Page 86 of The Mirror of Beasts

Nash watched as I ripped open a soggy instant coffee packet from my bag and dumped that into the mug—drip coffee alone had never had enough flavor for me. Gripping the handle, I gave it a few careful shakes, trying to swirl the powder into the liquid. Nash looked on, horrified.

“Bloody roses, you still drink that stuff, Tamsy?” he said with a startled laugh. “You’ll give yourself a heart attack.”

“If you didn’t want me to drink it, you shouldn’t have given it to me when I was a kid,” I said. “And anyway, it tastes better.”

“It tastes like it was brewed in a festering wound,” he said, taking a long drink of his own. “You need to eat something.”

“I’m fine.”

Next to me, a small bowl of dried fruit and nuts sat untouched. I’d never had a problem with it before, but the thought of eating a dead Hollower’s food just then turned my stomach.

“You’re not fine. You’re all skin and bones,” he said. “You’ll need your strength if you’re planning to run off and do something foolishly brave.”

I scowled, knowing he had a point.

“Is this supposed to be your version of parenting?” I bit back.

“Just common sense,” Nash said, drinking his coffee. He looked down at Emrys again, rubbing a hand over his mouth. This time, he kept his thoughts to himself.

“It really is you, isn’t it?” I said, hating the throb of emotion in my voice.

“Of course it’s me,” he said, exasperated. “Ask your questions, Tamsin, I can all but hear them knocking around your mind.”

“Fine,” I said. “How are you alive?”

“You found the coin,” he said. “You already know.”

“The one you said to bury with bone and ash?” I pressed. Emrys and I had found it hidden beneath a stone at the ruins of Tintagel, but nothing had happened when we’d followed Nash’s note with instructions on what to do with the silver coin.

Apparently something had happened after all.

Nash nodded. “And I thank the gods you did. When you got the fixings just right, the coin’s magic was triggered. It made my body anew and called my sorry soul back from the darkness between worlds.”

“I am the dream of the dead …,” I said quietly. The inscription on the coin whose meaning had eluded us.

It seemed so obvious now. The dream of the dead was … new life.

“You could read it?” Nash asked sharply. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly, his skin taking on an ashen quality. It wasn’t the anger I’d expected.

“Yeah, I solved that problem myself,” I told him. “And gave myself the One Vision, since you refused to find a way.”

He seemed to relax at that, though he hardly looked pleased.

“Why not just bury the coin yourself if you thought you might die?” I asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of my tone.

“Well, for one thing, I didn’t think old Myfanwy had it in her to cut me with a poisoned blade so she could keep both the ring and Arthur’s dagger,” Nash said ruefully. “Should have seen that coming, considering I was going to kill her for the ring.”

I started at that. “You would have … you would have killed a sorceress?” For me?

He grunted. “It was the only way to take full possession of the ring; you—”

“—have to kill the bearer,” I finished. “I know.”

Nash nodded, rubbing his mouth again. “The original plan was that I’d get the ring, have you kill me to take possession of it, and your curse would be broken, and I’d be revived with the coin, good as new.”

My horror was so acute, I was momentarily speechless. “You expected me—at ten years old—to be capable of killing you?”

“You hated me enough for it, didn’t you?” he asked quietly.

---