“Find your sisters, Brianna.”
Her breath caught, the words slamming into her like a physical blow. “What?” she gasped, her heart hammering in her chest. “How do you know my name? How do you know about my sisters?” Her voice cracked, rising with each question, raw with desperation and fury. “Did you have something to do with their disappearance? Who the hell are you?”
“Without you, all will be lost,” she said.
“All what will be lost?” Brianna shook with the force of emotions she couldn’t contain—fear, anger, and a growing, terrible dread.
“Thefuture and the past.”
“I-I—”
“There isn’t much time,” Moira said, her voice stern and her expression grim. “Evie and Chloe need you. Now more than ever. Without you, chaos cannot be corrected. Without you, the future will never come to pass.”
Moira reached for her hand, then, and closed her fingers around the stone. “Take it.”
“But—”
“Find them. Help them.”
“I don’t know how to find them,” Brianna said. “I don’t know where they are.”
“Youwillknow,” Moira insisted. “Take the stone but never let it out of your sight.Youare its guardian now. Go. Rest. All will be clear in the morning light.”
And just like that, the air shifted around them once again. Moira’s expression was back to a pleasant one, an expectant one as if she’d asked Brianna a question and she hadn’t heard her.
“I’m sorry. What?” Brianna asked.
“I said would you like me to package it up for you?” She nodded to the stone still resting in her palm.
Brianna blinked the confusion from her eyes. A moment ago, the woman had closed her fingers around it. But maybe she’d imagined that? Was she also imagining that humming of the stone?
“Ah, yes, please.”
Grinning her delight, Moira plucked the stone from her palm and walked to the middle of the store. Brianna scooped up her packages and followed. By the time she was at the counter, Moira had the jagged piece of stone in a blue velvet bag.
“Here you are,” she said, handing it over to her.
Brianna juggled her packages again to reach for her wallet. “How much?”
“Free of charge.”
She halted. “Free?”
“Aye, lass.”
She noticed the picture of the castle on the wall behind her. The castle towers reached for a blue sky while behind it the sunlight glistened off the calm waters of a loch. As soon as she looked at it, a strange déjà vu rippled through her, as though she had stood in that same spot once before staring at that same castle. She couldn’t quite grasp when.
“What is that place?”
“Dundale Castle in the Highlands,” Moira replied. “Home of Clan MacLeod.”
Brianna stared at it another long moment, trying to shake the feeling. She took the bag from the shopkeeper. “Thank you.”
“Enjoy your visit to Scotland, Miss Sinclair.”
As Brianna stepped out of the shop, a chill prickled down her spine. She froze mid-step, the realization hitting her like a cold slap. She hadn’t given the woman her name. So how the hell did she know it?
Chapter Three
