Across the tent, Pansy squirms in her chair. She’s muttering something, something that sounds like, “Stop, stop, stop. It’s not time yet.”
Ophelia swoops across the space, floats next to Pansy. A pattering hits the dirt floor, a light and persistent drip, drip, drip.
Blood.
Pansy is trying to stem the flow as best she can with her bound hands, leaning so the blood doesn’t soak her shirt. She frowns and tosses her head as if to shake off the sticky sensation.
Ophelia knows it must itch. She’s always hated the feel of blood beneath her nose.
Pansy lifts her head, and a splatter of blood flies through the air and strikes the space where Ophelia hovers. For one brief moment, she is … not solid; she’ll never be solid in this loop. But she catches the hint of her form: a disobedient curl here, a double-knotted bootlace there. (Even in these visions, Ophelia dresses appropriately; she is currently in full field gear.)
“Ophelia?”
Ophelia nods, and for once, Pansy can see her.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
You don’t have anything to be sorry for.
It occurs to Ophelia that this is the first time that she’s seen Pansy’s nose bleed at this point. In the other scenarios, in all the terrible times through this loop, it’s as if the Sight has deserted Pansy. The Sight is never that capricious, not when it comes to self-preservation.
“All this time,” Pansy is saying, “Botten thought it was you, but it was me. And I’m so sorry?—”
Shhhh.
Ophelia hushes Pansy with a strength that sends the canvas rippling again. It’s a wonder no one in the bivouac notices.
It doesn’t matter. He would’ve come after me anyway.
But it’s like Pansy to think of that, to think of her.
“You’ve seen this how many times?” Pansy is still shaking her head, as if she understands what Ophelia has been through and finds it incomprehensible. “How many times?”
And Ophelia finds she’s shaking her head, too, because she doesn’t know, has lost count.
All of them. Except this one.
Pansy stares as if Ophelia has painted the words in the air and they linger there.
Except this one. Hope is a cruel, cruel thing, and it has seduced Ophelia far too many times for her to trust it now.
But she can’t help herself.
He’s going to kill you and Henry.
“Yes, I know.”
He’ll have a knife.
“I know that too.”
He always goes for Henry first. Always.
Pansy shuts her eyes, but not before a single tear escapes and travels down her cheek. “I know.”
Ophelia wonders just how much the Sight has shown Pansy. Before she can ask, Pansy exhales a breath, brings her bound hands to her face, and scrubs her knuckles against her cheek and beneath her nose. Then she looks directly at Ophelia.
“I know what I have to do.”
