“I heard you,” I said, feeling like an idiot for talking to the empty air but pushing on. “Ifeltyou. Where are you?”
Plink. Plink. Plink. Seconds dripped by.
“Don’t call my name if you don’t want me to show up!”
A disturbance shimmered the water, causing the light bouncing off it to shatter like pieces of a mirror. Tiny waterspouts spun across the pool, extending narrow tentacles upward as if they were looking for something to touch. The watery funnels threw off moisture that struck the stone floor with a sound like fat raindrops.
But not all the moisture struck the floor. Some of it levitated upward, centralizing, taking form.
Blue light.
A cane.
Clothing as stylish as it was ghostly.
“Prospero,” I said.
The figure that was Prospero lost shape and reformed, shedding droplets and gathering them back into itself. I had a strange urge to adjust the reception on a TV antenna, although this was no broadcast and TV antennas hadn’t existed for decades.
Zelda. This time I saw his mouth move even as the word vibrated my shin bones.
“Yes, we all know my name.” I sounded brave, at least, even as the cold, damp air crawled through the gaps in my clothes. “What do you want?”
Zelda…My name dragged out like a heavy weight on a chain.
Cold, so much cold. My bones hurt. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be upstairs, warm and laughing with Mom and Poppy, clinking mugs of cider. No more regrets. No more ghosts. Maybe I couldn’t have normal, but couldn’t I—for once—havepeace?
He was falling apart. His hands were going first; I could see clearly because he was reaching toward me like he had in the alley.
“What do youwant?” I cried.
A pause. A sound like static as his eerie blue glow shuddered and cracked.
Beware!
And with that one word, the figure of Prospero blew apart, throwing water in every direction.
My mouth, I realized too late, had been open.
I spat Prospero-droplets on the stone deck. I’d been so thoroughly soaked I didn’t even have a dry patch of clothing to wipe my mouth on.
I wasn’t scared anymore. I wasmad. Mad that Prospero still thought he could reach out and torment me. Wasn’t he supposed to bedead? Wasn’t that how itworked?
And, for a moment, rage kept me warm.
But the cold crept back in, unstoppable as remembering why he was dead in the first place.
Do you think you could have made a better choice?Berron had said.
“I don’t know,” I said, to which only the fountain replied, with drips like tears. I turned away and squelched out of the pool cave, down the hallway, up the stairs, and back into the Late Harvest Luncheon.
Where I ran smack into Azure Washington, Witch Presiding, and her mad-eyed owl, Aloysius.
“Zelda!” Azure said. “You’re all wet!”
“Oh, this?” I said, looking down at myself. “It’s nothing.” I tried to brush past her, but you don’t brush past Azure Washington. Not if she doesn’t want you to.
She put a hand out, freezing me in place without a single glimmer of magic. She gave me a onceover. Her owl did the same, its golden eyes rolling. “Do you want to explain what you’ve been up to?”
