####### CHAPTER 1: RAVEN'S EDGE

Isla

The GPS on my phone dies somewhere between Portland and the middle of nowhere.

Fitting, really. I've been trying to disappear for four years. Might as well start by literally getting lost.

I pull the rental car, a nondescript gray sedan that screams forgettable onto the shoulder and check the handwritten directions the GPS had spoken to me before surrendering. Raven's Edge: population 3,500. The kind of town that exists on the margins of Maine, where the forest is darker and the coast is more jagged, where winter comes early and stays long.

It's September, and already there's a chill in the air that feels wrong. Too cold. Too urgent.

Like a warning.

I shake my head and push the thought away. I'm paranoid now. That's what happens when you run. That's what happens when you steal something from a man like my father.

The sun is starting to set, painting the sky in shades of gray and silver. Through the windshield, I can see the tree line in the distance—dense, dark pine forest that looks like it goes on forever. Like it swallows everything that enters it.

A sign appears through the mist: WELCOME TO RAVEN'S EDGE - WHERE DARKNESS BREATHES

Who the hell names a town like that?

My hands tighten on the steering wheel. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to turn around, to drive back to the highway, to pick a different town, a different name, a different life.

But there is no different life. There's only this one, and it's the one I get to live if I'm careful. If I'm smart. If I don't make any mistakes.

I've gotten very good at not making mistakes.

Well. Except for the biggest one.

The drive into town is slow, winding through the forest like a snake with a purpose. The trees lean over the road, their branches intertwining overhead, creating a tunnel of darkness. My headlights cut through the gloom, but they barely seem to touch the shadows. It's as if the darkness out here has weight, substance, hunger.

By the time I reach the town proper, full night has fallen. Streetlights line the main road—old-fashioned Victorian lamps that cast pools of amber light on the empty sidewalks. The buildings are mostly 19th century: brick and stone, gothic architecture that shouldn't exist in Maine but somehow does. There's a church with a spire that seems to pierce the sky. A library with stained glass windows. Shops with names like "The Raven's Nest" and "Obsidian Press."

Everything here is dark. Everything here is watching.

I drive past a small café that's just closing for the night. A few stragglers are leaving, their faces obscured by the glass doors and shadows. They look at my car as I pass—not with curiosity, but with something closer to assessment. Like they're cataloging me, filing me away, deciding what I am.

*Outsider,* their eyes say. *New. Unknown. Potentially dangerous.*

Or maybe I'm just paranoid. That's also a strong possibility.

The academy is on the north side of town, perched on a hill overlooking the darker parts of the forest and what I assume is the coast in the distance. I can't see the ocean from here, but I can smell it—salt and seaweed and something else. Something old.

The building is stunning in that gothic-romance-novel way. Three stories of Victorian architecture with turrets and gables and windows that look like they're staring. There's a wrought-iron gate surrounding the property. Impeccable grounds despite the late hour.

I pull through the gate and park near what I assume is faculty housing. A small cottage sits separate from the main building, with a light on in the front window. Welcoming. Clean. Safe.

I cut the engine and sit in the silence for a moment.

Four years of running. Four years of changing my name, my appearance, my entire identity. Four years of lying awake at night wondering when they would find me. When my father would stop looking. When I would stop being terrified.

And now I'm here. In Raven's Edge. Where everything smells like darkness and danger.

This was supposed to be safe.

This was supposed to be the place where I could finally breathe.

I grab my single suitcase from the backseat—all the belongings I own that fit in one bag—and head toward the cottage. The night is so quiet it's almost aggressive. No traffic sounds. No city hum. Just the wind in the trees and my footsteps on the gravel path.

My hand shakes as I pull out the key the academy director sent me. The lock clicks open, and I step into a space that has been waiting for me.

The cottage is small but elegant. A sitting room with a fireplace. A kitchen with vintage appliances. A bedroom upstairs with a bed that looks too soft to be real. Everything is clean and organized and ready.

I set my suitcase on the bedroom floor and sit on the edge of the mattress.

For the first time in four years, I'm in a place where nobody knows me. Where nobody is looking for me. Where I can simply exist as Isla Cross, music tutor at an elite academy, instead of the girl who stole evidence of her father's crimes and disappeared.

I should feel relieved.

Instead, I feel like prey in a very beautiful trap.

That night, I lie in the darkness of the unfamiliar bedroom and listen to the sounds of Raven's Edge. The wind. The distant sound of the ocean. The occasional car passing by on the street beyond the gate. All normal sounds. All the sounds of a small town settling into sleep.

But underneath it all, there's something else. Something that feels like watching. Like waiting.

Like hunger.

I finally fall asleep sometime after midnight, and my dreams are full of music and darkness and the sound of someone breathing just behind my shoulder.