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Outside the closed windows came the habitual howls from a pack of wolves who lived in their woods. As a child, Blair used to beg to go outside to see them. The memory made the snake tighten its hold, squeezing her heart.

“Your vision allowed him to dream of a much better life than he’s yet known,” said Thomas gently.

“Dreams aren’t worth dying for.”

Once again, her fingers traced those final words, trailing over the last thought her only son had shared before leaving her: Some things are worth living for.

What Jocatta didn’t realize was that her son’s departure was not an accident to have been avoided with better supervision, but an eventuality destined to occur with or (most certainly) without her permission.

After all, this was never Jocatta’s story.

PART I

THE STRANGER

1

If there was anything Gabriel Clark knew for certain, it was that secrets were some of the most dangerous weapons known to humankind. There were more formidable weapons, certainly—but few of those were known to humans.

Tell someone your deepest secret and you might as well hand them a poisoned dagger on a silver platter, served up right alongside the amuse-bouche.

Even worse were the secrets you couldn’t hide.

Gabriel knew from the moment the young man entered Bookish Emporium that he was made up of secrets, far more so than the usual composition of mere flesh and bone. His aura was like an overcast sky with unnerving flashes of light at its edges, so quickly extinguished that Gabriel could almost convince himself it was a trick of the eye.

The man stepped inside the shop alone, his thin frame drowned in an overlarge brown coat, hands buried in deep pockets, revealing nothing, revealing everything.

He glanced up and Gabriel nearly recoiled. Set in a young, twenty-something face, the gray eyes held the depth of battles lost on ancient fields, of decades—centuries?—of loss.

Gabriel should have welcomed him into the store, should have inquired as to whether he needed help finding a certain volume. Instead, he remained silent as the young man skirted around the counter and meandered to the back of the shop, his gaze trained on the floor.

…Which, incidentally, needed dusting. That very moment, in fact.

Whisking up a dry mop from behind the counter, Gabriel trailed it along the aged wood floorboards, casually making his way toward the back of the store. His mind, usually so composed, felt as though it had been stocked with firecrackers. It had been a long time since he had encountered a Similar, and even longer since he’d met one so incomprehensibly human and inhuman. Gabriel hadn’t even learned his name, yet his highly attuned senses told him the man was a living, breathing contradiction.

1940s jazz crooned out of the store speakers as Gabriel continued his path along the western wall, sliding the mop over dust and cobwebs. Really, the floor had been filthy. It was a valid excuse. He stopped to fix a display of Astronomy books he’d set up that morning and shot a quick glance at the stranger, who was crouching to read the titles of some classics.

A shiver rippled down Gabriel’s spine. He couldn’t quite explain to himself why he felt so disquieted, except that he had spent the better part of the past two years trying to keep his own identity a secret from those he loved. How was he supposed to manage that if more Similars were showing up in the area?

Because the unfortunate truth was that even if this young man hadn’t immediately identified Gabriel as something other than human, it was only a matter of time.

At the sound of the doorbell’s metallic clang, Gabriel reluctantly abandoned his mop to help an elderly woman squeeze her walker through the narrow entryway, offering his thanks as she praised the aesthetics of the shop. Normally, he appreciated these kinds of compliments. It had taken him months to convince his boss to let him add some ambiance to the place—trailing vines, battery-operated candelabras, carefully curated historic art pieces. He felt that a trip to the local bookstore, which held endless tomes of intrigue and adventure, should be anything but ordinary.

Today, though, he found the woman’s flattery grating.

“Would you look at this display here?” Her wrinkled hands trailed along a black tablecloth dotted with small handmade candles, antique cloth-bound manuscripts, and a stack of old postcards topped with a quill and pot of ink. She opened her mouth to say something else, but Gabriel’s attention was elsewhere.

“If you’ll excuse me…” He placed a vague hand on her shoulder before striding behind the counter. “Find everything you’re looking for?”

This time he braced himself before looking into the stranger’s gray eyes. Once again, he was taken aback by their depth.

The young man’s expression was hard to define. He looked calm, but there was a vulnerability there, as if his secrets lived just beneath his skin and were silently screaming for release.

“Yes,” he said. His gaze flickered from Gabriel, to the small charms for sale on the counter, to the door. He placed a thick volume in front of the cash register. “Thank you,” he added as an afterthought.

Gabriel scanned the book and unfolded a paper bag. “‘I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will,’” he recited.

Panic flashed in the stranger’s pale eyes. “What did you just say?”