“You realize Gray is going to kill you for this, right?”
“No, he won’t. Gray always sees reason in the end.”
“Not about this. Not about me.”
“Which is exactly why it’s time for us to part ways,” Kallister says,a chord of regret in his voice. “I was hoping we would be able to work together. I gave you that shot tonight.”
“What shot? You drugged me.”
“Before that. I was waiting to see what you would do after you overheard us in the cave.”
My breath hitches. “You knew I was there?”
That gets me a chuckle. “I knew everything that was going to happen tonight, Wren.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I saw it all. I saw that you would follow me to the cave. I saw that you would confront Hawkins. I saw that you would watch Adrienne die. What I didn’t know was what you would do afterward. Whether you’d accept Adrienne’s fate and the corruption missions as necessary steps in our future. Or if you’d recruit Gray and make a move against me. You chose the latter.”
I stare at him, struggling to process what he’s saying, until my brain, still trying to flush out the drug, finally makes the connection.
He’s a precog.
When he’s talking aboutseeingthings, he means in a vision.
“You had a vision about tonight…” I say slowly. “You knew I would be out there, listening to you and Hawkins. And you knew what would happen afterward?” My heart starts racing. “Yousawhim incite Mako to his death?”
Kallister remains detached, as if Mako’s death was no big deal. “I did, yes.”
“You saw Hawkins get his throat ripped out by a ridgehowler? You saw all of that and still allowed it to happen?”
“I also saw that Hawkins would survive. No harm done.”
“No harm done?” I echo angrily. “Mako is dead!”
Kallister shrugs, and the dismissive gesture sends another jolt of anger through me. “There’s no guarantee I could have even stopped it if I intervened. Visions are tricky things. Sometimes every word, every moment, is set in stone. No matter what you do, those events are going to unfold exactly the way you saw them.”
“But sometimes you can change it,” I say, because I’ve heard ofprecog visions that were thwarted by someone making a different choice. “You could have tried to change it.”
“Mako’s death was another necessary step in the grand scheme of things,” he says, though now he does sound regretful. “Mako was a nice kid. He just got in the way.”
I clench my fists to my sides. “So, what, you brought me here to kill me?”
“Yes. But for what it’s worth, I get no enjoyment out of it.”
A disbelieving laugh flies out.
“You stir the pot too much, Wren. You have too much influence on Gray, even on Saint. And although I can’t prove it, my gut tells me you had something to do with Evlynne deserting us.” His gaze locks with mine. “I have plans for this Continent, and unfortunately, I think you’re going to be a hindrance to them.”
My pulse is shrieking in my ears now. I look around again, unable to combat my rising fear. The landscape is barren and unforgiving, with the black sky above us and the black water below us. The entire ridge bearing the blood-soaked history of the Mods my mother killed.
I’ll die here, surrounded by the ghosts of the past.
My eyes dart to the gun, then back to Kallister’s face. I see his finger suspended over the trigger.
“I really am sorry,” he says, his voice gruff.
I swallow hard.
