Many times. In many surprising locations.
I’d been having them since I’d first met him in La Charte’s hotel lobby. The contents were embarrassing to admit, but since I’d had this dream before, I wasn’t surprised when he wrapped his toned arms around me and drew me closer.
Stupid. What was I doing? I shouldn’t be doing this. Not when he—
He kissed me. Long. Deep. Yeah. That was how the dream went.
Strange how you could become attached to someone so quickly. But then so much had happened while we were fighting together . . . while he was silently protecting me, keeping me steady each step I took down this painful path. A sinfully handsome boy who cared about some geeky shut-in with self-esteem issues. I guess I was bound to get attached.
But as he pressed his chest against mine, his fingers sliding down my back and curling roughly against the base of my neck, my heart was aching with dread as much as longing. A chill slid up my spine, my arms stiff against my hips. But as I felt the moistness of his lips, I wondered if I had the strength to ask him that awful question. The one that had kept me up so many nights. The one I didn’t dare utter.
Don’t be afraid, Maia. Go ahead. Ask him.
Her voice caused me to rip myself away from Rhys’s lips, my fingers curling into fists by instinct. Fear pulsated through me as Natalya’s voice echoed in my mind.
With a sharp breath, I whipped around.
She stood behind the black gates, graveyard still, as the gentle breeze died around her.
“Natalya.” I’d spoken the word so quietly, I couldn’t be sure if I’d mouthed it instead. Her short, black hair cropped to her skull, the straight nose and haunting, piercing gaze of her brown eyes. It was unmistakable. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Isn’t this a dream? Or am I really scrying?”
Your dreams . . . my memories. My memories . . . your dreams . . .
The breeze ruffled my hair. I could feel its caress whistling past my ears, but the hem of Natalya’s white dress, cut just over her knees, did not so much as flutter. I was scrying, wasn’t I? Or was I dreaming? Were our consciousnesses that inextricably linked that it didn’t matter anymore?
Yes, I could feel her. Even though she stood several feet away from me, her presence weighed down my entire being, heavier and heavier with each passing second. As if she would overcome me at any moment.
Natalya’s scarred hand clutched the hilt of her sword, its tip just grazing the dirt.
Zhar-Ptitsa. The sword of Natalya Filipova, the legendary warrior who’d carried the mantle of fire Effigy before me.
But the flush was gone from Natalya’s small, angular face. She’d entered into my dreams, and she had taken with her the pallor of the dead.
I followed her right arm as it moved slowly, deliberately upward, her sword glinting in the sun as she raised it—to me.
Panic seized my entire body, my heart crashing against my chest. Natalya was here. Natalya was here. She was going to take my body again. She was going to take me. I couldn’t breathe. I clutched at my throat, willing myself to calm down, but to no avail. She lifted her sword high above her head. I couldn’t move, not even when the sword launched from her hand. I closed my eyes, ready for the impact.
It was the sound of Rhys’s helpless whimpers that snapped my eyes back open. Blood dripped from his soft lips as his hand grabbed at the hilt of the sword piercing his chest.
It was a dream, I reminded myself over and over again as Rhys fell backward onto the dusty ground before I could catch him. It was a dream. The real Rhys wasn’t dead. I knelt down and pressed my hands against his cold cheeks gingerly, suppressing the sob threatening to escape me. He wasn’t dead. “Rhys . . . Rhys!”
Take heed. Such is the fate of those who betray.
“What do you want?” I cried, standing up again. “You want my body? Huh? You want to freak me out and take me over like last time? Is that what this is?”
I didn’t have to wonder what she wanted for long because she made it clear the moment she raised her free hand and beckoned me with her finger.
A smile flashed on her face.
I want you to catch me.
She took off.
It must have been some invisible force propelling me forward because I didn’t actually want to run full tilt for the gatekeeper’s booth. But I was following her. I was following the girl who wanted to hijack my body.
My foot found the ledge of the empty booth and boosted me up, high enough that I could grab the roof. I flipped myself over onto the roof from the momentum and dashed across the moss-green metal roofing sheets. I could still remember the blood dribbling down Rhys’s cheek as I jumped over the gate.
I saw the edge of a white skirt fluttering around the side of the building. It rippled in the wind as Natalya ran across the roofs high above me, jumping from one building to the next. Her feet tapped the rooftops so lightly, so quickly, they may not have even touched the metal at all. I chased her into the city, through the narrow, dusty streets of the same busy market the Sect driver had taken us through on our way to the facility. But this time the bystanders were moving in slow motion, their hands filled with food, baskets, and money nearly frozen in the air, their mouths parting too slowly for me to hear what they had to say before I breezed past them. A dream. I was dreaming still. But where was Natalya taking me?
Keep your eyes on me. Catch me, quickly.
Natalya’s consciousness was particularly strong being the most recent death, and she used that to her advantage. The messages, the dreams. She’d even appeared once among the living, the day I took my oath as an Effigy. There, in that echoing cathedral, she’d become something like an omen. Back then I thought it was to warn me about the Sect. When I’d found out that she’d been investigating Saul during the last moments of her life, when I’d found out that the Sect had lied about her committing suicide, I’d decided to trust her.
But I learned all too quickly: Even in death, Natalya always had her own plans.
She jumped down, disappearing behind an alleyway. I slipped between two white wooden buildings and—
—and then I was in a museum.
I was taller. My arms long and white. These weren’t my arms. This wasn’t my body.
I was . . . I was turning around. There was a crowd of people here on the main floor of the museum. The National Museum of Prague. I was here on a mission, but I couldn’t complete it. I’d only managed to leave my message for Belle in Castor’s volume when I turned and saw him coming through the door—the door I thought had been locked.