Cal looks up. “Are we…still going out?” he asks. “To try and talk to her?”
My gaze drifts out the window, to the lake and the distant trees on the other side. The crumbling shape of the ashen branches scorched by that lightning strike.
“I think we have to.”
And so, hours later, we gather, five of us, on the southern shore of the lake. The same stretch of sand where I dived under the waves for my so-called swim test with Elena and saw her for the first time.
Vivian.
Kingston has barely spoken, and Callahan’s been pacing. And Kai…
“I don’t like this,” Kai’s muttering. “I don’t like this.” He shoves his hands in his pockets.
“Shut up,” Lanz says irritably. “We know you don’t. And you haven’t come up with a better idea, so…” He gives a little wide-eyed shrug. “We’re here. Deal.”
Kai presses his lips together but says nothing.
It’s cold, fiercely cold and still, but not freezing. The lake is moving—liquid water, not even so much as a few chunks of ice bobbing around. Above us, the sky is black and clear, the moon luminous. It would be beautiful if not for the circumstances. Or, no, it is beautiful, but terrifying.
“Sorry I’m late,” Morgan says, jogging to a stop. She’s bundled in a coat I haven’t seen before, a white wool trench that falls to her knees, bright and almost glowing in the moonlight. “I had a lot to pull together.”
“Oh no, take your time,” Kai drawls. “You were the one who insisted it be the stroke of midnight.”
“I saidaroundmidnight,” Morgan mutters. “I just didn’t want anyone to see us and wanted the moon to be in full view.”
I really have had enough of their bickering right now. “What’s the plan here?” I say, to Morgan more than to Kai. “How are we starting this?”
Morgan looks me up and down. “What are you wearing?”
I glance at my body. My coat—obviously—and then some combination of sweater and skirt. “Clothes?”
“Gwenna.” Morgan wraps her arms around herself and sighs. “I said white. I saideveryoneshould wear white, for that matter,” she adds, glancing around at the four of them, “but I assumed all ofyouwould ignore me.”
Oh. Right. Shedidsay something to that effect, I remember now. Shit. “I don’t own anything white,” I say, a little defensively.
“I know. That’s why I came prepared.” Morgan stoops to her satchel as a low, chill stream of air washes over us, ruffling everyone’s hair, and when she straightens back up, she’s holding something long, gauzy, and…white.
A dress.
“One of these days, I’m going to cut you off from borrowing my clothes,” she says. “But. Here.” She pushes the dress into my hands.
I stare down at it. “You want me to put this on?”
Morgan blinks.
“Here,I mean,” I say. “Now?”
“She’ll freeze,” Lanz says, looking almost incredulously at the dress, its nightgown-like sleeves and long, loose skirt.
“Shewon’t,” Morgan says, and brandishes something else from her satchel: a perfume bottle, presumably one of her magic ones that keeps you warm after a few sprays. “What is this, amateur hour?”
“I don’t get why clothes even matter.” Kai mutters. “This some kind of fashion show?”
Kingston shakes his head. “Let me speak to her, Morgan. I’ve done it?—”
“Stop!” I yell. “Stop.”
My voice rings against the surface of the lake, ricochets back off the distant dark trees.
