“You’re not upset with me?” I turned to face Silas, taking both of his hands in mine. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not upset with you.” Silas gave me a crooked smile. “I might be upset with you when I find out the details, because I’ve no doubt I won’t be happy about them. But I’m allowed to feel how I want, and you’re allowed to let me feel that way. And through it all, I will never stop loving you. No matter what.”
I raised onto my tiptoes. “I don’t deserve you.”
“You deserve everything.” Silas met me with a kiss. “I’m lucky to have found you. I won’t ever forget what it felt like to not have you in my life, and I would rather die than go back to that place of emptiness.”
I threw my arms around Silas’s neck, and when he stepped away, the guilt tugged more at my gut than ever before. Last night, with the coronation, I’d taken the feelings of the whole island into my chest and absorbed them as my own.
I hadn’t even realized it’d clouded the line between me and Silas, the bond we’d been establishing as mates. Obviously he’d been able to tell something was off with me, and it was ridiculous of me to think he wouldn’t have noticed. But the way he’d responded, as if giving me permission to follow my intuition—that had surprised me in the best way possible. I hated keeping this a secret, but until I knew more, I was confident it was the only solution for now.
Silas hung back as I approached the hut. When I knocked this time, the now familiar voice invited me inside for the first time. I turned, waved to Silas, and then entered to find Seer Goddard waiting for me.
eight
“Iknewyou’dcome,”the Seer said. “It’s time, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I murmured. “I think so.”
Seer Goddard sighed a huge sigh, like he wished the moment hadn’t come. Frankly, so had I, but the Darkest Lord wasn’t giving me many options.
“I thought you’d left,” I said.
“I never said I was leaving. I only said goodbye.”
“Okay.” I sat on the ground before the Seer. “I need to reach the spirits in the underworld.”
The Seer sighed again. “I know.”
The inside of the hut was as rudimentary as I’d expected. The remains of a fire sat in the middle of the room. A makeshift bed along one side. Rudimentary cooking supplies neatly arranged near it.
“I didn’t know you were a dreamwalker,” I said. “Truthfully, I don’t even know what a dreamwalker is.”
“You haven’t asked much about me.”
“Would you have answered if I did?”
The Seer’s lips turned up in the slightest of smiles. It was a moment that felt almost like we’d graduated from a teacher-student relationship to a peer-peer relationship. I basked in the grudging, unspoken camaraderie. How much things had changed in mere months. How far I’d come. We’d come—all of us.
“Do you believe this is the only way?” Seer Goddard asked. “Entering the underworld?”
“I don’t know that it’s the only way. What I know is that we’re crunched for time and the threats keep coming, harder and faster, and I don’t have any other ideas.” I raised my hands. “The basic wards that fell into place when I destroyed the old crystals aren’t enough, and I don’t have the skills or the know-how to perfect them. We’ve tried manufacturing replacements to enhance the natural Fae magic, but I don’t think it’s coming along fast enough.”
Seer Goddard nodded along. “Little Liza told you about me?”
“Do you know her well?”
“I don’t know her at all,” Seer Goddard said. “But I’ve been in her dreams. She’s powerful, that little one. Keep her close to you.”
“I will. Not because she’s powerful but because...” I almost said because she needed me. But in reality, I didn’t know that was true. More honestly, I needed her. Not for her skills or magic, but because of our bond, her friendship. It was mutual.
Seer Goddard nodded in understanding. “She recognized me from her dreams.”
“Ah.” Suddenly, it all made a lot more sense. The vagueness, that sensation that Liza knew more than she was saying but wasn’t exactly able to put her finger on it. The certainty with which Liza knew Seer Goddard was a dreamwalker—because she’d witnessed him doing it. “What is a dreamwalker, exactly?”
“Some people are born with the skill; others develop it over years and years of training.”
“Which are you?”
