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going to allow you to kill yourself. For who? For what? For her ? For some ridiculous notion you have of love? Of saving this world?’
    ‘Flic,’ she heard Lucas say, ‘you knew when I joined the Brotherhood there was a risk of something happening to me. There was always a possibility – a strong possibility – that I was going to die. Look at dad. It’s not a career choice you make with a pension and retirement to the Shifter realm in mind.’
    ‘Yes, but at least that was about revenge, Lucas. That I could understand. This – this I refuse to.’
    ‘It’s about more than revenge now. Don’t you see that at least? The realms should be severed. We don’t belong here.’
    ‘Speak for yourself,’ Flic shot back.
    ‘We’re not human, Flic. Not fully. We don’t belong in this realm,’ Lucas answered calmly.
    ‘Well, where do we belong?’ Flic shouted, ‘The Shadowlands? We wouldn’t be welcome there even if a grey wasteland with no housing and no sanitation was somewhere I actually wanted to live. And now you say I can’t live here. So where am I supposed to go? Where do I belong, Lucas? Where do you belong?’
    Evie could feel her palms sweating. She felt like one of the helplessly frozen mannequins from Victor’s boutique, standing there helplessly behind the door.
    ‘Flic, this whole conversation is pointless,’ Lucas answered. ‘The realms are going to be split. The prophecy is marked. It’s going to happen.’
    ‘OK,’ Flic said. ‘If it’s going to happen as Issa says, it’s going to happen with or without you. If she’s it, if she’s the White Light – she’ll sever the realms without you. So why do you need to help her? Answer me that.’
    He didn’t answer her that. No one answered in fact. Everyone had fallen silent and suddenly the only noise Evie could hear was the waterfall rush of blood in her ears. She shrank further back into the shadows, holding her breath, waiting, wishing she could turn invisible like Lucas.
    Finally she heard Jamieson mumbling something and under the cover of his mumble she started tiptoeing quickly towards the bedroom.
    She closed the door behind her, turned around and let out a scream.

Chapter 5
    ’Jesus!’ she said, clutching a hand to her heart and falling back against the door.
    Lucas was standing in the centre of the room, arms crossed over his chest, fixing her with a cool stare. He’d showered. His hair was brushed back from his forehead in wet streaks and he was wearing a faded black T-shirt and a pair of dark sweat pants.
    ‘How did you …?’ she stopped. She understood. He’d done his turn-invisible, slink-into-the-shadows and pass-her-in-the-hallway trick. Damn it. So he knew she had been eavesdropping. Was he angry? She couldn’t tell. She took a step towards him and then stopped. She didn’t want to get too near. It would put her off. Just looking at him was putting her off. Even through her tiredness, even with her heart still beating as though it could see a finish line up ahead, she couldn’t help but register how much she longed to be in his arms. Proximity would only make saying what she had to say harder.
    ‘You can’t do this,’ she blurted. ‘Flic’s right. It’s insane. It’s like she said – if the prophecy is marked, if it’s meant to happen, then there’s no need for you to be involved. It will happen with or without you.’
    Lucas regarded her for a long moment, his head tipped slightly to one side, then he took a step towards her, his hands coming to rest lightly on her shoulders. ‘Do you want me to stop?’ he asked in a neutral voice, his eyes locked on hers. ‘Do you want me to walk away?’
    She drew in a breath and tried to drop her gaze but it was impossible – he had her hypnotised with those slate-grey eyes of his. ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘But Lucas, that’s just me being selfish – worse than selfish.’ She swallowed down the wedge of guilt that had got stuck in her throat. It