Before Kessian, when was the last time someone had done that for me?
Lunaris tried. She could tuck the blankets around me tighter in bed. She could put the kettle on for a hot cup of tea. But the warmth of another’s arms—
The last time had been the day I left Shearwater, and Grandad had hugged me for what felt like an age. At the time, I’d tried to pull back, but he held on. I’d never been very touchy as a boy. Hugs sometimes felt forced or coerced.Go give your grandparents a hug, they’d tell me, and I’d try to get it over with, not because I didn’t love them, but because touch sometimes felt like too much. Cats got to slap you if you kept stroking them when they’d had enough, but not me.
Nine years spent alone had reversed that. If I’d known, I might have held on to Grandad a little longer.
The mist coalesced into the vague shape of a man. The light swirled like an oil spill until it formed a mirage of my grandfather’s face. It didn’t open its eyes or speak, and I wondered if I could, my throat closing around a knot of—something. An emotion I was too overwhelmed to name.
Beside me, Kessian met my eyes.
He mouthed,You okay?
No, I thought.This is the first time I’ll speak to my grandfather in nine years, and he’s dead. He probably won’t even recognize me.
But the first thing that came out of my grandfather’s mouth was my name.
“Taliesin?”
His voice sounded like a scratched record.
“Grandad?”
“My boy … missed you.”
I choked on my words. “I’m sorry. I was afraid if I came back … And now you’re gone anyway.”
“Gone … but still love you.” His spirit flickered like a television tuned to a dead channel.
“Keeping spirits this side of the veil is difficult. Your time is limited. I suggest you be quick.” From the strain in his voice, Emery was struggling to maintain the spell.
I had to gather myself quickly. “Grandad, listen. The strid. We think it’s poisoned, and Kessian’s Keeper now. We need to cure it or people will keep dying. Do you know how we can do that? Cleanse the poison?”
His words were grated cheese, raw and crumbling. “The strid still has you.”
That wasn’t an answer. “I—I know that, but what about the poison? Is there an antidote?”
“Tried to find a way to bring you back. All my research—for you.”
“Research? What research?”
He kept going, wheezing like a car’s dying exhaust. “You … you were half the equation. Needed the other half to solve.”
His mouth opened wide, a sound like a dying breath and the rush of water chilling me to the bone. Rain dripped into my mouth, tasting like the strid.
Emery had to shout to be heard over the noise, his voice strained. “You don’t have much longer.”
“Grandad, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where do we find your research? How do we cleanse the poison?”
His voice was a gale. “You swam the strid! You drank its water! The blood of Shearwater runs through you. Is tied to you.”
I took a step back, the sudden clarity and meaning of his words an arrow through the heart. “What?”
“The wraith is a part of you and a part of the strid. A manifestation of the strid’s rage and your grief. It is the poison, but not the poisoner. It must be healed, or it will get sicker and sicker, a place of houses and no homes, unless you—”
“Unless I what?”
“Hurry,” Emery growled through gritted teeth.
