Page 42 of 13 Nights

Three distinct phenomena, occurring on a night when Severin is absent. Whatever is responding to the changes in this cottage does not require his physical presence.

The water finally stills. The horse remains. What fills the gap is worse than either.

At three in the morning, I call Lena.

She answers on the second ring. "Ash?"

"I need to tell you something, and I need you to listen before you react."

"That is literally the worst way to start a phone call at three a.m."

"I know."

I tell her. All of it. The locked drawer, my mother's research, the man at the edge of the yard who matches my mother's sketch and speaks with a Hessian accent that no actor could maintain night after night. The investigation, the documents, the Marburg correspondence, the Hadley records. The sunrise measurements, the handprints in the wood, the name that makes the cottage respond. The warning. Eliza. The Gate.

I tell her what happened on October twenty-second and what happened two nights ago, and I don't soften the details because Lena has never once let me get away with a sanitized version of anything.

The silence on the other end lasts long enough that I check to make sure the call is still connected.

"Come to my place," Lena says. "Now. Tonight."

"I can't."

"You mean you won't."

The distinction sits between us. She's right.

"Lena. I'm not calling to ask permission."

"Then why are you calling at three in the morning?"

"Because this is the 250th anniversary of his death. The worst night of the manifestation cycle." My voice holds steady. "If something happens to me, I need someone who knows the whole story. Everything is in the cottage. The deed, the research, my mother's notes, the formal correction, all of it."

"Ashley, stop."

"My attorney has instructions. The cottage goes to you if I don't come back. His contact information and a copy of the will are in the desk drawer."

Silence. Then, very quietly: "You prepared for this."

"I prepared for the possibility. There's a difference."

"Not from where I'm sitting." Her voice fractures on the last word, and the sound of it hits me harder than anything the Veil has done. "You're telling me you might die tonight and you want me to just sit here."

"I'm telling you I might not come back. That isn't the same as dying."

"That is exactly the same as dying, Ashley. That is the definition of dying."

"Eliza sent a message. She was alive. She was conscious. She communicated."

"You're basing your survival plan on a note wrapped around a dead woman's ring from 1847."

The accuracy of that summary is devastating. I don't have a rebuttal.

"I'm coming up there," Lena says.

"Don't. Please." I press my forehead against the kitchen wall. "If you come, I'll spend the day protecting you instead of preparing for the night. And if something goes wrong, I need you on this side. I need someone who can send the correction to Marburg and tell the truth about what happened here."

"You're asking me to let you go."