“Agnes!”
I tore through the room, checked the bathroom, and then reached for my clothes, stubbing my toe as I dressedfast. I hit the hallway at a dead run, concerned voices and shouts meeting me.
How long? How long had I been sleeping while she slipped away?
Lachlan raced around a corner, his hair sticking up in tufts, a jumper thrown on over tartan pajama pants.
“What the bloody hell is?—”
“Have you seen Agnes?”
“What?” Lachlan’s eyes rounded.
“She’s not here.” I was already pushing past him into the corridor. “She’s not in the room.”
“Maybe she couldn’t sleep?”
“Her boots are gone, Lachlan.” I couldn’t keep the panic out of my voice. Didn’t even try. “Something’s wrong.”
The Kelpies screamed again, and this time the sound seemed to shake the very stones of the castle. Doors were flying open all down the hallway. Willow stumbled out in a silky nightgown, her eyes wide and unfocused, Ramsay behind her.
“She’s having a vision,” Ramsay said, looping an arm around her waist.
“Water,” she gasped, grabbing the doorframe for support. “So much water.”
Ramsay caught her as her knees buckled. “Willow, what do you see?”
“She thinks she has to do it alone.” Willow’s voice had gone strange, distant.
I didn’t wait to hear more.
I ran.
The castle corridors were a maze in the darkness, andpanic made me take a wrong turn. I doubled back, nearly collided with Orla and Finlay emerging from their room.
“Graham?” Orla’s eyes were unfocused too, but differently than Willow’s. She had one hand pressed to the wall, her face pale. “The spirits are screaming. All of them. I can’t…there are too many voices. Something’s happening.”
“We can’t find Agnes.” My heart hammered. What the hell had she been thinking? Not waking me up? If she had actually left this castle on her own, well, I was going to throttle her. If I had pulled a move like that, she’d have my head. The hypocrisy was enough to make rage blaze through the panic that threatened to stop me in my tracks.
“Do you think? The Kelpies?” Finlay’s eyes rounded.
I kept running. I couldn’t bring myself to answer that.
I just had one place left to check, just so I didn’t blindly run outside and get sucked into the loch while Agnes was off researching in the archives.
Another sound caught my attention as I worked my way toward the archives. It was almost like a tiny shrieking that echoed up from somewhere below us.
Clyde burst through the wall beside me.
I nearly tumbled down the remaining stairs, catching myself on the banister at the last second. The ghost coo was bellowing at full volume, his translucent form flickering wildly, more agitated than I’d ever seen him. He ran in circles at the bottom of the stairs, then took off down the corridor toward the back of the castle, then circled back, clearly trying to lead us somewhere.
“Clyde!” Lachlan had caught up. “Clyde, what is it? What’s wrong?”
Clyde bellowed again and charged toward the archives.
We followed.
I could only hope that my hunch was correct and that this was where Agnes had gone.
