Marrow came to a stop a few feet away from the oracle. “Lady Elaine, this is Destiny Everhart.”
I cringed at the use of my real name. It was so important sounding, like somebody with, well, a destiny. Not me. That was why I went by Dusty—it fit better. Plus, my mom hated it.
Lady Elaine looked me up and down with a dire expression, her lips compressed into a tight line. “You were dream-walking earlier?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did something go wrong?”
I started to fidget with my hair. “Oh, you could say that, yeah. The guy woke up and then my magic wouldn’t work on him.”
“Yes, I see. Good.” She nodded to herself. “This confirms it.”
“Um, confirms what?”
But the old lady wasn’t listening. “Tell me what happened. Everything.”
Now, I knew the definition of everything meant, well, everything, but I didn’t see any reason why this old woman needed to know how distractingly hot I thought Eli was in his red boxer shorts. So I censored the more embarrassing details and spilled the rest—the setting at Coleville, Rosemary, even the way Eli had touched me, and kicked me out of the dream. If Lady Elaine was surprised by any part of my tale, I couldn’t tell. The expression on her face, grave with a side of crankiness, didn’t change.
Not that I looked at her much. My gaze kept drifting to the wall behind her. It didn’t take someone with less of an imagination than mine to guess it might be hiding a pale-haired fairy girl. But I didn’t want it to be Rosemary Vanholt. Not just because the idea of someone so young being murdered, especially someone I knew, was so horrible, but because if it was her, then that meant there’d been something special about my dream-walk. I didn’t want to be a part of anything special. Bad things happened to special people. Usually failure followed by an early death.
When I finished recounting the story, Lady Elaine asked, “Was Rosemary’s body intact in the dream?”
“Um, yeah,” I said, trying not to remember the missing hand business.
“Was she wearing a ring?”
I gulped, certain the ring in question was no doubt magical and probably dangerous. There was no shortage of magical artifacts hanging around. If it weren’t for The Will keeping stuff in check, a lot of those things could kill you just by touching them, like a cursed sweater designed to shrink the moment you put it on and not stop until it squeezed the life right out of you. Magickind was pretty civilized nowadays, but it didn’t used to be.
“Well?” Lady Elaine said.
“Um … I don’t know. Looking at dead people’s not really my thing.”
“I see.” She sounded disappointed. “What about this boy, Eli Booker? You knew him already?”
I forced my hands away from my hair and the knots I’d managed to put in the ends of it. “Not really. I only know who he is because we were in the same grade at my old high school.”
“But do you have…” She broke off as a terrible noise sounded behind us. A loud, piercing shriek. I glanced back, expecting to see a banshee or maybe a harpy, but it was far worse. A woman with the same bright blond hair as Rosemary was stumbling toward us.
“Tell me it’s not true.” She stopped when she reached Lady Elaine and grabbed the old crone by her bony arms. “Tell me it’s not!”
Lady Elaine didn’t respond, but I guessed that was response enough from an oracle. The woman let go and continued her stumbling walk toward the magical shield. I knew who she was, of course. Mrs. Vanholt, Rosemary’s mother.
I fought back tears, struggling to breathe as the woman’s grief filled the air around us. I watched as Mrs. Vanholt approached the shield. She stopped before it, raising her hands. The shield vibrated a moment like a plucked harp string, then vanished.
I caught only a glimpse of what was behind it before Marrow took hold of my arm and turned me around, but it was enough to confirm my worst fear. Lying on the ground in the same position as I’d seen her in the dream was Rosemary. Her right hand was missing, cut off at the wrist.
“Let’s go,” said Marrow.
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I hurried back the way we’d come, wishing I could run and fighting the urge to be sick. When we reached the other side of the Kirkwood mausoleum, Marrow said, “That’s far enough.”
I disagreed. A hundred miles wouldn’t be far enough, but I halted and faced him.
He touched my shoulder, squeezing it gently. “Are you all right?”
I started to nod, thought better of it, and shook my head. “What’s going on? Is that really Rosemary? Why’s her hand gone? And how did I see it in Eli’s dream, and…”
“Shhh,” he said in his soothing, gravelly voice. “Take a deep breath. There, that’s better.” He smiled, the gesture creating deep caverns on his face. “I know you have a lot of questions, and I’m certain the oracle will address them as soon as she’s able. But now is not the right time. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I said through a throat tight with the thought of Mrs. Vanholt’s grief.
“Good.” Marrow waved at Sheriff Brackenberry, who was standing with a couple of the other werewolves a few yards away. The alpha approached us alone.
Marrow said to the sheriff, “Would you mind escorting Miss Everhart to her dormitory? I think it best, given the circumstances.”
The expression on Brackenberry’s face suggested he definitely minded, but he said, “Yes, sir. Of course.”