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That doesn’t matter. She hesitated. My guides have said they will shadow her.
Why? It’s not like they can intervene if something goes wrong.
You forget how ancient my guides are.
Said ancient ones have repeatedly declared they are unable to do anything more than advise.
And for the most part, that is true.
Please came Cat’s comment. We must hurry. The wildness in his blood will not save him as it saved me.
Because the Fenna were only ever females. Males might carry the gene or DNA adaption or whatever the hell it was, but they couldn’t access it.
I sent a hurried text to Saska explaining the situation and telling her to track my phone, then took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Fine. Lead the way.”
She immediately tugged me left, moving at such a pace that I had to run flat out to keep up. “Where are we going?”
Ferry terminal.
“He’s on a boat?”
On an island. You need a boat to get to it. She paused, then added with just the slightest hint of amusement, I’d suggest swimming but you were never very good at that.
It was a comment that stung even though I knew she hadn’t meant to hurt me. It was simply a reminder of just how many things I’d never been very good at as a kid. A reminder of just how many things I’d been forced to teach myself to do.
“Are we heading to Lake Burley Griffin or somewhere else? Because I had no idea it had islands.”
We used to picnic there as children.
“Father? Picnic? Seriously?”
She snorted, the sound a bleak breeze past my ear. Our father wouldn’t do anything so common. Our governess took us.
I couldn’t remember having a governess, though it was likely she’d been hired for Cat and Juli, and I just tagged along.
“Did I detect a trace of bitterness in your tone just then, sister?”
Becoming a spirit guide has opened my eyes to many truths about myself and our family. It has been an unpleasant reckoning.
You were young—
That is no excuse. I knew well enough that I was trained to replace our father, and I welcomed it. I wanted it. I was also aware that Juli was his backup plan. But I never saw anything wrong in how they treated you. It was simply the way things were, and I never questioned it.
“I never doubted you loved me, Cat.”
But I was blind to the unfairness of his treatment. I could have—should have—spoken up, but I didn’t. Sorry will never undo all the harm that blindness caused, but I nevertheless offer my apologies. She paused and laughed, the sound ironic. Of course, the bitter sting in the tail for my father is the fact that he was training the wrong daughter. You have turned out stronger than Juli and I combined.
“Which wouldn’t have happened if I’d stayed in Canberra.”
Your life would have indeed taken a very different path had you stayed, but you would always have landed right here, right now. There are immutable points in everyone’s life. This moment is one of yours.
“If I was always destined to a second round with the wraith, does that mean I’m also destined to survive him?”
That, sadly, is not an immutable point.
Of course not. Fate had never been one to make things easy—why would she start now?
I spotted a black car speeding toward us, and a heartbeat later saw it was Saska. I stepped to the curb as she slid to a tire-smoking stop, then jumped in.
