The rain is still holding off, but it’s late now. The sky has gotten darker as I race down the narrow road toward my home. My ancestral home—Cunningham Manor.

I had been cagey with Logan, but it’s been over a decade since I’ve been back—which I struggle to believe, though I know it’s true.

I tap my fingers on the steering wheel, my mind rolling back to the last time I was here. I couldn’t even drive then. I was young when I left—barely twelve when my dad sent me to boarding school. Ivy Ridge, a beautiful school just outside of Boston. I’d loved it there, though I’d missed my father.

He’d always insisted on coming to visit me—shrugging off my offers to make the trip myself. So I’d never had an occasion to fly home. Not in all these years.

I look through the falling darkness at the rolling hills and low stone walls as I drive closer to the manor. It’s both familiar and unfamiliar, all at the same time. It’s a strange sensation—it almost feels as though I never left, but it also looks completely and totally foreign. And it is, in a way. A world away from the bright blue skies and swaying palm trees of Southern California.

I’m surprised to realize that my throat is starting to feel tight. Is it possible I’ve missed this place? I never thought so before, but there’s something about seeing it all again that’s doing something strange to my heart.

The tall iron gates of Cunningham Manor loom ahead of me as I round the last curve. If it was daytime, I could probably see the rust on the scrollwork, but it’s too dark to see it as I draw closer. Besides, I’m not even looking. I’m too busy wondering about this strange pang in my chest. It’s been too long since I’ve been home, and I regret not insisting on coming home before now.

It was just easy to detach myself from this place. I’d been away for so long, and my dad always told me—over and over again—that my future was ahead of me. “Not behind you, child,” he’d always say.

So I’d done what he said and left—never looking back. Once I moved to Los Angeles and my life really began, it had been easy to forget.

But maybe that had been a mistake. Maybe I shouldn’t have let my dad insist that I never return home. Maybe if I had been here—even once—I could have been more aware of what was happening with him. I could have noticed a decline. Maybe I could have done something about it.

The gates are closed, and I stop the car next to the metal intercom box. Rolling down my window, I reach out and press the button. The intercom hasn’t been replaced since I left, and the familiar ring is jarring—like hearing a familiar voice.

I wait for a moment, expecting to hear an answering voice. But nothing happens.

Pressing the button again, I lean out the window, closer to the speaker. “Alistair? Hello? It’s me, Skye.”

There’s more silence. Then the intercom crackles, but—to my surprise—there’s still no answering voice. Instead, there’s a buzzing sound, and the gates begin to swing slowly open, allowing me through.

Taking a shaking breath, I step on the gas and drive through the gates. I make my way up the long drive. The car has begun to whine as it labors to find traction on the pebbled driveway, and I keep my eye on the dashboard. The last thing I need is for this car to overheat again, but it’s hard to go slowly. I’m just so anxious to get to my father, and now I’m so, so close.

The driveway is curved, and as I pass a copse of tall, ancient oaks, the manor house appears before me. Framed by the darkening sky behind it, it looks even more imposing than I remember. And I remember it being imposing. I haven’t seen the majestic house—with its turrets and cupolas and hundreds of leaded windows that look out like prying eyes—in over a decade, but it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. Because it often appears in my nightmares.

Maybe that’s why I’ve never been in a big hurry to get back here.

But I know it wasn’t due just to the way the house had made me feel as a little girl. My father had always insisted that Vanara was a dying place—no place to make a life. That made some kind of sense to me—but if that was true, why had he stayed?

He’d always insisted that his family would want him to stay with the manor, but that the ancestral seat of the Cunninghams would never be my burden to bear.

It had never occurred to me to ask what he meant by that.

I pull the car to a stop and look up at the house. This close, the manor looms over me. I can barely see the sky beyond it.

I hurried as fast as I could to make it here, so it doesn’t make much sense for me to just sit out here in the car, now that I’ve made it.

I kick open the door, but as I step out onto the pebbled drive, there’s a sudden rush that makes me spin around. A group of huge black birds has lifted off from a towering elm and are sweeping downward. I stare at them for a moment, too startled to act. But the birds don’t veer away. As they draw closer, I can see they are vultures, and their bald heads are coming closer and closer—aiming right at me.

“Oh my god!” I cry and instinctively drop down, covering my head with my arms. I can feel the screech of the vultures and feel the sudden rush of flapping wings as they pass just over my crouched form. My heart is beating in the base of my throat—and then it’s over.

I look up tentatively. The vultures are gone. I can’t even see where they’ve flown.

“Ms. Cunningham? Why are you on the ground?”

The voice is male and has a dry, Vanarian accent.

I turn around and see a tall, blond man with startlingly pale blue eyes standing in front of me. “Um…” I say, trailing off into silence.

He raises an eyebrow and extends his thin hand. “Shall I help you up?” he asks.

The hand is in front of my face, and it seems strangely aggressive to just ignore it, so I put my hand into his and let him pull me to my feet.

“Sorry, who are you?” I ask bluntly. “Where is Alistair?”

A spasm of pain passes quickly across the man’s face. “I am sorry to tell you that Alistair is dead,” he says flatly.

“What?” I gasp, horrified.

“I am the new butler.”

I stare at the blond man, shocked into silence. I can’t believe this. Alistair is dead? Alistair, who’d been my father’s right hand my entire life? How could this be? I would have heard if Alistair had passed away.

I shook my head, forcing the words out. “No, you’re wrong. My father would have told me if…” I look quickly around. “Where is my father? I need to see him. Now.”

I take a step toward the doors, but the man puts a hand on my arm to stop me. I look down at it. His hand is strangely cold.

“Wait,” he says quietly. “You need to be prepared for what you are about to see.”

Impatient now, I shake off his hand. “I don’t have time for this,” I snap. “You have no idea what I had to go through to get back here, and I’m not about to let the poor man’s Alistair stop from seeing my father now.”

I push past the blond man and start up the wide stone steps toward the grand double doors of the entrance. But Not Alistair can’t be put off that easily. He falls into step next to me, jogging to keep up.

“I’m Malcolm, by the by,” he says, in that same clipped accent. “And you are Skye Cunningham.”

“You got it,” I say, barely paying attention to him.

The doors are open—Malcolm must have left them open when he came down to talk to me. I hurry through and into the grand entrance hall. I barely notice the soaring ceilings or the dark wooden floors beneath my feet. I don’t take in the massive oil paintings of my progenitors that line the walls. I am sprinting through the wide halls now, instinct pulling me through the place.

I round a corner to the hallway with the family bedrooms when I heard a strangled cry. My heart drops—the cry sounded anguished, and I hurry toward my father’s door.

“Daddy!” I call as I throw open his door. But my breath catches as I take in the picture in front of me. I fall to my knees with a breathless cry. “Daddy!”

My father is lying in his bed, his pale face smeared with bright red blood.