a room there on his first visit two years ago. It seemed like a lifetime since that day, when he had been nervous to the point of tongue-tied in Jonathan's company.

As soon as Alexander's door was shut, Charlotte went straight to the room where she had locked The Endless One in.

She scoured the floor. The bed. The walls. The ceiling. The windows.

Nothing.

What did she expect to find? The shell of the curse like a dried out, wrinkled husk?

Or did she already have the answer and she didn't wish to acknowledge it?

As long as Alexander was alive, the curse and the fallen god both would remain alive as well, housed in his body like bacteria burrowed inside him.

At that thought, Charlotte's stomach twisted, knowing there was only one way to resolve that problem and she wasn't ready to go down that path, not yet.

She forced herself to take a deep breath. Laeves Keep was massive, with over twelve bedrooms, a kitchen, a library, and two cellars, not to mention various smaller hidden rooms, safes, storage chests, and hidden passageways scattered throughout, alternately sealed and opened by witches over the past centuries. The spell had taken more energy than she thought and it would have been easy for her grip on the wards to loosen just enough for The Endless One to escape.

But he wouldn't have left her behind. If he had managed to get past her wards, he was still in Laeves Keep. And he wouldn't leave until she was dead.

Charlotte entered the hallway, running her hands along the walls as she searched for anything no matter how small—a bump in the wall, a slightly warmer or colder patch of air than usual.

Just something out of the ordinary to signify that the curse had been extinguished. She wanted to look at Alexander without wondering if he would turn against her. She wanted to see him, and only him, not the curse, not the face of The Endless One.

She wanted Alexander back.

"Mama?" Charlotte said.

She opened her thoughts, searching for Nivian's presence. If The Endless One had blinded her to the truth somehow, Nivian's spirit would be immune to his power. He might have stifled Charlotte's mind with ignorance but he could not control over three dozen familiars and the witch spirits tied to them.

If The Endless One was still in Laeves Keep, alive, Nivian would be able to tell.

"Mama, I need to speak with you," Charlotte said.

For as long as Charlotte could remember, she had heard the voices of dead people intruding upon her thoughts. At first, she hadn't been concerned about it.

Then she panicked when she realized normal people, like Jonathan, couldn't hear such voices.

And after a while, Charlotte came to realize the advantages of the double-edged sword—she never had peace and quiet but she was never alone either.

Apart from now.

There was only silence.

Charlotte stopped. She glanced over her shoulder. The candles flickered, flames small and shivery in the dark.

I felt...cold, Alexander had said. So cold that it hurt. Like my veins were being frozen from the inside out.

A chill. Charlotte sensed it. Not painful, the way Alexander had described. But there was a distinct low ache of absence. An emptiness where heartbeats and feathers had always been before.

Charlotte took the stairs two at a time, skirts hitched up around her knees. She came to Alexander's door, barely placed her hand to the polished wood.

No sound.

Her hand slid down the wood to the handle. Twisted. Pushed the door open.

The room was empty.

Charlotte swore under her breath. She surged into the hallway, flung her hands out, the smoothness of wards gliding off of her fingertips.

A moment later, the wards bit into the wood frame of her father's bedroom doorway. The ones she had placed before were still holding strong.

No one had touched him, she realized with relief.

She considered calling out to Alexander then decided against it until she saw for herself what kind of state he was in. If The Endless One had returned—or had never left to begin with as she suspected—then she needed the element of surprise on her side.

Charlotte made her way up a third flight of stairs—this stairwell tight and twisting, not sprawling and open like the foyer staircase—until she reached the western tower that housed the aviary. Her hand slapped against the door and she shoved it open.

The crows were gone.

A dusting of black feathers like burnt cinders lay scattered across the floor. The windows were broken, jagged teeth of glass marked with smears of blood.

There was no reason for every single familiar to be absent from Laeves Keep. The crows didn't need food, water, sustenance of any kind. They didn't need to fly the open spies for freedom. Their purpose was here, with Charlotte.

But judging by the distinct cold silence thrumming in Charlotte's mind, they were nowhere nearby either. She couldn't feel them, couldn't hear so much as a whisper.

Were they dead?

No, she wouldn't think of that. Familiars—as well as the spirits tied to them—could take care of themselves. To kill dozens of them at once would be...an impossible fete.

But...

Where had they disappeared to? If they had left Laeves Keep, Charlotte would have been warned. They were witch spirits and they stayed close to protect and guide her.

And if The Endless One was alive, they certainly wouldn't abandon her now.

She took comfort in the fact that there were no bodies. Only feathers and blood. There could be any number of reasons for that.

If only her tired mind could grasp what those reasons might be.

She needed to make sure Jonathan was all right then return to the library, regain her bearings, and figure out what her next move would be.

As Charlotte stepped out of the aviary, pain exploded in the back of her head. For a moment, she felt herself falling...falling...falling...the stairwell rising up to greet her too fast.

Then she remembered nothing at all.