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reaching the front door of the mansion. For only being nine o'clock at night, the house was dark and silent. She would have called had there been a telephone number, but she had found none listed online.
    When no one answered her knock, Eve turned the knob and creaked open the door.
    "Hello?" she asked, her pulse racing. "This is Eve. I've come to visit. Anyone home?"
    A heavy silence answered back.
    Eve stepped inside and flipped on the lights, but nothing happened. The power was off. And apparently the heat too. She shivered and removed her cell phone from her pocket and turned on the flashlight app. It wasn't a lot of light, but it would have to do.
    The great living room was covered in dust, and much of the furniture was missing. She might have thought the place had been abandoned, but there were bare footprints pressed into the dust on the floor.
    "Hello?"
    Eve moved farther into the home, peering inside every room. Other than some furniture covered with white sheets, the rooms were mostly empty and undisturbed. The kitchen, however, had been used. Recently. Soup steamed from a pot on a gas stove. The only sign of warmth in the huge home.
    Eve followed a worn trail through the dust on the floor to a room at the end of a long hall. Even though she was freezing, sweat pooled in her pits and dotted her brow. She stopped in front of an antiqued door and inhaled deeply, apprehensive for what lay beyond. Quietly, she pushed it open.
    A fireplace roared in a wide stone hearth on the other side of the room, yet Eve could still see her breath. A four-poster bed was pressed against the wall, and in a single Queen Anne chair near the fireplace was Aunt Anne, leaning toward the roaring flames and holding a glass of wine. Her hair was thin and straight, and she was all skin and bones.
    "Anne?" Eve asked and took a tentative step toward her.
    Anne didn't look back, but she did swirl the red wine within her glass. "You're late."
    "Am I?"
    "You've been ‘dead’ for almost three months. You should've been here sooner."
    "How did you know I wasn't dead?"
    "Segurs don't die unless we want to." Her words were bitter and chilled the room even more, if that were possible.
    "How did you know I was coming?"
    "Because of Boaz."
    Eve's heart skipped a beat.
    "He thinks there's a small chance you are alive," Anne said, slouching back into the seat. "He was here almost two weeks ago."
    Eve's legs weakened. That was about the same time she had mentally called out to Lucien. Had Lucien actually heard her cry? No doubt if he had, he would've had a major reaction. A witch monitoring him could easily pick up on those emotions.
    "He killed Helen." Anne's voice didn't crack or waver.
    Helen was Anne's daughter and had been the surviving twin from Eve's battle against them.  Without her sister, Helen had withdrawn from the world and barely spoke or ate. Eve might as well have killed both of them.
    Eve stumbled to the edge of the bed and sat down. "Why would he do that?"
    "He's desperate for magic. He took every last drop she had. Not like Helen cared, though. She had been a vegetable ever since you killed Harriet."
    Eve couldn't swallow the lump in her throat. It didn't help that bile was trying to come up around it. "I'm so sorry."
    "Don't be weak," Anne snapped. "It's disgusting."
    For the first time, Anne looked at her. Cheekbones protruded sharply from her face, a sharp contrast to her sunken eyes.
    Eve had forgotten how most Supernaturals, especially those in her family, hated any kind of emotions, particularly those of compassion and love. "Aren't you angry?"
    Anne shrugged, spilling wine over the rim of her glass. "Death comes to us all."
    "What did Boaz want?" Eve asked. The quicker she got out of here the better. This home was a black hole created by the ghosts who had inhabited it. No wonder it was so cold. Soon Anne would become one of them, too.
    "He doesn't think you are dead. He thought I might know something."
    "What did you tell him?"
    "I