CHAPTER SEVEN: THE GIRL WHO CHOSE TO LEAVE

Mira knew she had made a mistake the moment Raven ended the call.

She stood in her grandmother’s kitchen, holding the phone against her ear long after the line had gone dead. Outside, rain tapped at the window. The kettle had boiled dry, and the smell of overheated metal filled the room.

Evelyn took the phone gently from her hand.

“You cannot protect him by giving the darkness a reason to approach him.”

Mira looked at her. “I didn’t tell him everything because I was afraid. Now he thinks I have been lying to him.”

“You have been keeping things from him.”

“Because you told me to!”

Evelyn flinched.

The sight of it made Mira feel worse, but she was too frightened to stop.

“You told me to be careful. You told me not to trust what he was becoming. You gave me a letter full of warnings, but not one answer about how to help him. What was I supposed to do? Walk into his apartment and tell him that an ancient creature might be living inside his nightmares?”

“You were supposed to tell him that he was not alone.”

Mira’s anger faltered.

Evelyn looked down at the table. “That is what I failed to do for your mother. I mistook silence for protection. I thought that if I kept the truth away from her, I could keep danger away too.”

“What happened to her?”

Her grandmother did not answer.

Mira’s voice became smaller. “What happened to my mother?”

Evelyn sat down.

“She tried to help Raven’s mother. They had discovered that the seal was weakening. Raven’s mother believed the First Raven was searching for a living host, someone whose pain could make a doorway strong enough for it to cross. Your mother believed they could repair the seal before that happened.”

“And they failed.”

“Raven’s mother died. Your mother returned home changed. She never spoke about the final night, but she spent the rest of her life afraid that the creature had learned how to reach through dreams.”

Mira swallowed.

“Did it kill Raven’s mother?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you suspect it did.”

Evelyn’s silence was enough.

Mira picked up her coat.

“Where are you going?” Evelyn asked.

“To tell Raven the truth.”

“You must not go to him while the First Raven is watching.”

“Then I suppose it is fortunate that I have never been good at following your rules.”

She left before her grandmother could stop her.

Raven’s apartment was dark when she arrived. She knocked several times, then called his phone. She could hear it ringing inside, but he did not answer.

She waited in the corridor until a neighbour came out carrying a bag of rubbish.

“Have you seen the man who lives here?” she asked.

The neighbour shrugged. “Not since last night.”

Mira pressed her palm against the door.

“Raven, please. It’s me.”

Nothing.

She took a breath and leaned closer.

“I know you are angry. You have every right to be. But I need you to understand that I never wanted to hurt you.”

From somewhere inside the apartment came a sound like a low laugh.

Mira stepped back.

The sound stopped.

She knocked again, harder this time.

“Raven?”

A voice answered from the other side of the door.

“Go home, Mira.”

It was his voice, but something about it felt wrong. It sounded tired, distant, and stripped of the warmth she knew.

“Open the door.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“You wanted to protect me. You wanted to decide what I could handle. You can stop now.”

“I made a mistake.”

“So did I.”

Mira pressed her forehead against the door. “I love you.”

For several seconds, there was no response.

Then Raven said, “That doesn’t mean you trust me.”

The words hurt because they were true.

“I do trust you.”

“Then why did you let me find out from a thing in the dark?”

Mira went cold.

“What thing?”

But Raven had already stepped away. She heard his footsteps receding down the corridor inside the apartment.

She stood outside his door for a long time.

Finally, she left a folded letter on the floor and walked away.

Raven,

I am sorry I kept the truth from you. I was afraid that telling you would make the danger real, but I understand now that the danger was already real. You deserved to know.

I don’t know everything about the First Raven. I don’t know why it has chosen you, or what happened to your mother, or whether we can stop it. I only know that I will not pretend you are a monster because something terrible wants to use you.

I love you. That has not changed.

But I am going to find out how to stop this before it takes you from yourself.

Please don’t mistake my fear for a lack of faith in you.

Mira.

Raven found the letter several hours later.

He read it once, then again.

He almost opened the door and ran after her.

Almost.

But the voice had been waiting patiently in the corners of his room, and it had learned the shape of his doubts.

She is leaving you before you can ask her to stay.

Raven folded the letter carefully.

“She said she loves me.”

People say many things when they are preparing to leave.

He sat at the desk and placed the letter beneath his palm.

“What if you’re wrong?”

The darkness shifted.

Then you lose nothing by learning the truth.

Raven looked at the letter. He could still smell Mira’s perfume faintly on the paper.

He wanted to believe in her. More than anything, he wanted to believe that love could survive the truth.

But he had begun to understand how easily hope could be turned into a weapon.

That night, he made a decision.

He would find the First Raven. He would learn what had happened to his mother. He would discover why his life had been shaped by a secret he had never agreed to keep.

And if the truth destroyed what remained of his heart, at least the destruction would belong to him.

He did not see Mira watching from the street below when he left the building.

She followed him at a distance, keeping to the shadows, and watched him enter the abandoned railway station at the edge of town.

The station had been closed for decades. Its windows were broken, its platforms overgrown, and its clock had stopped at 3:13.

Mira knew the place from her grandmother’s old maps.

It stood directly above one of the sealed entrances to the shadow realm.

She ran toward the station.

By the time she reached the doors, Raven was gone.

Only a single black feather remained on the floor.