The cold effused through me, my skin erupting in goose bumps, but nothing else happened. None of the shadows deepened or moved, a secret tide didn’t pull me under, even the voice of the trickling falls sounded less malicious.
Kessian beamed. “All right?”
“Yeah. All right.”
He descended the next few steps. He wore a loose-fitting pair of gray trousers and a thin white poet’s shirt, which became transparent as gossamer when wet. His long plait floated on the surface, snaking after him.
He closed his eyes and turned his back to me. “You can take off your robe now, if you want.”
I considered keeping it to maintain a layer of propriety between us, but the cloying sensation of the thick, towel-like fabric, soaked and clinging to my skin would be sickening. I untied the robe, wadded it, and threw it onto the bank, grateful for the privacy of the gardens and trees as I waded in up to my chest.
“You can open your eyes.”
Kessian turned. “Great. I’m going to sit on this shallow rock. If you could just position yourself between my knees. Back to me. Yes, that’s good.”
I shivered, though not from cold. The glowing water rippling around him felt warmer than the rest. “What do I do?”
“Sink deeper. Float back just enough so your head’s in the water.”
Normally this would afford me an unflattering look up Kessian’s nostrils, but even from this vantage he was unfairly beautiful. His eyes glimmered with cool reflections of the water’s vibrant blue.
He hovered his hands over my shoulders. “Physical contact helps the magic flow between us. May I?”
I nodded and drew a sharp breath when his fingers lightly caressed lines up my neck and into my hair.
At once, my mind flooded with images. Racing to eat my ice cream before it melted while sitting on this very bank with Laurelie beside me. Jumping in off the highest rock to see who could make the largest splash. Lunaris, still a scruffy calico, hissing when she got sprayed.
More images followed. Roast dinners at Grandpa’s—he always gave me the oyster from the chicken. Dad teaching me the technique for coning clay on the wheel. A sea of black mourners around coffins with no bodies inside. My sweet calico transforming, magic stretching and twisting her into a caravan. Goodbyes. So many goodbyes.
Then just a blankness. A dark, cold expanse of time that lurched nine years forward. The images became more sensory, more illicit. A kiss tasting like citrus, bumping along in an old Volvo, fingers tangled in bedsheets and blue hair, breathing hard into the side of his love-bitten neck.
Kessian pulled back, fingers clenching. “Sorry.”
“What was that? Could you see all that?”
“Yes. That wasn’t me controlling it, though. It’s the spring. It’s almost like it wanted to reacquaint itself and got a little … greedy.” He let out a forced laugh. “I guess it missed you. It’s never been that thorough.”
I flushed with embarrassment, which was ridiculous. The last few visions weren’t anything Kessian hadn’t seen before. He’dbeenthere. The earlier images, my life in Shearwater before I left, was nothing he hadn’t found out after my fight with Fae. Still, I asked, “What’s supposed to happen?”
“For locals, it might dive into their history a little before showing us something from the future. Something that will help them navigate their problems, or steer them toward the right path. For visitors and tourists,it can’t seem to access their past. I think it can only “see” as far as the boundaries of Shearwater.”
It made a strange sort of sense, but I found its attention frightening. Why such particular interest in me? Why had it saved me from drowning and not the countless others?
“Should I keep going?” Kessian asked.
“Yes.” We’d already begun. Might as well finish.
“This next part will be strange. Like a dream. Try to relax.”
Uncomfortable with the spring as I was, Kessian’s fingers in my hair grounded me. As if reading my mind, he kneaded behind my ears and tugged gently on a few strands, sending pleasant shivers through me.
“Seems I’m not the only one who likes having his hair pulled,” he murmured.
He was incorrigible. I sank low enough my ears were below the water, muffling all noise, until even the soft ripples fell away. Kessian kneaded soothing circles into my temples, and I drifted into a trance like a paper boat rocking in the surf of dreams.
I woke outside a house.
It had once been a handsome house. A rotted porch wrapped all the way around its first floor, with a swing by the door screeching on rusted chains. The garden had overgrown and crawled in through the broken windows. It had the air of an aged starlet, still breathtaking and stage-worthy, if the world hadn’t decided to neglect her for the new and youthful.
