“Let me pretend it is,” Jeremy said. He stroked the dog’s soft ears with his fingertips.

Rafe got out an apple and held it to Jeremy’s lips, but Jeremy turned his head away.

“Just give me a minute. One more minute.”

“Jay, no. Eat the apple. One bite. Please.”

Jeremy closed his eyes and laid his head back, petting the false Martha.

Rafe was losing him. He couldn’t lose him. He’d lost him before and wasn’t going to let it happen again.

So he took a bite of the apple. Then another. Then another. He filled his mouth with the taste of sunlight until the sweet golden juices dripped down his chin. He held one bite of apple in his mouth, then he put his hands on Jeremy’s neck.

He kissed him. Hard.

At first, it seemed to have no effect, but then it was like a drowning man breaking the surface to breathe again. Jeremy’s lips parted, and Rafe pushed the last bite of Golden Sun apple into his mouth. Jeremy swallowed it whole, then took Rafe’s face in his hands, tilted his head back, and, with his tongue, drank from him every last drop of sunlight.

Light makes heat, and there was so much heat in their kiss that Jeremy’s hands grew warm on Rafe’s skin. The apple kiss was working. Working like magic. It wasn’t merely a good kiss. It was too good. Jeremy kissed him like he knew how, like he’d had years of practice, like he had something to prove and knew he could prove it.

They might have kissed forever, except Martha, who had never once growled in her long and gentle life, began to snarl. Rafe pulled back and took out his hunting knife.

He said to Jeremy, “Close your eyes.”

Before he could dispatch the beast, it disappeared into a puff of smoke. Rafe stood up, grabbed Jeremy, and pulled him to his feet.

The smoke materialized in front of them and became a leering Bright Boy with ashy skin and smelling of sour milk.

“That felt nice,” it said to Jeremy. “You have good hands. Lucky prince,” it said, sharp teeth smiling at Rafe.

Jeremy went for his sword, but the creature was standing on it. Rafe held his arrow like a spear, ready to strike, but the Bright Boy held up a white flag he produced from thin air.

“You can’t kill me when I wave this,” the Bright Boy taunted.

“Who says?” Rafe raised the arrow.

Jeremy said, “Talk fast.”

“The King of Lost Virginia awaits your presence. Follow the Blackwater River. Go now or stay here with…that.”

He jerked his head toward the bedroom door. Rafe heard footsteps and slammed the door shut and latched it.

“Darling? It’s time for dinner.”

A woman’s voice, English, loving. Jeremy’s mother.

“Hurry,” the Bright Boy said. “Don’t keep the king waiting.”

“Love? Why’s the door locked?” The thing knocked harder this time.

“Oh, in case you decide to run off instead of coming to see the king…” The Bright Boy pulled something off his neck, something silver, and tossed it to Jeremy. He caught it and looked at it.

“This is Emilie’s St. Agatha medal,” Jeremy said.

The Bright Boys had Emilie.

Without thinking, Rafe rushed forward to spear it with his arrow, but the creature blew like a storm wind through the window and was gone.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The door rattled on the hinges. Whatever was out there wanted in and wanted in now.

“Is Rafe staying for dinner?” it asked. “He’s very welcome to.”

Rafe put his hands on Jeremy’s shoulders, met his eyes. “It’s not her.”

“I know. When did Mum ever cook for us?”

“Boys? What’s going on in there?”

Something banged hard against the door, like a shoulder.

“Go,” Rafe ordered. “Now!”

Jeremy didn’t hesitate this time. He grabbed his sword, sheathed it, and clambered out the window into the dead sycamore tree in the backyard.

“I know my son is in there,” the thing roared like a demon. “Give him back!”

Rafe nocked an arrow, then took a breath. He popped the latch and shot at the first head that came through the door.

While the monster flailed in fury, Rafe escaped out the window and down the tree.

He landed on the ground, and Jeremy hauled him to his feet. They ran even as Mary Cox’s old rose vines grabbed at them, stabbing their legs with vicious thorns.

They ran as fast as they could over streets that made no sense anymore. The bricks crumbled to dust even as they raced across them. Ahead, Rafe saw a river that shouldn’t have been there, a black and raging river wide as a two-lane highway. A rope bridge spanned it, and across the river, he saw a dirt road. That must be it, the way they were supposed to go.

Jeremy went across the bridge before Rafe could stop him. He made it easily, but Rafe didn’t trust it.

Carefully, he started across the swaying bridge. He told himself not to look down, but he did and saw Jeremy in the water, flailing and fighting the current, an arrow sticking out of his back.

“Rafe!” the Jeremy in the water screamed. “Help!”

“Come on, Rafe, I’m here,” Jeremy called out to him from the bank on the other side of the bridge. “Don’t fall for it like I did. I’m right here.”

But what if he wasn’t? What if that was the fake Jeremy on the other side of the bridge and the real one was in the water begging for his help?

Jeremy on the bank started back across the bridge, but a board broke under his boot.

“Stop!” Rafe called to him. “You said water kills Bright Boys.”