Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(11)

“Interesting advice coming from you.”

My focus snapped to him, my eyes hard as he met me with a smile, the grin tentative as he pulled his hand through his hair.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re my friend, Jos,” he said with a sigh, his eyes looking to the chain that still hung around my neck before looking back out the window, back to the barrier that had caused all the problems in the first place. “I still choose for you to be, and I don’t think you are a bad choice.”

I stared at him, my tongue tied in a large knot, shock pressing against my chest in an oddly comforting weight.

Joclyn, Ilyan pressed into my mind, his worry paramount.

I flinched a bit at the infiltration, my focus so heavy on Ry I had forgotten he was there for a minute.

“Right,” I finally said, knowing it was a lame retort. “I would still be careful.”

He smiled in that goofy way he always had, the look sending a shock up my spine that I hadn’t expected.

I gawked at him, expecting him to say something, expecting me to say something. However, I couldn’t find the words, so instead, I nodded my head.

Ryland’s smile stretched even farther as I walked past him and Jaromir with my eyes stubbornly pulled forward.

I could hear his voice as he spoke in quick Czech. I could hear the tiny squeak of Jaromir as he asked a question. Still, I walked, ignoring them, pretending I still didn’t understand the Czech, though I did. Three months living amongst native speakers, trapped in a Cathedral where that was the only language, had done me wonders.

At least now I could ask for more than the bathroom, although I would gladly choose to speak nothing except English any time I could.

Joclyn? Ilyan’s voice was terrified, desperate, and I felt bad he was trapped there, unable to leave the rooftop while all of this was going on. Are you okay?

Did you see? I asked, already knowing the answer.

Yes. All of it. His tone said it all. I want you to come right to me.



I want nothing more.

For the first time in the last few minutes, I realized I was fighting back tears, anger, and adrenaline, everything seeping away into an emotional drainage that was trying to take over.

His magic filled me in a frantic attempt to comfort me as my head spun again. The hallway seemed to tilt head-over-heels as my vision shifted, my magic coming to life.

In desperation, I stretched my arm to the wall, grasping for some kind of support, for some kind of reality before my magic pulled me into a sight, before the world around me sunk to black.

Precognition blazed through me in a powerful torrent, pulling me right into the dark, derelict streets of Prague, the streets I had been in a million times.

I ran through them as I had in so many other sights, and like in a million other sights, I knew what was coming.

The cloaked man.

He flashed before me, running from street to street as I tried to follow, as I waited for him to turn and remove the hood as he always did. This time, he kept running.

My heart beat in fear and excitement, my magic a heavy weight on my chest.

One more turn, one more flash of the tail of his cloak.

I turned with him, following him. In place of the same scene I usually faced, there was a lone man, someone I recognized all too well.

Edmund.

My heart accelerated to a pace that vibrated through me, my entire body tensing in fear. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t escape the sight. I stood, staring at him where he was in the middle of the street with Ovailia by his side, Sain huddled off to the side like a wounded kitten, and a small child I had never seen before standing before him.

My sight flashed as I watched, red and black skittering over my vision before the street came back into view, my heart plummeting at the way the child fidgeted, the way she tried to move away, but something held her in place; something was keeping her there. She twitched and tried to run, but she couldn’t move. Her sobs echoed, the pained sounds increasing my fear.

The closer the sight took me, the more in focus she became. She was no older than five; a long, tattered nightgown hung over her emaciated frame, dirty brown hair falling past her waist. Blood dripped from her fingers in a slow rhythm then fell into pools of carmine that covered her feet, sprinkling over her bare calves like a Jackson Pollock painting.

She turned to me slowly, and the red of the blood splattered down the front of her nightgown, seeping from the ragged gash in her throat, her eyes crying tears of the same color.

“Auntie,” she whispered, and I recoiled, the alarm in my sight increasing. “You’ve got to stop him. He has it. He’s going to hurt her.”

I wanted to scream at the sound of her voice, at the way she looked at me, but the sound never came.

The sight melted away in an ember burn, leaving me standing in the middle of the hall, the low chatter of Ryland and his protégé still coming from somewhere behind me.

I stared ahead, my mind still trying to process what had happened, what I had seen. It had changed again, but this time, it hadn’t changed in the normal way. The sight was different. It was stronger.

More than the cloaked man, more than Edmund standing in the street, the way it moved was different. Like the first time Dramin had pulled me into sight, pulled me into the truth of my magic, it felt real.

Ilyan, I called to him, needing his advice, needing his connection. Judging by the way his heart beat thundered inside of me, he had already seen. He already knew. Did you see?