Page 78 of Premonition of Peace

I’d like to think it wasn’t a bad way to go, but I wasn’t sure. I’d never had a harvester consume my soul.

If Nathalie didn’t find a way to kill The Morrigan, I guessed I would find out soon enough.

twenty-five

NATHALIE

I landedflat on my back, the floor of the memory loci rushing up to greet me. My head cracked against the hard surface. I blinked away at the spots in my vision, gingerly touching the back of my head.

The spot hurt.

I couldn’t recall the last time anything hurt in the loci.

Ever.

Yet the back of my skull ached as if it had been bruised.

This wasn’t good.

Above me, the Nats peered down. Well, two of them did; The Warden and Ann. A boot nudged my arm, drawing my attention to the side where Bad Nat sprawled. She sat with one leg bent at the knee and the other stretched out, nudging me. I blinked a couple times, taking it all in.

“What in the?—”

A single finger pushed against my lips. The Warden.

“Nathalie, oh Nathalie,” The Morrigan said my name in a sing-song voice. A crazed sort of mania bled into the syllables,carrying from somewhere else in the loci. We were in the library with the chairs wedged beneath the doors to barre her from entry. Peace and Caretaker were nowhere to be found. “Where are we,little witch?” She used Lucifer’s nickname in the most mocking of tones, making sharp indignation fire through me. “Did you build a place in your mind? How quaint.”

I breathed in through my nose, my nostrils flaring.

“Lucifer and Bad Nat were right,” Ann whispered. “When we cut the line to Kat . . .”

“We opened the door for her to come here,” I finished in an equally hushed tone.

“This is good,” The Warden continued quietly.

“In what world is this agoodthing?” Bad Nat stage whispered.

“Because if she’s here, she’s notinus. She can’t control our body from the loci.”

“Um, newsflash, neither can we.”

A floorboard creaked outside the library doors.Shit.

“There you are,” The Morrigan practically purred from the other side of the door.

“Time to move,” The Warden said. She grabbed my upper arm, and we disappeared right as the wood splintered. We were only in the same place for a fraction of a second, but it was long enough for me to see. Morgan Le Fay was in her true form.

Old, weathered skin stretched taut across the bone and was nearly as white. Her hair appeared greasy at the scalp where it was falling out in clumps. The long silver strands hung limp at her waist. She wore some sort of ancient garment steeped in black magic. A dress that was the dark reddish brown of dried blood, as though it held her body together.

Despite her haggard appearance, the light brown eyes that matched mine were alight with a madness I couldn’t even fathom.

We reappeared in the greenhouse. I sat up, brushing the wooden shards from my chest. Peace and Caretaker sat in front of the door, bracing it with their bodies. From deeper in the house, the crack of wood splitting echoed.

“Well fuck. That answers that question.” Bad Nat sighed.

“What question?”

“Whether the old hag has her magic.”

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