My breath caught in my throat. Beside me, Graham went completely still.
I knew what this meant.
Everyone in the Order did now.
I just couldn’t believe it was happening to me.
Sophie had told me she’d figured it out after it had first happened to her, and then to the others down the line in the Order. The unicorn appeared to couples who were meant to be together. Soulmates.
True love.
The kind of love that transcended lifetimes.
The kind of love that would get Graham killed.
Panic clawed at my gut. This was happening, whether I liked it or not. I could fight it, but I couldn’t lie away my love for Graham. No matter how hard I tried. The clock was already ticking and the unicorn confirmed it—there is nothing that I can do to stop it now.
“Bloody hell,” Graham breathed. “Is that?—”
“Aye.” The tears I’d been holding back spilled over.
The unicorn walked toward us, its hooves making no sound on the wet grass. Its eyes were luminous and impossibly knowing, and when it looked at me, I felt seen in a way I’d never experienced before. Like it saw straight through me and all the walls I’d built around my heart. Like it knewevery secret I’d ever kept, every lie I’d ever told, every truth I’d been too terrified to face.
It stopped in front of us. It was close enough that I could see the individual hairs of its mane and the delicate flare of its nostrils. I could feel the warmth radiating from its body, cutting through the damp cold of the afternoon.
It looked at me. Just me. As if Graham wasn’t even there.
And then it lowered its head and pressed its horn to my forehead.
Light exploded behind my eyes, and I was pulled into a vision that bypassed my eyes entirely and poured directly into my mind.
I saw three objects, glowing in an endless darkness.
The first was a stone. It was quite simple…smooth and softly rounded, yet it pulsed with impossible power.The Clach na Fìrinn.I recognized it instantly, felt its presence like a familiar heartbeat.
Truth and wisdom.
The Crone.
Next, a cup flashed into my mind. It was silver and shining, filled with liquid that shifted and changed, first golden, then green, and finally a deep arterial red.
Life and nourishment.
The Mother.
Finally, a third thing, smaller than the others, and much harder to see. It flickered and shifted as I watched, never settling into one shape. A seed, perhaps? A flame? Or an ember? A beginning?
Potential andbecoming.
The Maiden.
The three objects circled each other slowly, orbiting like planets around an invisible sun. And I understood, suddenly, with a clarity that went beyond words, that they were all connected. They were three pieces of something that had once been whole.
Na Trì Banrigh. The Three Queens.
The vision shifted. I saw women now—generations of them, stretching back through centuries and forward through possibilities.Wrightwomen. They stood at the center of the three objects, their arms outstretched, and threads of golden light connected them to each artifact.
We were never just record-keepers, I realized. Wewerethe connection. The living thread that bound these three artifacts together. Without a Bookkeeper, the connection frayed and then snapped. The artifacts swirled away and disappeared.
