MY EYES had nearly slid right over her. She almost blends right into the walls. Her skin reflects the light. Her small, bony shoulders are slouched forward and her expression is skittish as if projecting: You don’t see me, you don’t notice me, I’m not here.
As I’m swung around in the dance, I nearly lose sight of her. I struggle through the crowd to glimpse her again.
There she is, standing by the exit. I notice her apprehensive gaze, the deep amber hue of her eyes.
She has a dancer’s body, strong and lithe and athletic. The dress she’s wearing shows off her form in a scandalous cut, the neckline swooping between her breasts down almost to her midsection. Even the sleeves are cut to practically nothing, leaving her strong, muscled arms bare.
I inhale sharply. Her skin is covered in ink. It’s her. I saw the barest glimpse of her in Sorcha’s memory, but the rest was blank. She has the same shape as the woman I saw silhouetted in the moonlight when I was in the cave.
Who is she?
When I’m passed off to the next gentleman, I don’t resist. I don’t want to take my eyes off her—off those strange tattoos that seem to glisten in the light—because I’m afraid that if I do, she’ll disappear.
The girl’s marks aren’t like Kiaran’s—they’re not scarred or carved into her flesh. Hers are as dark as shadows, crawling in snakelike tendrils down to her fingertips. Something about those marks draws me to her. Without reason, without logic.
I just know I need to go to her.
Her eyes snap up and meet mine. What I see there startles me: She’s afraid. I saw her, and she’s frightened of me. Why? Who is she?
I’m swept up in another turn in the waltz, and when I turn back, I see a flash of her midnight-black hair as she sprints out of the room, like a deer bolting in the woods.
Find her. Quick. Now.
I start for the exit, shoving past a gentleman with his hands outstretched. But another grasps my arm hard enough to bruise. I don’t think so. I smash my fist into his face and hear a satisfying crack! before his nose gushes blood. Good.
Get to the door. Go! Hurry!
I break into a run, but another gentleman blocks my way. I don’t stop. I don’t slow down. I snap my leg up and slam the toe of my slipper right between his legs. He staggers back.
My arms are seized by two other men. I shove them, straining hard, but they’re too strong. I can’t move. Their hands grip me roughly.
I claw my way through them. I bite, I punch. My cries go unheeded as they rush to keep me in place. It’s a sea of blank faces in black eveningwear, puppets in the shape of men, here to keep me trapped, caged, until I say yes. Until I give my answer.
Desperately, I look for the exit. I try to fight them off. My fist crashes into flesh, and my stupid ineffectual slippers do what damage they can, but the soles aren’t hard enough to inflict much real pain. I elbow. I break noses. I snap fingers. Still they keep coming, as if there’s no end to them. Nothing stops them. I’m being crushed by the throng, and somewhere I swear I feel the Morrigan’s eyes on me. Say yes. Say yes.
No. I have to find that girl. I have to get out.
Fingernails dig into my arms, biting into my flesh. The men laugh the melodic, inhuman laugh of the Morrigan and something in me snaps.
“Let. Go. Of. Me!”
Power bursts out of me, a ball of energy that blasts them all to ash. It feels as though the power is bending my bones, burning through my bloodstream. It’s blinding light, a swirling stream of power with the force of a storm. I have to close my eyes against the onslaught.
When I open them, all the gentlemen are gone. My roaring heartbeat is in my ears. The silence is so thick that my swift, shallow breathing is the only sound in the ballroom.
A headache slams through my temples, painful enough to leave me gasping. My entire body is shaking so hard I can hardly stay on my feet. Something wet trickles down my lips.
I touch my finger to it. Blood.
You’re dying. You don’t have much time. Find that girl!
Desperately, I shake my head to clear it and hurry to the door she went through. My vision pulses before my eyes. I smack into the wall of the hallway and almost lose my footing.
Don’t fall. You won’t get back up.
In a limping run, I follow the hallway out to the back garden. It’s nighttime. There are no sounds out here—or maybe I can’t hear anything over the clamor of my pulse, a bam bam bam bam of a rhythm in my ears. A wave of dizziness hits me so suddenly that I have to slap my hand against the column of the building to steady myself.
Then I hear it.
A low gasp, caught in a scream. A familiar sound, one I used to dream about every night. One that Lonnrach forced me to remember in the mirrored room.
This is how my nightmare begins.
My heartbeat slows to a heavy, drumming cadence. I slowly walk along the path between the rosebushes, shivering in the winter breeze. It’s all familiar. It’s exactly the same, right down to the number of steps I take, the rustle of my skirts as I make my way to the back fence that borders the street.
As I approach the gate, my mind is screaming at me to find the girl I saw. To concentrate. To focus on something else. It is a constant beat of Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look. This isn’t real. Don’t look.
But I’m compelled. I have to look.
I step forward and shove through the hedges.
There they are, my mother and Sorcha. Sorcha doesn’t hold her tenderly, not like a lover, but the way a wildcat might hold a mouse: a violent grip, all fingernails dug into skin, lips at her throat. Then Sorcha throws back her head to catch her breath, her fanged teeth shining with blood.
“Stop,” I whisper, unable to help myself. “Stop.” I shove open the garden gate.
I’m not that frightened girl who huddled behind the wall so the monster wouldn’t see. I’m not the same Aileana who didn’t put up a fight. I’m not the same Aileana who watched her mother die.
“Sorcha!” My power roars within me, ready to be unleashed—
Sorcha looks up at me. Only her eyes aren’t the familiar green ones that gleam with malice.
No, they’re the strange, bright sapphire eyes of the Morrigan. I see a flash of those uncanny irises, of a thin knife-edge smile, right before she tears out my mother’s heart.
A choked cry erupts from my throat before I can stop it. My chest tightens and I can’t get in enough air and it’s happening again and it feels real and I’m here and the air is cold, and she’s hitting the ground with a sickening thud—
Then I’m on my knees beside my mother. My power coils back painfully inside me as I hold her motionless body in my arms and her blood is warm and her eyes are sightless.
Just like the first time. Exactly like the first time.
The sounds of slow, soft breathing make me look up. Sorcha.