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“What happened?”
“Nix and I got into a fight.”
“What? Why?”
“A petty disagreement,” Auri hedged. “As you can imagine, it put me in a terrible mood. We were in the garden, and I sort of snapped at Mother. Accused her of lying.”
Tarley tried to turn, but Auri held her head. “You what?”
“Stop and close your eyes.”
Tarley complied as water sluiced over her head and down her face back into the tub.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“Why? How does that make sense?”
“Hear me out–”
Another knock sounded at the door. “May I come in?”
Brinna.
“Yes!” Tarley called, her eyes still shut as Auri continued washing her hair.
The door creaked open, then clicked shut as Brinna slipped inside.
“I wanted to talk to Tarley,” Auri said.
“Me too!” Brinna exclaimed. “You aren’t the only one who wants to hear about this man.”
Auri sighed.
Tarley opened her eyes and swiped the water from her lashes. Brinna was sitting at the foot of the tub, smiling hopefully. She looked so pretty, her wheat-colored hair shining in the lantern light.
“Yes. You’re right,” Auri conceded, letting go of whatever she’d been about to tell Tarley.
“There’s nothing to tell.” Tarley moved the water around with her hands.
“Lies,” Brinna said with a gleam shining in her gray eyes. “You blush every time he’s mentioned.”
“That doesn’t mean anything–”
“I had a dream about you,” Brinna added, cutting Tarley off.
Tarley sat forward, interested, the water sloshing as she did. “A dream? Do tell.”
While that didn’t always mean anything, sometimes it did. Brinna’s dreams told stories, and sometimes parts of them added up to something important, like the time she’d dreamt their father got a new white coat, and two days later he’d been trapped in a freak blizzard. But then sometimes she might dream she kissed a man with golden eyes, and no such man arrived to do the kissing.
“You were in the woods,” Brinna said, “and the sun was super bright—like this golden color that shone down on you. And there was this entity with it, and everywhere it went, the golden light followed it.”
“Entity?” Auri asked. “Is that a replacement for the word ‘monster’? A monster with the golden light?”
“No! It wasn’t a monster. There weren’t any bad feelings with it. But I couldn’t exactly see its face. I had the impression it was an important part of Tarley’s story. You were smiling.”
Tarley scoffed. “I smile.”
“Not like that–” Brinna said.
