Page 125 of Moonmarked

The air smelled faintly of ink and leather, and there was no sound in the air at all—the room was empty. Lyall was not here.

As I waited for him to show up, I went deeper into the room, curious to look around. He’d be here any minute, and I could take this time to calm down, arrange my thoughts, think through what I was going to say to him one more time.

It wasn’t until I stopped in front of the massive desk to inspect those golden corners that I began to hear the whisper.

It was faint, and I thought I was imagining it at first, but the closer I went, the better I heard the voice. I stopped moving, looked down at the crown in the middle of the tabletop, my ears sharp as I tried to pick up that whisper better. Thinking maybe it was Lyall and he was talking to someone, and I could spy on him shamelessly andfinallybe able to make up my mind about who he was.

But it wasn’t Lyall who was whispering. It was a woman, and her words were foreign, slurred together, like she was drunk, or high—or both.

And the sound was coming from the empty wall right behind the golden chair of the desk.

Fae and their hidden doors. I was starting to think they had them in every single empty wall I came across in this palace.

Without hesitation, I went behind the desk and I got as close to it as I could without touching it. It was painted a milky white and it looked nothing out of the ordinary, yet behind it the sound of that whisper continued.

Definitely a woman. I closed my eyes and held my breath, tried to hear better, to understand what she was saying, if she was speaking in English or Veren, but it was impossible.

A look at the entrance door—still closed. No footsteps outside it, and Lyall hadn’t come yet. The thought of him and Rune and what I had come here to say to him escaped me now—my focus still on that whisper, and I couldn’t even begin to understand why it seemed so important to me that I heard what she was saying. It was an urge—almost a compulsion.

When I put my hands against the wall to keep my balance, I found out exactly why.

The wall moved just like the one in my bedroom behind which was the closet. It moved slowly to the side, and I jumped back, the scream stuck in my throat until I saw into the room beyond.

A fire burned in there somewhere, much bigger and much louder than the one in the tiger fireplace. It cast a bright orange hue on everything—the shelves on the walls, the white flowers, the round mirror covered in a black cloth that looked more like a shadow, the twenty-inch hourglass that was dripping golden sand upside down—and on the woman sitting cross-legged on the carpet-covered floor with a golden bowl in front of her.

The seer.

Everymuscle in my body locked tightly. I’d seen this woman before—petite, short, skin full of wrinkles. She looked like a hundred-year-old human being. Her hair, what was left of it, was a silver so light it could be considered white, and it was cut close to her head. The white dress she wore hung over her bony shoulders, so big it covered her like a blanket while her wrinkled hands moved just slightly over that bowl full of white liquid that could have been milk.

Her eyes were half closed, too, and she was looking ahead to where I couldn’t see, behind the door, where the light of the fire was coming from.

I didn’t realize I’d decided to enter the room at all until I did.

Until I stepped onto the colorful carpet that covered most of the hardwood floor and saw the large fireplace on the far-right wall of the rectangular room, opposite to where the seer was sitting. Until I realized that she was indeed whispering in Veren, not English, and if she’d noticed me entering, she didn’t react at all.

The office behind me was still empty, still silent, the door closed. No Lyall. Andthisroom was warmer, more comfortable, and it smelled of flowers here. Flowers and book pages, and the sound of the crackling fire was familiar enough that it made me feel more at ease, too.

Which was…strange, to say the least. Because no place in this palace—hell, this entire realm—ever felt inviting and comfortable (except Rune’s arms). And that’s why, a minute in, I was almost a hundred percent certain that this wasn’t accidental at all. That I was meant to be alone in that office, to hear the whispers, to open the door in the wall.

And I was almost certain that Lyall had planned thewhole thing, too, considering he’d asked me to talk to the seer before.

I’d refused, of course, because there were a lot of unknowns going on around me—andinsideme—and I was frankly terrified to even imagine what she could say. But now that I was here andshewas sitting there and we were all alone…fuck me, how am I supposed to walk out of here without knowing?

“Hello.”

My voice was small, weak, but the seer heard.

Suddenly, the whispering stopped, and my heart followed for a good second. Even the fire seemed to take a break from crackling just now—and then the seer’s eyes opened wide, and she looked up at me.

Raw energy went through me, the heat and the cold under my skin—whatever the fuck they were—coming together and trying to kill me right where I stood.

They didn’t, though. The pain only lasted a second.

Then the seer said, “Sit.”

My knees were weak, my legs shaking, and that’s why I didn’t hesitate. Slowly, I went and sat in front of her, the golden bowl between us. I wasn’t afraid of her attacking me—she didn’t look like she could throw a punch if she tried. But I was plenty afraid of the words that could come out of that mouth.

Words I’d be so tempted to believe because of what she was.An actual seer.

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