I exchanged a glance with Ibrahim. He was quiet and I could tell from his ashen expression that he was having similar thoughts himself, though he did not express them.

He cleared his throat. “I’m going to return Herbert now, seeing that we have no further use for him…”

I nodded. “Good idea,” I murmured.

He exchanged some more whispery words with Herbert before the ghoul thinned his body even further, until he was practically invisible, and obediently sank into the pencil case. Ibrahim wasn’t joking when he’d said that Herbert was well trained. Quite the English butler, after all…

Shutting the case, Ibrahim stowed it into the pocket of his robe. “I won’t stay long in The Sanctuary,” Ibrahim said, eyeing me. “I’ll be back within a few hours.”

With that, he vanished… leaving me alone with my melancholy.

I’d been thinking about returning to my room after this, but now felt like the right time to tell my wife and sister about what had happened. What I’d done to my nephew. What have I done to him?

I left the Black Heights and wound my way through the forest, back to the Residences. The door to my sister and Xavier’s apartment had been left open, so I let myself inside. I found Sofia and Rose in the kitchen, sitting in silence around the table. Sensing my approach, they both spun around, their eyes wide and bloodshot.

“Dad,” Rose croaked, moving to me. Wrapping her arms around me, she rested her cheek against my chest. I kissed her head before kissing Sofia’s cheek as she moved to embrace me too.

“What’s the matter?” I asked as they drew away.

Sofia swallowed and, taking my hand, led me to the living room sofa. She and Rose exchanged glances before Sofia began, “We found out what happened to Ben.”

“What?” That was not the answer I was expecting.

They proceeded to recount in unsteady voices all that had happened since I had taken my leave, from River’s suspicion to their visit to the oracle and everything she had told them about my son. I was stunned speechless. I had not even known ghosts were real and to learn that my son had become one… it sent my mind and emotions into a tailspin. All thoughts of Jeramiah vanished as waves of grief rolled over me. Ben. He’s dead. And yet he also still lived in some strange half-life. Not fully with us, but not fully absent. I wondered where he was now. For all we knew, he could be here on this island—heck, in this very room. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much pain he must’ve gone through. And to think that it was him all along who had saved River…

“The oracle refused to give us any definitive answer as to whether he could return,” Sofia said. “Although, in her own twisted way, she seemed to indicate that it might be possible, I don’t know how Ben will have even the first clue as to how to go about it.”

I dropped my head in my hands and closed my eyes tight. I was about to start beating myself up all over again for ever having turned Ben into a vampire—after all, that had been the trigger incident for all of this; if he had never become a vampire, the Elder’s bond might have never come to fruition—but Sofia, already predicting my descent into self-loathing, gripped my arm.

“There is no way we could have known that this would happen, Derek. We thought that we were doing what was best for him at the time. Please.” She squeezed me. “Watching you take all the blame for this only makes me feel worse.”

Still, I couldn’t help but blame myself.

“We just have to hope Ben finds a way,” Rose said, her throat clogged. In spite of her devastation, there was a glint of hope in her eyes. A glint I wished would transfer to me.

A ghost reconnecting with his body? How could such a thing ever happen? It sounded like the stuff of fairytales.

“And Corrine has absolutely no idea?” I asked, my voice several tones deeper than it had been a few minutes ago.

They both shook their heads.

I cursed beneath my breath.

A span of silence fell between us, everything they had told me still sinking in. Then I continued asking question after question, but none of their answers gave me the smallest shred of hope. I wished that I could have my daughter’s optimism, but I didn’t know how.

As I sank back into my own depressing thoughts, Sofia asked me a question. “How have you been faring after the turning?”

I had all but forgotten about Jeramiah. It was hard to believe that I had come here with such a heavy heart over how things had played out with him; now, in the face of my son’s plight, it almost seemed trivial.

“I brought Jeramiah to The Shade,” I said bluntly. Like tearing away a Band-Aid from a scab, I figured it was best to just spit it out.

“What?” three voices spoke at once. Sofia, Rose and also my sister, who had just emerged in the doorway, looking healthier than the last time I’d seen her, but just as saddened as Sofia and Rose.

“I kidnapped him from The Oasis,” I said, heaving a sigh, “and put him in one of the storage chambers in the Black Heights. He’s still there.”

“What for?” Sofia asked, gaping.

I leaned back, rubbing my face in my hands. “I… I just wanted to help him.”

“Help him how?” she pressed.

I explained everything that I’d done to the lad, and by the time I’d finished, all three were stunned.

“Wh-When do you plan to let him go?” Rose asked.

“About now,” I muttered, even as I thought back to his trembling form. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to him, just how badly I might have damaged him. Maybe I had been too heavy-handed.