Page 25 of Edge of Wonder

Her eyes were still closed, and it looked as if nothing had changed. A wave of disappointment crushed my chest. An hour ago, this hadn’t even been a possibility. Hell, an hour ago, I was planning to leave without looking back, but now that I was here and facing failure, it made me realize how much I’d wanted to succeed.

Because she got to you. Ten years on the run and it only took two days…

Somewhere, fate was laughing.

I slammed the door on my thoughts and went back over my training. Had I missed something? Forgotten some portion of the spell? Maybe I hadn’t made a mistake at all, and this was never going to work.

“How long is it supposed to take?” Tessa asked. There was a slight tremble to her voice, and her brow creased with worry. She paced to the other end of the coffin, her shoes clicking over the stone.

“I don’t know. If I’d done this before, I’d be dead, and then I still couldn’t tell you.”

Tessa twisted her hands together and continued pacing. That she hadn’t called me out on my sarcasm was a direct indicator of her distress.

Alice still hadn’t moved, and my hope continued to fade. Before stepping away, I ran my hand under her chin, searching for a pulse. A weak flutter in her neck made the breath catch in my throat.

“Alice?” My thumb brushed across her jawbone. “Come on. Wake up.”

Lips parting on a sharp intake of breath, her whole body seized and her eyes shot open. Blue irises flecked with gold captured my gaze before they clouded over with confusion.

“Whoa, it actually worked!” Tessa rushed forward and leaned over the edge of the glass.

A panicked whimper escaped Alice’s throat as her eyes darted around the inside of her coffin. She clutched a fistful of ivy as she twisted beneath the vines binding her limbs.

“It’s all right, Alice. I got you.” I cupped my hands over her shoulders, applying enough pressure to settle her back against the vines.

She startled and looked up at me.Did she feel that?The connection we’d shared as children flowed between us, alive and well. It was a soothing flow of energy. A kind of calm that could ease nightmares or maybe banish them altogether. Considering I hadn’t had a proper nightmare since I’d arrived at Julian’s cottage, my suspicions were telling me somehow they already had.

Haunting the attic, my ass… she’d hovered.

Awareness crystallized in Alice’s vision, and I sensed the moment she remembered who I was.

“Sebastian?” Her voice was raspy from disuse.

My mind stalled; a hundred responses filled my head at the same time. What did you say to the woman you swore to never see again after you bring her back from the dead?

“Hi,” I whispered around the thickness in my throat.

Okay. Not exactly the stellar conversation starter I was known for.

Silence hung in the air. Each second that passed seemed to sizzle with tension. Finally, she reacted, but not in the way I’d expected. Her green eyes darkened, and her lips curled into a snarl.

“You wretched cad!”

And we’re back to name-calling.

Chapter 10

Alice

“Oh look, Sebastian! Alice recognizes you.” Tessa smirked and folded her arms across her chest with smug satisfaction. “If it were me, I would have gone with selfish miscreant or worthless rogue, but to each her own, I guess.” She shrugged and leaned over the edge of the coffin. “How are you feeling, sweetheart? Do you know who I am?”

Blinking, I tried to bring Tessa’s hopeful features into focus. My whole body ached, and my fingers and toes were nothing but pins and needles. It also didn’t help I was in the grips of claustrophobia after waking up inside a narrow glass box. But that wasn’t the worst part.

I remembered everything.

And I wished I didn’t.

Images from my past flooded my mind—Tessa’s potion, the mercenaries sent to kill me, and my perilous destiny to become a queen. And then there was Sebastian. I remembered him not only as the boy from my childhood but as the man he was now. The handsome ghost hunter who I’d spent the last few days getting to know. Who I’d sympathized with—had even had a few tempting fantasies about—although I planned to take those secrets to my next grave. And who’d ultimately let me wallow as a ghost while he gallivanted around the kingdom.

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