Souls Wanted

PROLOGUE

The first thing he noticed was the silence. Not the peaceful kind that settles after a storm. This silence pressed in on his ears, thick and deliberate, as if the Fort itself were holding its breath.

They stood across from him. His wife. His student.

Stone lamps burned low along the walls, their flames bending in unseen currents. Shadows climbed the pillars and folded themselves around the women’s bodies. Both stood the same way: feet planted, shoulders squared, hands curved protectively over the swell of their bellies. Two lives. Two futures. Neither of them belonged to him anymore.

Once, he had been the centre of this place. His voice had carried through these halls like law. Wardens had moved at a gesture, a glance, a breath held too long. The map table behind him still bore the marks of his hands: scratches in the varnish where he had leaned forward, arguing for protection, for preparation, for what he had always believed was mercy sharpened into command.

Now he wore chains. Cold iron circled his wrists and throat. Each link hummed faintly, alive with the wards that kept his power folded inward, buried beneath his skin like a second skeleton. He didn’t fight them. Let them see how calm he could be.

His wife would not look at him. Her gaze stayed fixed somewhere beyond his shoulder, on a future in which he was no longer a part. That hurt more than the chains. The younger woman, the one he had trained, trusted, and shaped, met his gaze without flinching. Her hands trembled where they rested against her stomach.

He wondered which of them hated him more. ‘You call this justice?’ he said. His voice cracked against the stone and came back to him thinner, weaker, unfamiliar. ‘You think stripping me of my soul makes the world safer?’ He tilted his head, studying the circle of Wardens around them. ‘You think what I did was cruelty.’

No one answered.

The Master Wardens stepped forward as one. The floor markings glowed: thin lines of gold threading through the stone, crawling towards his feet like something alive. The air thickened. Breathing became work.

The first pull felt like fingers inside his chest. Not pain. Not yet. Pressure. A slow, deliberate unfastening. His vision blurred at the edges as something deeper than flesh shifted. He gasped, and the sound came out wrong, stretched thin, like it had already started leaving him.

Light split the space in front of him. The portal opened. It did not shine. It folded as if any brightness had collapsed inward on itself, revealing a landscape that was not a place so much as an absence. A plain without a horizon. Without shadow. Without distance.

The Plains of Empty.

The pull became a tearing. Fire ran through his veins, not burning, an undoing. His knees buckled, his chains rattling as the world tilted sideways. His scream bent the air, warping the light around his body.

The Fort shuddered. In that moment, when the last of his body still remembered being whole, his thoughts did not turn to the Wardens. They turned to the unborn. One carried by his wife. Flesh of his flesh. Blood of his blood. The other, growing inside the woman who had once called him teacher. They would grow in a world that believed it had saved itself from him. He almost laughed.

The light swallowed him. As he fell, as heat and shadow tore his soul free from what he had been, one truth burned brighter than the pain, brighter than the betrayal, brighter than the loss. He had only ever wanted to save them from weakness. And now he would. One to guide. One to break. No matter how long it took. He had learned that love did not end when someone took it away. It learned how to hunt.

CHAPTER 1

Graveyards don’t do sunshine. They do wet stone, cold air that settles in your shoes, and the smell of turned earth that clings to the back of your throat. The rain keeps sliding into my eyes, blurring the coffin until it’s just a dark shape in the ground. If I don’t blink, it almost feels like it isn’t real yet.

It’s my sister in there. My Sarah.

Strangers hold the ropes. Their hands are pink with cold as they lower her down, careful, respectful, like she’s something fragile instead of someone who used to steal my clothes and laugh too loud in quiet rooms. Everyone else is crying. I just stand there while cold water seeps through my tights and numbs my knees. Maybe grief is supposed to hurt more than this. Sarah started disappearing months ago. Small things. The way her laugh came late, as if she had to remember how. The way her eyes didn’t always find mine in a crowd anymore. She moved through the world as if she were already halfway to somewhere else. I told myself it was exhaustion. Being a teenage mum will hollow anyone out.

But I watched her fade, anyway.

Liam shifts beside me, boots sinking into the mud. His little hand floats near my sleeve, not quite touching. He knows the rule. He always does. Tina and Mrs Hare hadn’t wanted him here. Too young, they said. Too much. But I never got a goodbye from my mum. I didn’t even get a body. Just a story and a closed door. I would not take that from him, too. I crouch, ignoring the cold soaking through my tights. ‘You okay?’

He nods, blond curls bouncing. ‘I’m okay.’

I smile because it’s what you’re supposed to do. ‘You’re doing great.’

James stands behind him, one hand resting lightly on Liam’s shoulder. As usual, my heart flutters at the sight of my best friend. He hasn’t moved far from us since we arrived. Tall, dark hair damp with rain, eyes fixed on the coffin as if it might disappear if he stops looking at it. He found her. Bleeding in the alley. Pressed his hands against the wound. Waited for sirens that didn’t come fast enough. He doesn’t say it, but I see it in the way he holds himself. As if being quicker, better, might have changed this. As if she should still be here stealing my jacket instead of lying in a box.

The priest clears his throat.

Liam goes still. ‘James. Aunt Mandy.’ His voice is barely there. ‘Look.’ He isn’t pointing at the grave. He’s pointing past the mourners. Past the crooked headstones and towards the line of trees that hems the cemetery in like a wall. ‘Mummy’s not in there.’

My breath snags. ‘What did you say?’

‘She’s there.’ He lifts his finger again. ‘By the trees.’

I follow his gaze. Sarah stands half in shadow, water slipping past her as if it’s forgotten how to land. Her hair hangs dark and wet, and she’s wearing the jacket she stole from me last winter. She looks the way she always did: tall, restless, as if she’s about to say something reckless.

Her face changes when she sees me. Soft. Then startled. Like she didn’t expect to be seen. My heart stutters. Liam squirms, and James tightens his grip on his shoulders. This can’t be happening. They showed me her body. Grey. Still. Empty. ‘Mummy!’ Liam calls.

The priest falters, prayer book hovering in his hands. Heads turn. A ripple of attention passes through the crowd. Someone sighs. Someone murmurs. I point. My arm feels too heavy for my body. ‘She’s there. Sarah’s there.’

People look. Then they look away. The priest lowers his eyes back to the page and keeps reading, carrying on as if nothing is wrong. Can’t they see her? She’s right there, pacing the edge of the cemetery like she’s trapped behind an invisible line. Liam presses into my side, and I don’t tell him to stop. We push through the mourners. I need to bring her closer. Into the open.

Then the clouds twist, and my world crumbles.

Something red tears through the clouds. It doesn’t fall. It dives. Wings snap open with the sound of tearing metal, scattering cold droplets and light. Hands, too long, too sharp, close around Sarah. Her scream finds me before her voice does. ‘Mandy!’ Her eyes lock on mine, and then on Liam’s.

The world fractures. She’s lifted, dragged upwards, feathers and wind and heat twisting around her like a storm that knows her name. Light folds in on itself, and then she’s gone, the air ripping her out as if it never meant for her to be here at all.

A sound tears out of me. I don’t recognise it. Liam sobs against my jacket, fists knotted in the fabric. The cemetery stares. Whispers move faster than the storm. Beyond the gates, three soldiers shift at the same time. Hands adjust straps. Boots realign in the mud. Their weapons hang loose, but not relaxed.

‘Mandy!’ Mrs Hare’s voice cuts through the rain. Her hand touches my shoulder, and I flinch away. She knows not to touch me. ‘Come away now. You’re making a scene. I know today’s tough, but you’re upsetting Liam.’

I step back. ‘Didn’t you see that?’ I cry. ‘She was there! Sarah—she was right there!’ I scan the faces staring at me. ‘That thing came and took her. You must have seen it.’

‘Grief can play tricks on our minds.’ Her voice softens in that careful way people use when they think you’re about to fall apart.

I turn, searching for someone who will tell me I’m not alone in this. James stands near the grave, staring at the space where Sarah was. His mouth is open. His face has gone bloodless. He whispers, ‘The spell’s broken.’

My stomach drops. He looks at me as if he’s said too much. But then he turns and runs. A soldier runs after him. ‘James!’ I shout after him. ‘What do you mean? What spell?’

He’s already gone, swallowed by the trees at the edge of the cemetery.

A figure steps into my line of sight, drips falling down the hood of his sweatshirt. A familiar grin, less sharp than I remember. ‘Mandy?’ his eyes flick to the soldiers, then back to Liam. ‘How about we get you two out of here, before those soldiers start asking questions?’

‘Robbie?’ He nods.

‘Did you see her?’ I ask.

He hesitates. ‘I didn’t. But...’ He shrugs. ‘I can believe you did.’

Robbie holds out his hand, the one with the Camp Woburn brand inked into the skin. Liam takes it without hesitation. I should ask questions. Why is he helping? Why are the soldiers staring at us like we’re dangerous. But the cemetery suddenly feels too small. Too full of watching eyes and whispered grief and the space Sarah should still occupy. Robbie is leaving with Liam, and right now, movement feels too much like escape to refuse.

So I follow him. As we pass the last headstone, something breathes against my ear. Not warm. Not cold. A laugh, low and thin, as if it doesn’t belong to a throat anymore. I spin. Nothing. Just rain. Stone. The smell of scorched air where the sky split open. And a feeling, settles deep in my chest, that whatever took my sister knows exactly where to find me next.

CHAPTER 2

Ice cream distracts Liam for eleven minutes while Robbie makes him laugh with stories about the time he and Sarah set off the school fire alarm with a science experiment that definitely wasn’t supposed to involve glitter. In that time, the world narrows to sticky fingers and a sugar-rush grin; the sky tearing open and the sound of wings scratching against the air seeming almost impossible.

He walks us home, keeping one eye on the road, the other on the shadows. Curfew reminders wail somewhere in the distance, low and warning. When we reach our gate, he stops. ‘Camp Woburn needs me back,’ he says. ‘Minibuses go out again tomorrow. More seventeen-year-olds.’ He hesitates, then adds, ‘To keep them safe.’ Like a promise. Or a prayer.

I close the front door behind me. The hallway smells faintly of polish and Mrs Hare’s perfume—safe smells. Familiar. Liam runs into the kitchen shouting for Tina, our foster carer, as if nothing’s wrong. Like we didn’t just see the impossible. Grief could explain almost anything if you let it. Exhaustion. Shock. Shared delusion. There had to be an explanation better than seeing ghosts and winged monsters.

I slip off my coat and hang it on the peg by the stairs. Liam’s already dumped his shoes in the middle of the hallway and disappeared into the kitchen. I should tell him to tidy up, but I don’t. Let Tina or Mrs Hare do it. Or not. Tonight, I just... can’t.

‘You made it back safe, then?’ Mrs Hare calls from the kitchen. ‘Good job too. You’re nearly seventeen now. Once you’re old enough for Camp Woburn, they can take over worrying about you for a change.’ A cupboard slams shut harder than necessary. ‘And don’t go wandering near the shops this week. There’ve been rumours about Chosen nearby.’

I don’t answer. The word safe sits between us like something I don’t trust. I’m not leaving Liam. Not after his mum has just died. I don’t want him turning out like me.

Flinching from touch. Running from life.

I wander into the living room. Tina’s blown up some balloons ready for Liam’s birthday tomorrow. He’ll be four-years-old tomorrow. I still need to get him a present. Some sparkly crayons; he likes anything that shines.

Boxes line the far wall; they’re full of Sarah’s things. Tina stacked them there last week. Her way of helping. She told me to go through them, but I haven’t touched them yet. That would make things too final. There’s a jumper poking out of one of them, the pale blue one with the sunflower patch near the hem. Sarah wore it all the time. Tears prick my eyes. She’ll never wear it again.

I trudge up the stairs and cross the landing to stand outside Liam’s room. His clothes lie in a heap on the floor, and he’s sitting in his green dinosaur pyjamas with his sketchbook balanced on his knee. I kneel beside him. ‘Your top’s inside out. Come on, let’s put it right.’

He shrugs his shoulders but holds his arms up for me. I tug at the top, pulling it the right way before placing it back over his head.

‘What are you drawing?’ I ask.

‘Mummy’s soul and the red warden taking her.’

The tiny hairs along my arms lift despite the warmth of the room. ‘The red what?’ My voice is barely a whisper as my eyes turn to the drawing.

He frowns, as if I’ve asked why the sky is up. ‘The one that took her. You saw it too.’

I sit on the carpet, unable to move, knees drawn up, glancing at the sketchpad. It’s surprisingly good for a four-year-old—shaky but clear enough. A woman in a blue jumper, arms reaching out. A red-winged creature above her. I shiver. ‘You said Mummy’s soul was in the picture too?’

He nods. ‘That’s her. See the glow?’ He taps the figure gently, as if he doesn’t want to smudge it.

‘And what are souls exactly, Liam?’

He keeps colouring, but his voice turns thoughtful. ‘Mummy said that it’s the bit of the person that makes them special. The bit that feels things. Sometimes they get lost, which is why they try to find us. We’re soul-seers,’ he says. ‘We help the lost ones find where they’re meant to go.’

The word lands strangely. Soul-seers. ‘Is this a story that Mummy told you?’ He talks about lost souls as if he’s older than me. Maybe he is. Grief has a way of making children sound ancient. Maybe it aged Sarah too.

Liam stops colouring to stare at me. ‘It’s not a story. It’s real life, but we have to keep it secret.’

I glance at the door, then back at him. ‘How do you know all this?’

He shrugs. ‘Mummy told me before she died. She said that one day, I’ll be a soul-seer just like her.’

I wrap my arms around myself. I want to ask more, but I also don’t. Because if I ask, and he answers, I’ll have to believe him. And if I believe him... ‘I think I’m going to sleep in here tonight,’ I say instead. ‘Okay?’

He nods without looking up. ‘‘Okay. They come less when you’re here because of the spell Mummy put on you when you were little. But it wore off. That’s why you can see them now.’

I nod as if I understand, but my voice shakes when I say, ‘Right.’

Liam pushes his sketchbook to one side. ‘I’m sleepy.’

I jump up and pull his duvet to one side. I help Liam under the covers and sit beside him on the edge of the bed. He leans towards me, still careful not to touch me, as I pull the duvet up around his shoulders.

‘I miss her,’ he mumbles.

‘I know,’ I say. ‘I miss her too.’

He blinks up at me, eyes heavy with sleep, but still carrying something older than four years old. Something that shouldn’t exist in a child. ‘Now the red warden’s taken her, I won’t be able to speak to her anymore.’ His eyes fill with tears.

A pain pulls at my heart. I’ll do anything to protect this little boy. ‘You’ve still got me, and you’ve got a big day tomorrow, birthday boy.’ He nods, eyelids already fluttering shut. I turn on the plug-in nightlight near the wall, one of those glowing moon ones, and quietly slip from the room.

The bathroom light hums as I wash my face and pull my long, dark hair into a messy bun. I stare long and hard in the mirror. How many times had me and Sarah shared this mirror? How could I not have known what she had been telling Liam? Is any of it true?

When I return to Liam’s room, my breath catches in my throat. The bed is empty. The duvet hangs slightly off the edge, the little dinosaur plush on the pillow staring up at nothing. ‘Liam?’ I whisper. No answer. I turn slowly towards the window and freeze.