Page 94 of The Mirror of Beasts

I screamed and screamed and screamed, trying to launch myself at the men, to tear them apart with my own hands—

“Tamsin!”

Waking felt like my soul had suddenly returned to my body. I sat up with a sharp intake of breath, searching the dark air around me.

The attic. We were in the guild library’s attic.

The cold stroked my face, soothing. Every part of me was shaking, and, with a start, I realized I was sobbing. My throat burned.

“Tamsin?” Neve queried softly. “It’s okay, it was a dream—you’re okay.”

I threw a desperate look to my right. Emrys was still unconscious, but his chest rose and fell, his breathing finally evening out.

Alive. A surge of relief, of desperate joy, overcame me. There was a spark of life still burning in him, and suddenly, nothing else mattered.

“What happened?” Neve asked, wide-awake now. “What did you see?”

I swallowed and swallowed and swallowed, trying to get the burn of bile out of my throat. “It was … it was nothing.”

“Well, that was an awful lie, which is only more proof that whatever it was has you rattled,” Neve said. “You haven’t had a normal dream since Avalon. Was it about Olwen?”

I shook my head, drawing in a shuddering breath as her words sank in. My dreams in Avalon had all of the uncanniness of a sleeping mind trying to piece thoughts and memories together, but what I’d seen in them …

It had all come true.

Emrys’s expression was peaceful; if he had dreams, they were at least kind to him.

“Emrys,” I said loudly, my hands twisting in the fabric of my shirt. “Emrys.” I turned to look at Neve, still feeling my heart race with the remnants of adrenaline and fear. “Why isn’t he waking up?”

She could only shrug helplessly.

“I saw him die,” I whispered.

“What?” Neve touched my shoulder, trying to focus my attention back to her. “Are you sure?”

“They kill him.” The flash of the knives was still too close to the surface; I couldn’t let myself wade back too deeply into those waters. “These … masked men. His father. It … They must have been the hunters. They were at the Dye family estate. They caught him by surprise.”

“Do you think that’s where they’ve based themselves?” Neve said. “It would make sense, especially if the property had a lot of land and few neighbors.”

I pushed my still-damp hair off my face. “It does.”

“Tamsin,” Neve said. “Just because you had a dream, it doesn’t make any of it real.”

But it felt that way, I thought, clenching my hair hard enough to pull it out at the root. I’d experienced it on such a visceral level, it felt like part of me was still trapped inside the nightmare.

A sound like a steaming kettle filled the dark attic. Neve and I both looked up toward the roof, only to realize, at the same moment, that it was coming from below.

The library cats, I thought. They only hissed like that when there was a curse present.

Neve tilted her head in silent question. I motioned to where there was a decent-sized gap in the boards—wide enough, at least, to be able to see a sliver of the central chamber of the library.

Alarm trilled through my entire body, fraying the last of my nerves.

The shadowed figures stood at the very edge of the room below, just outside our limited range of vision, but I heard them all the same. The sharp intakes of breath, the restless shifting.

Everywhere, the library cats were scattering through the stacks of shelves, climbing up into their higher reaches. One cat, an orange tabby named Midas, was sent flying across the room, as if someone had given him a hard kick. He rolled and recovered, darting away with a hiss.

“We’ve come, as you have requested. What do you ask of us?”

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