Florian smiled nervously back at him. “I’ll make sure she gives me the chance to tell you before we do anything crazy. And I’ll be careful. I love you.”
Kade’s worried expression softened. “I love you, too.”
Elodie ushered him in as he approached her, and together they stepped back toward her desk. Without a word, Elodie summoned another pot of tea, pouring them each a cup as they sat facing each other.
“So did you see anything?” Florian asked eagerly, accepting the mug offered to him. She sighed, looking pensively down at her own cup, which made him nervous.
“I did,” she said. “But I couldn’t make much sense of it. And what I did see was unsettling, truth be told.”
His heart sank even further. What could have been bad enough that it unsettled a hag?
“What did you see?” he asked, unsure if he even wanted to know. Elodie sighed again and took a sip of her tea before speaking.
“Jerah’s suspicion was correct,” she said. “The seventh Arrow is with a creature, not in a static location. The nature of this creature was unknown to me. But the Arrow had pierced them, and they carried it with them. The magic has suffused thecreature, and whatever it was, the powerful magic has changed it.”
All at once, Florian was seeing the Blighted panther shifters again: their strange hides that protected them from the Blight; the way he’d stabbed her with the Arrow and seen her shift back as she died.
He squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed hard.
“We, um, we saw something sort of like that once,” he croaked out, shaking his head. “They were panther shifters up north, near the wolf kingdom, and they had been... changed by the Blight, somehow. The Arrow was in their village, and they had... evolved, I guess, to be able to live in the Blight with its magic. Maybe that happened to this... creature.”
Elodie frowned. “A disturbing notion, but it seems likely. I am not sure what sorts of shifters lived near the Summer Court, but there’s no guaranteeing this was a shifter or nearby creature—if it was a denizen of the Summer Court itself, or if it was from somewhere much further away and simply wandered by.”
“What did it look like? Could you see?” Florian asked, unsure if he wanted to know the answer the moment the words left him. But it was too late to take them back; Elodie glanced away before speaking again.
“I didn’t get a clear view,” she said. “But its face... Its eyes. One eye, rather. I could only see one. It was full of burning anger—almost as if it could see me. Maybe it could. The Arrows are very powerful magic.”
The thought made Florian’s stomach feel cold. What sort of magic had the Arrow given this thing? To live in the Blight for well over a hundred years, to see Elodie as she tried to learn about it—would it know they were coming?
“Was it... intelligent?” he croaked.
Again, she took a long moment before replying. “I couldn’t be sure. But from its eye, I think so. And, Florian...” She paused, herface pained, as if she did not want to say it. “There were a few different ways I saw this go, but... The only ones where you lived and retrieved the Arrow, it had to die.”
The icy feeling in his stomach spread through the rest of his body. Getting the Arrows had been easy when it was going to dangerous places and fighting off animal-like monsters. But the thought of those Blighted shifters still made him sick with guilt to think about. Could he bring himself to kill another sapient creature, just to possess the Arrow?
But possessing the Arrow meant the chance of saving everyone else. If one creature had to die for the world to have a chance at recovering, the choice seemed obvious. Why did it have to be him to make the decision, though? Even if it was the best choice, why did he have to live with the guilt of following through?
“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” Elodie said gently, as if she could tell how quickly he was spiraling, despite his silence. “It is unsettling information, yes, but there is no telling what the future brings. It isn’t set in stone. You may come up with something no one can account for, a future I couldn’t possibly get a peek at.” Her grayish lips pulled into what Florian assumed was meant to be an encouraging smile.
“Yeah,” he agreed after a moment, though it didn’t really make him feel any better. “Yeah. You’re right. Was there anything else?”
Elodie took a sip of her tea before setting down the cup. “I tried to look at a more... broad vision of the future, as well, just to see what I could discern. It was murky, and I don’t think any of it will be of use to you. But, Florian...” She visibly hesitated. “After this, you should visit your home first, before heading onward to the Summer Court. Even if it means you’re not able to teleport and have to come back here again. You should visit Earth, and the Winter Court.”
Florian was silent, staring at her with growing concern.
“Why?” he finally blurted out. “Is everyone okay? What happened?”
She shook her head. “Nothing has happened, to my knowledge. But you’re about to undertake a very dangerous journey, one that has been attempted before and only failed. You should see your home before going any further.”
Somehow, an even colder shock went through him, as he realized what she was implying. “Am I going to die?”
“We all die eventually, Florian,” she said, and he sputtered indignantly.
“Seriously? You’re going to hit me with that, then sayeveryone dies?” he snapped, shaking his head. “I’m serious. Is that what you saw? You saw I was going to die?”
“There are certainly futures where you die in this, yes,” she replied, her voice still even. “But there are futures where you live. Regardless, the encouragement of your family and friends will only be a boon to you in difficult times.”
Florian shook his head, looking down at the teacup in his hands. Some part of him had always known that he could get injured or die doing this—hell, he’d come close to death with every Arrow, it seemed—but to hear Elodie, who could see the future, murky as it was, telling him to say his last goodbyes to his family... His self-preservation instincts started screaming in protest. It wasn’t too late to stop, he thought—he could end all this now and go home and be okay. There was no Blight on the Earth, and he would be safe there.
But he knew the thoughts were desperate and irrational, even as he had them. They had come too far to stop now, and everyone was depending on him. He didn’twantto give up, not really. He didn’t want his father to have died in vain. And he especially didn’t want to let down everyone who was relying on him—or give people who didn’t think he could do it, like Tetsuo, the satisfaction of being right.
“Maybe,” he finally relented, still feeling sick to his stomach. “I don’t know. We would need to go to the Winter Court to get the other Arrows anyway, but an Earth trip... I don’t know. Maybe after.”
Elodie’s face was carefully neutral, but he thought he saw a flash of sympathy in her eyes as he spoke. Maybe he was just imagining it. He hoped so. Otherwise, the thought that there was more she wasn’t telling him would make him furious, and he really didn’t want to be mad at her when they were relying so much on her help.
“Just something to think about,” she said, then sighed, setting down her cup. “Well, shall we get on with it, then?”
“Yes, please,” Florian agreed, putting down his now-cold tea. Anything had to be better than this.
