Her gaze metBells’.
It shocked her like falling in a dream, and the memory ripped away.
Bells reeled as the world lurched and split. The warmth of her brother’s temples at her fingertips disappeared.
‘Dylan, don’t pull away that fast!’ their father barked. ‘What happened, are you all right?’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t—’ came his choked reply.
Before Bells could blink the world back into focus, Dylan was disappearing out of the door.
She grasped for reality, but her ability to See had taken flight, drawing her up and away from her brother, away from the tangled memories, spiralling higher than the fairy-tale spires of the manor, away, away to—
‘Bells, are you with me?’ came her father’s voice.
Bells reached for him, still feeling in-between. ‘Dad?’
‘I’m here,’ he said, taking her outstretched hand, before coming to kneel before her. ‘Did you See anything?’
The urgent concern in his eyes came into focus.
There was more to the memory. Something about it was tangled, as coiled and complicated as the torcs Nicole had been sketching in her notes. But Bells was always so tiredthat she couldn’t figure it out, and sleep suddenly felt like a weighted blanket on her shoulders.
‘Why can’t you do this, Dad?’ she asked.
Regret creased his brow. ‘I’m sorry, love, it’s too murky for Seers like me.’
Right, because he was so used to Seeing the future that memories of the past were never clear. Not like they were for her, while her visions were still in flux and would be until she turned eighteen.
‘But Dylan’s angry that I can’t do it right and he has to keep going through this.’
Their father clasped her hands. ‘He’s not angry with you, Bells. He’s angry with the situation.’
‘I wish I could just see it clearly. But – I think there’s something’s wrong with the memory. Mumlookedat me.’
His frown deepened. ‘Was she looking at Dylan, and you were seeing through his eyes?’
‘No. She lookedoverhim. She looked atme.’
Her father shook his head. ‘That’s not possible.’
Bells put a hand on her neck, over the healed bite mark Lynch had given her. Not a scar remained thanks to her father’s salves. But she shivered to run her finger over where it had been, remembering the fangs and the gun going off as she shot him. The hot drug of his venom. Fleeing to a moonlit safehouse by the lake.
Cleaning the blood off Nicole after her transformation.
Bells wished she’d Seen something,maybe then she could have stopped it. But seeing your family was always murky, shaded by your own fears and hopes for them, it was why their father hadn’t been able to See the events of Estwood before they happened.
What good was her power if she wasn’t able to use it to prepare for things like this?Preventthem? She wanted to be useful,but it seemed like her visions were settling into the ‘present’ category, not the past or future.
No, she was almost certain that if she wasn’t a ‘present’ Seer, she was a Death one.
She sighed, tipping her head back and squeezing her eyes shut to ease the burning dryness. But when they re-opened, they focused on one particular figure painted amid the divine revelry on the ceiling.
The Angel of Death.
It was the title given to the most powerful Death Seer on the Seers’ High Council. On this ceiling, however, it was an older manwhose colouring matched her father’s, down to the grey in his beard. A great swathe of cobalt blue fabric draped behind him and his fanned-out tawny wings, the elegant scythe in his hand wicked silver and striking.
Bells blinked, refocusing as her father helped her up. This washermission, and she was determined she wouldn’t let everyone down. Even if she couldn’t escape the feeling that something waswrongwith these memories.
