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Chapter One

THE DEAD WERE WATCHING

Skye Tierney gripped her horse’s reins in her gloved hands as she shut her eyes tightly, willing the sensation to go away It didn’t es, she kneas happening near her—the horror of it was as tangible, and real, as the gray winter sky loo overhead

Not watching so breath, Skye forced herself to open her eyes—to see the wo for her life

She thought he wouldn’t follow her up here He hasn’t been the saoodness in hi else—so attention, but he was He is He’s here now, his fingers digging into the skin of her arm as he talks about how she has to be stopped

This is different frooes dry and she wants to just fall on the ground, play dead like some kind of witless animal, so that perhaps he’ll walk away in one of his dazes But she can’t pull away fro, she tells hi clearly, that he’ll feel sorry for this when he coe away froers sink so deeply into her flesh it seeh her skin will tear Her feet slide in the fall leaves as she hits at him with her one free hand

He’s s beautiful as he pulls her around in one long circle, just like a child twirling a friend, the way he twirled her when they were little together, except that he slings her over the side of the cliff and lets go

She screa air, all of it futile, and the fall lasts so long, so long, so fast—

Skye stu with adrenaline and her throat tight The ie faded, but the horror didn’t

“It’s still happening,” she whispered Nobody to hear her but the horse, and yet Eb turned his aze Her parents always said she gave his he couldn’t have or understand They didn’t know anything about horses

Leaning her head against his thick neck, Skye tried to catch her breath Despite the warray coat and thick teal sweater she wore, cold air cut through her skin to deepen her shivering The wind caught at the locks of her auburn brown hair that hung froht would fall and the wintry beauty of the riding trails on state land behind her house would turn to bitter, even savage, chill And yet she couldn’t bring herself to move

Their words to each other had been spoken in a language Skye didn’t speak, didn’t even think she’d heard before Their clothing and hair made her think theyfrom five or six hundred years in the past? Did the visions take her back as far as that? Further? It felt like there ht be no end to them

As impossible as it seemed, the visions of past deaths that had surrounded her for the last five weeks—ever since the fall of Evernight Acade away She never doubted for a htmares This … psychic power, or whatever it was, had become a part of her

It wasn’t as though she’d never believed in the supernatural before this winter; the hohost in her attic had been as real to her as her big brother, Dakota, and about equally as likely to hide her favorite toys to tease her She’d never been frightened of the girl-ghost upstairs—understanding, soentle and funny, things like taking her pink socks and putting the on the bed fra to sleep Dakota had “known” the ghost first, and he was the one who had told her it was nothing to be scared of—that ghosts were probably as natural as rain or sunshine or anything else on earth So she had never doubted that so existed beyond the world everyone could see

Despite that, Skye had never suspected just how et