That … that wasn’t possible. If the strid meant to show me both the past and possible futures, then this wasn’t one. She’d died.
I heard noise behind me and turned to see lights on in the spa house. Voices carried through the garden, torch beams hunting through the reeds and tracking toward us. In their glare, I couldn’t see who held them until we were out of the water.
The torch light lowered. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but standing before me was Fae. Not Fae of nine years ago, who’d had longer hair and only wore hoodies with band logos. This Fae’s hair had been pinned up and studded with pearls. A wedding style.
They said, “Laurelie? Is that Laurelie?”
Before either of us could answer, the vision changed again.
Now I was racing through the woods, heart pounding as powerfully as the strid waters I could hear just ahead. Through gaps in the trees, I could make out a figure striding toward the bank, his plait swaying behind him in the breeze.
Kessian. He was dressed for a wedding, a gold chain woven through his plait and a colorful shirt beneath his waist coat. He walked with a cane painted like it had been touched by frost.
He moved in steady, trancelike steps toward the strid where a tall, dark creature with an antlered head awaited him, holding out its claws.
I knew it was a vision. (A very realistic one.) I knew it wasn’t real. (But if it was a vision of the future, could it come true?)
I also knew that I would not make it to the shore in time, and it felt too real in the moment not to terrify me when Kessian walked across the surface of the river like a water strider, turned to face me, and reached out as if I could pull him to safety.
I tried. I sprinted with shin splints and burning lungs. I held out my hand. Our fingers clasped.
The wraith had no mouth, but I felt it smile as it dragged Kessian down, and me with him.
I shot awake.
Chapter 7
Iopened my eyes to the spring’s chattering falls and the burgeoning need to be sick. I splashed upright, retching. Kessian put an alarmed hand on my back, but I feared the magic would drown me in more visions and shied away.
It was just a vision. It wasn’t real. Yet I felt like I was seventeen again, freshly pulled from the spring by my mother, half drowned and painting the rocks in dark colors as I emptied my lungs onto them.
I didn’t know what to make of it. The haunted version of my grandfather’s house. Laurelie resurrected from the spring, only for Kessian to drown after.
Kessian said, “Are you all right? Can I get you anything?”
I tried to say no, but it came out in a coughing fit. “No, I’m fine, now.”
“I’m sorry. The visions aren’t usually that …”
“Horrific?”
“I was going to say deadly.”
“Don’t I feel special?” I made a rueful noise. “It figures that to get my sister back, I’d have to sacrifice the both of us. The strid never did play fair.”
No matter how Laurelie’s death hung over me, turning Kessian into a sacrificial lamb wouldn’t help, only give me something else to feel guilty for from beyond the grave.
I shivered at the memory of his retreating back in the woods, the wraith’s claws curling around his shoulders. That image would plague my nightmares unless I left as soon as possible.
Kessian looked both shaken and far away, gazing into the water.
I said, “That settles my debate with Fae. I have to go.”
“With no clothes on?” Kessian had moved toward the stairs leading out of the spring, blocking my path. My robe was on the bank within his reach, but he made no move to pass it to me.
“Are you going to stop me?” I didn’t see why he’d want to keep me around after what we’d seen.
“No … No, I won’t stop you, but I think I should at least clarify one thing first.”
