“Do you want to talk about it?” Liora worried her lower lip, watching my expression carefully.
“There’s not much to say.” I shrugged one shoulder.
“Listen, I still think we should just…” Liora looked over her shoulder and then drew me through a doorway, flipping the lights on to reveal a small sitting room of sorts. I’d spent a lot of time in MacAlpine Castle but still had yet to explore its many rooms. I’d probably walked past this door a hundred times and had never noticed it before. “Huh, isn’t this pretty? I’d totally make it my office.”
One narrow arched window overlooked Loch Mirren, its surface dark and smooth, the lights of the village reflected across the water like a shattered stained-glass window. The village glowed beyond it, my heart and my home nestled there, and I sighed as I looked over Loren Brae. She was as much a part of me as I was of her, and I would never get tired of living here.
“Agnes, please. Just sit for a moment.” Liora drew the door shut and I settled into one of the stiff-backed, red velvet armchairs pulled near the window, and Liora took the other. The room had an impressive bookshelf decorated with bits and bobs, a few antiquities from times past, and on one wall hung an old, framed map of Loren Brae.
“Liora, I know you’re trying to help,” I began, twisting a beaded bracelet at my wrist, the cool moss agate stones soothing me as they always did.
“I’m not just trying,” Liora said, leaning forward. “I’m going to. Agnes, I saw something, and we need to talk about it.”
I huffed out a breath and put a hand to my mouth to stop myself from being rude. I knew she was just trying to help, and her heart was in the right place, but it just felt like picking a scab on a wound that refused to fully heal over.
“If this is about the reading?—”
“It’s not just your reading, but we also need to talk about that. It’s what I saw when the Beithir came out of the loch.” Liora glanced toward the door, a guilty look on her face, as though she was worried someone would burst in and yell at her for keeping secrets.
But she’d piqued my curiosity.
“You saw something? Like, about me?” I asked, surprised that she hadn’t brought this to my attention sooner.
“Aye.” A line formed in Liora’s brow as she thought it over. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it, but we haven’t had a chance to be together, just you and me, since it happened.”
“Right, well, now I’m actually starting to worry,” I said, making a rolling motion in the air with my hand. “Go on, tell me, before I begin to panic.”
Liora drew in a breath, her eyes meeting mine with an intensity that made my stomach clench.
“When Zara was doing her thing—communicating with the Kelpies, holding them back—my chartweaving kicked in. I saw threads, Agnes. Everyone’s threads. Like, the whole of Loren Brae, past and present, all woven together in this massive astral map. It was kind of flung up in the air, hovering over the loch, and the threads just connected to everywhere. It was beautiful, really…” Liora mused, her eyes going vacant as she drifted back to the image. “Kind of poetic, I guess? In showing how we’re all connected, those who came before and those going on from us. You ken?”
I nodded slowly, not entirely sure where this was going but feeling dread pool in my gut, nonetheless.
“And the Kelpies’ threads were part of it too. They’re as much a part of this place as any of us. I think…I don’t know. It’s shifted my understanding of them a wee bit. I’m not sure they’re quite the threat that we think they are.”
“I wouldn’t get too confident aboutthat.” I leaned forward, needing Liora to hear me. “They almost killed Luch. And have killed others. They may be telling you they’re not a threat, but that isn’t to say they aren’t lying.”
“Okay, so that’s a fair point.” Liora sucked in a breath. “I’m just saying, I don’t think it’s as black and white as we’re making it out to be.”
I paused. The historian in me understood that everything came in shades of grey. One person’s account of history did not make the happenings of that event factual. You always needed to look at things through several different lenses.
“Point taken,” I murmured, conceding that maybe Ididneed to look at the history of the Kelpies in Loren Brae with a fresh eye. “Not that I’m willing to agree that they aren’t still a threat. It would be foolish to not be careful around them.”
“Understood,” Liora promised me. “But back to that moment…”
Liora shifted in her chair, tucking one leg beneath her. “See the funny thing is that there was one thread that rose above all the others. It was much stronger… dynamic and glimmering. It was multiple colors—deep blue, molten gold, and moss green. Gorgeous, really.”
My eyes widened, and I motioned for her to continue.
“It connected the island—where the Truth Stone is—all the way to shore.” Liora’s voice dropped. “Toyou, Agnes.”
The words hung in the air between us like smoke.
I wanted to laugh it off. To wave my hand and tell her she must have been mistaken, that the turmoil of the moment had muddled what she’d seen. But the look on her face wouldn’t let me.
“To me,” I repeated, my voice coming out flatter than I’d intended. My pulse picked up and I reached for my bracelet again, twisting the strand of stones through my fingers.
“Aye. To you.” Liora leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “It wasn’t just that you were connected, Agnes. It was the size of it. The weight. I know I’m relatively new to reading charts and seeing the threads of fate and all that, but this?” She shook her head slowly. “This was different. It was like ... you’re not just part of Loren Brae’s story. You’re pivotal to it.”
