Sisters Of Salt And Iron. Kady Cross

think this version is much prettier, don’t you?”

      I nodded. The jolt I’d felt and all this beauty only made me more certain that Haven Crest was its own entity. “It’s like something on Masterpiece Theatre.”

      “Masterpiece Theatre? Never heard of it.”

      I laughed. “No. It’s a little after your time.” I gripped his hand tighter. “Noah, thank you for showing me this.”

      He smiled. “It’s important to me that you see this place as I do, that you understand why those of us who choose to be here are reluctant to go.”

      My gaze was still busy taking it all in. How different it looked! “I wish Lark could see this.”

      “The living are incapable of it. They see only death and decay.” He said it with a sneer.

      “Lark isn’t like most of the living,” I informed him—maybe a bit defensively. “She would be able to see this, if it was shown to her.”

      “Well, then, maybe we’ll find a way to make her see.”

      The thought of the look on my sister’s face when she saw this beautiful place made me grin. “I’d like that.”

      “I would do anything to make you smile exactly as you are right now. I’ve never seen anything as lovely in all my days—alive or dead.”

      “You’re a flirt,” I accused, practically fluttering my eyelashes.

      “You inspire it in me,” he replied with a wink. “Shall I show you about the grounds?”

      I hesitated. The last time I’d been in the main buildings Josiah Bent had tried to bend me to his will and badly injured my friends.

      “I assure you no harm will come to you,” Noah comforted me. “And the man who once tormented you is gone from this place—forever. Your sister saw to that.”

      I believed that. When Lark put her mind to banishing a spirit, she did a pretty good job of it. I did, too, come to think of it. The last time being on these very grounds. “Won’t some of them hate me for getting rid of Bent?”

      “Josiah Bent was a terrible man, and we’re glad to be rid of him. He thought of nothing but himself, and had nothing but blatant contempt for this place and those of us who had been here long before he showed up. Come with me, you’ll see.”

      I let him lead me up the gravel path toward the main building. The ghosts around us came closer. Some of them reached out as though they wanted to touch me. Others smiled and shied away. But they all looked happy to see me, as though we were old friends. They would never look at Lark like this, not with her belief that most ghosts were evil.

      I smiled back at them, and for the first time in my existence, I was happy that my sister wasn’t with me.