Closing her eyelids, I heard Potter say “Well?”

Standing, I looked at them and could see that Isidor had worked his way back through the trees and was cowering just behind Coanda.

“What did you see, Kiera?” Luke asked, his eyes wide.

“Kayla was murdered by two people. One male, the other female. She came out here to meet them as if it had already been planned,” I started. “She knew them well. She took her clothes off for them, why, I’m not sure, but she definitely removed her clothes. She didn’t put up a fight so it’s as if she knew she was coming out here to die. A sacrifice, perhaps?”

“How can you be so sure of this?” Coanda asked. “How do you know there were two killers? And that she removed her clothes? Look, she’s wearing them!”

“She’s wearing her clothes now. But at the time of her death she was naked,” I started to explain, crouching over Kayla’s dead body again. “Look at her bootlaces. These weren’t tied by Kayla, they were tied by someone else.”

“Don’t tell me your gift is so powerful that you can see finger prints on a piece of string in the dark,” Coanda scoffed.

“It’s way easier than that,” I said, not bothering to look at him. “Anyone can see this stuff if only you took the time to look. If Kayla had tied them herself, the first loop in the laces would be facing the inside of the boot, but these don’t show that. The loop faces the outside of the shoe; therefore, they had been re-tied by someone else as they stood over her. She had to be naked at the time of death as her heart has been ripped out and that causes a fountain of blood. But the thing is, there is no blood down the front of her boiler suit, but plenty on her chest and down the front of her body. Again, this suggests that she was redressed once she was dead.”

“So how do you know that she knew these people and had planned to meet them out here?” Coanda asked, still sounding unconvinced by what I was telling him.

“Would you take your clothes off for just anyone?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow at him. “Knowing Kayla like I did, she would have put up a fight and I’ve seen Kayla in too many fights to know that she attacks with her claws first. There are no signs of flesh or blood under her fingernails. No, she didn’t fight back, she got undressed willingly. If she had come out here for any other reason than to meet somebody, she wouldn’t be dead now. Let’s just say she woke up and needed to pee, so she came out here. She would have heard them creeping up on her. As you know, Coanda, she had an amazing sense of hearing. As soon as she knew someone was close, she would have fled or stood her ground and attacked. But as we can see, she did neither of those things.”

“But you said something about a sacrifice?” Luke quizzed me, and I could see that all the colour had drained from his face in shock.

“Even when she was having her heart eaten from her chest, Kayla still didn’t fight back,” I said. “Apart from her clean fingernails, there are no signs of a struggle in the area; and besides, we weren’t that far away, we would have heard it. You try and eat somebody’s heart out of their chest and bite their ears off, they will put up a fight.”

“They bit her ears off?” Coanda breathed, and behind him, Isidor threw up.

“Yes,” I said, trying to keep my own emotions under wrap.

“Why would they have bitten her ears off?” Potter asked, his face grim-looking and hard, as if chipped from stone.

“There was something the killers didn’t want her to hear, I guess,” I shuddered.

“Hear what?” Luke asked looking at me.

But before I could say anything, Coanda came towards me with a look of realisation on his face. “They knew where we were heading, that’s why they killed her. They knew we wanted her to listen,” he said in disbelief.

“Listen to what?” Luke snapped impatiently.

Then gripping me by the arms, our noses almost touching, Coanda hissed, “Only you and I knew where we were heading, Kiera. I told you not to tell anyone. Didn’t I tell you that her life would be put in danger, that Munn would try and stop her from ever reaching the Light House?”

“Light House?” Luke muttered. “What are you going on about? I thought we were heading for the Dust Palace.”

Ignoring Luke, Coanda shook me by the shoulders and roared into my face, “Who did you tell, Kiera? Who did you tell that we were heading for the Light House and what Kayla was going to do once we got there?”

There was only one person I had confided in, and looking over Coanda’s shoulder, my heart sank to see that Potter had now vanished.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“What’s going on here?” Luke asked. “And where has Potter gone?”

Hearing this, Coanda gripped my shoulder and barked, “You told him, didn’t you!”

Yes I had told Potter, but I trusted him. He would never have hurt Kayla. He wasn’t part of this. I glanced over at Isidor, who stood looking at me, his hands still wet with his sister’s blood. His eyes were dark, the rings beneath them looking like two half-moons.

I broke his stare and looking at Coanda, I snapped, “Potter isn’t a part of this!”

“How can you be so sure?” Coanda roared and I could see the anger in his eyes.

“I asked him if he were Elias Munn and he said he wasn’t,” I told him.

“Oh well that makes everything all right then,” Coanda sneered. “Are you freaking stupid or what? Do you honestly think he would admit to something like that when we are so close to the Dust Palace? He’s lied to you!”

“He wouldn’t lie to me!” I snapped back at him.

“And what makes you so sure about that?” Coanda seethed, and he stared at me so intently that his icy blue eyes seemed to penetrate my very soul.

“Because he loves me,” I whispered, lowering my head.

“What did you say?” Luke asked, stepping forward.

“Potter is in love with me,” I said, but couldn’t bring myself to look at him.

“He loves you?” Luke murmured, sounding lost and confused. “Since when?”

Raising my head, I looked into his eyes and said, “I’m in love with Potter, I’m sorry Luke.” To see the expression on his face broke my heart. He looked as if someone had snuck up on him and punched him in the guts. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered and reached for him.

Knocking my hand away, he said, “This can’t be true. You’re just saying this to cover the fact that you’ve told him this secret you and Coanda were keeping from us. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Luke, I do know what I’m saying,” I told him softly. “I love Potter.”

“But why?” he asked in disbelief.

“Why not?” I said back.

“Where do you want me to start?” he snapped and I could see his hurt turning into frustration. “Isn’t the fact that he’s Potter reason enough?”

“The same Potter who risked his life to rescue you from the zoo?” I said, trying to hide my rising frustration with Luke. “The same Potter who has risked his life on countless occasions to save all of us? Why shouldn’t I fall in love with someone like that?”

With an exasperated look on his face, Luke said, “But I thought we…you know…I thought there was something between us. And I’ve saved you too, Kiera.”

I thought of how Luke had risked his life back at The Ragged Cove, how he had dived into the burning church and countless other times, but I didn’t want to get into an argument about who had been the most gallant. I couldn’t help the way I felt about Potter. Why do we fall in love with anyone? Do any of us really know the answer to that?

“I know you saved me too, Luke,” I told him. “But Potter…”

“Is arrogant, offensive, violent…do I need to go on?” Coanda cut in.

Looking at the both of them, I said, “I see more than that in him. I see through all of that.”

Then as if from nowhere, Isidor brushed past us and said, “If you don’t mind, I’m gonna go and bury my sister while you stand and bicker about your love lives.”

“Hey Isidor,” I said, trying to take his arm. “I’m sorry, you’re right. We’ll help.”

“Don’t bother,” he said coldly, kneeling down and gently scooping Kayla up into his arms.

“Isidor,” I said softly, but he ignored me and all I could do was watch helplessly as he carried his sister away amongst the trees.

“I’m going back to the camp,” Coanda said, shaking his head, not in sorrow but frustration that his plan had now been thwarted.

Luke and I stood and looked at each other and the silence was louder than any sound. When I thought I couldn’t bear it any longer, Luke said, “And what if Potter really is this Elias Munn, are you going to still love him then?”

“He’s not Elias Munn,” I insisted.

“Potter got you to fall in love with him, which is what Munn has wanted the whole time,” Luke said. “He got you to tell him about Coanda’s plan. Kayla’s dead and Potter has disappeared. Can’t you see that, Kiera? I thought you could see things.”

Luke’s words went around and around in my head and I thought of the letter that Ravenwood had left for me.

‘Elias Munn plunged his fist into her chest and tore her heart out, screaming that if he couldn’t have her heart than no other man could.’

Again those images of Potter tearing Eloisa’s heart from her chest came back to haunt me. The woman Elias Munn had killed, had she really been this Sophie that Potter had told me about? The girl he had fallen in love with – his first love? After all, I only had Potter’s word that he flew from her bedroom window that night – leaving her alive and in tears at the realisation he was a Vampyrus. Could Sophie be the woman Ravenwood referred to in his letter to me?