Tide - By Daniela Sacerdoti Page 0,1

which heart to break

Sean

Every night I watch over Sarah, invisible, concealed in her garden. As December approaches it gets colder and colder, but I don’t care if my hands are frozen and my lips turn blue. I must be there for her. The threat is far from over, Sarah is still in danger and Nicholas Donal is not the right person to protect her. I can’t trust him. Even though he saved our lives many times.

Who is he, anyway? He says he’s the heir to the Donals, a Secret family I’ve never even heard of. Hardly a satisfactory explanation. I watch him walking up the steps that lead to Sarah’s door and follow her inside. It’s clear enough that they’re together.

Just thinking about it makes me ill.

Only a few weeks ago, Sarah had feelings for me, before she discovered who I really am … I know she did. How can those feelings have changed so quickly? There’s something strange about the sudden hold Nicholas has over her. And she looks so pale, so thin. Even from the distance I keep she seems … dazed. She walks to and from school with uncertain steps, with her head lowered. Of course, she has been through so much, but even so. She is not the Sarah I know. Or knew.

Maybe I’m flattering myself that I’m better for her, when what’s between the two of them really is love.

No, it can’t just be jealousy; it can’t just be the fact that he took Sarah for himself the night he saved her life – him and those ravens, and those cold blue flames that sprung from his fingers. It can’t just be my spite at having lost her to him – not when I see Sarah as she is now.

What has he done to her? And how could I have allowed this to happen?

It was Harry Midnight, Sarah’s cousin, who entrusted me with her life. Just before his death at the hands of the Secret Council, the Sabha – the very people who were supposed to lead the Secret Families – he sent me, his Gamekeeper, his best friend, his brother in all but blood, to Scotland to watch over Sarah. Harry gave me his name and his identity – Sarah was just a baby when she’d seen him last – because he knew that it was the only way that she would trust me. And she did, until she found out about our deceit. And now she hates me for it. Even though it was all done to keep her safe.

We’re apart, and it’s killing me.

Crouched night after night in Sarah’s garden, I wonder what has happened to Harry’s friends – our friends. Elodie, his wife, was sent to a safe place in Italy, to guard the last of the Japanese Secret heirs. Mike Prudhomme, a Gamekeeper like me, was sent to Louisiana with Niall Flynn, the heir to the Flynn family. For a while we were able to keep in constant touch via secure phone lines, but the lines have gone dead now. There has been no signal – the short message we used to send each other at the same time every day – for weeks. I try to believe that it’s too dangerous for them to be in touch with me right now, because I can’t contemplate the alternative: that they have been killed. Murdered by the Sabha, or by demons, take your pick. The whole world seems to be against us, in one way or another.

Every day I check our dead drop. Mike knows that if everything else fails, as a last resort I’ll have left them a message folded inside a plastic pocket, hidden in a fissure in Sarah’s garden wall – the north wall. The exact place is marked by a small symbol I’ve painted in such a way that it’s visible, but doesn’t attract too much attention.

Every day I pray that I’ll find the envelope gone, that they’ll come looking for me at Gorse Cottage. Losing hope is not an option.

I spend every night in Sarah’s garden, invisible. I can make myself unseen, unnoticed – nobody rests their eyes on me twice, nobody remembers my face. They see me, but their gaze slips away from me like rain trickling off glass. It works best when I’m still, but I can be invisible when I’m moving too, although occasionally my shadow is perceived like a flicker in the corner of somebody’s eye. From my hiding place I can