Homeless girl, Rosalie, is found on the cold streets of Crausley Sands with nothing but the clothes on her back and a black obsidian stone key around her neck, having no memory of who gave it to her.
When Rosalie is taken in by none other than Princ...
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It was the morning of Prince Darick's coronation and Liliana Baxter had snuck out of the mansion once dawn had broken.
She had returned to the place where she hoped she would find Rosalie. But Thornton house was just as empty as it was when herself, Rosalie and Jared were last there.
Liliana should have never let Rosalie go in alone.
"I thought I would find you here."
"Have I become that predictable?" Liliana replied, answering Jared solemnly.
"No, I've always known you to be a creature of habit," he teased.
His playful tone was not as well received as he had hoped. Jared's smile fell away as he asked, "how are things at the mansion?"
"Well, Madame Francine has mysteriously vanished," Liliana said matter of factly, "no one has seen her in thirteen days. Coincidence? I don't believe so. She disappears at the same time as Rosalie, there is nothing coincidental about that."
Thirteen days prior, Liliana had willingly accompanied Rosalie to Grangston in order to have the answers to her father's death, and although Rosalie had regained her memories, Jared was the one to tell her of Lorian Baxter's final moments. What memories Rosalie saw, Jared did also. The perks of being a Familiar, or so Jared had said. A discovery Liliana still couldn't quite fathom.
"I suspect Francine is re-evaluating her original plan," Jared stated, "now that Prince Darick is aware her intentions was to use Rosalie to open the gates of purgatory and release the spirits of the deceased Grangston witches, she will be in hiding."
"What if she isn't? What if she has Rosalie?"
Ever since Rosalie had gone, Liliana had been overcome with a sense of foreboding. The air around Grangston Green had changed somehow, she couldn't describe it. It was as though the nature of the forest had lost its vibrancy and was in mourning. The ravens were no longer the monsters Liliana had initially perceived them to be, but subdued and languid as they kept to the treetops.
Jared could not answer her concerns because it was obvious by the diversion of his gaze he had thought the same. Whatever connection he had with Rosalie, it had disappeared as quickly as she had.
Tilting his head to the side, Jared appeared baffled by something on the staircase wall.
"It's missing," he said simply, as if she should know what he was alluding to.
"What? What's missing?"
Liliana followed Jared's line of sight and saw a blank picture frame grouped by others, only those containing images; portraits of the Thornton bloodline in chronological order.
"She must have taken it... Rosalie took it with her."
"Why would she take a picture of an ancestor and not the one of herself and her mama?"
