Page 162 of Beast and Remedy
This might be how her abilities work. Sweet Makers, this might have worked out better than I anticipated.
But then she sighs, her features sullen and resigned. “But I didn’t have enough time to interpret the dream before seeing you and your friends off this morning.”
Hope tugs at my heart. She already dreamed about us, and even if I leave without an answer now, she could still write to me for when it does come.
I can still work with this.
Not wanting to leave without offering her my reassurance, I tell her, “You and your mother have given us resources to use and help us find a cure, and I’m grateful you even shared with me what you did.”
She fidgets with her dress. “I’m sorry I’m not good at deciphering dreams right away.”
“It’s alright.”
“It isn’t!” she snaps. “It’s not alright when I want to help my friends.” The ferocity in her voice falls, her body sagging. “Shadows kept warning me. Telling me to be wary as you use the blood of healers.”
A chill prickles up my spine, words similar to what Prince Stefan told me in Northtry. But healer’s blood? That could mean Beau…
I’ll need to tell him later.
“My dream lingered on the blood, as if there was more it wanted to show me, but the shadows kept clouding me fromseeing everything. Kept whispering in warning.” She holds up her hands, opening and closing them. “So. Much. Blood.”
I bristle, the hair on the back of my neck rising.No.
She couldn’t have seen that. She couldn’t have!
Splotches of red drift forward from my memories, my pulse quickening as the panic seeps in.
Annie… Bronn…Blood.
So. Much. Blood.
Marian’s voice fills my mind.
I need you to breathe.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. I inhale, clinging to my sister’s words to ground me.
When I calm, I look at Sybille clenching her fists and shaking her head. My heart sinks with understanding.
Her frustration with her gift is understandable. But her power is so useful—helpful. She might not have everything, but it’s something.
I grasp her shoulder and squeeze twice, her gaze finding mine.
“I know how it feels to not have all the pieces of information when it comes to your magic,” I say. “But you said you are able to decipher your dreams, right?”
“Yeah, just not right away.”
“Exactly.” I smile. “Which means you will eventually and given we are friends who agreed to write each other…” I wiggle my brows, letting her catch on.
Her eyes brighten but fall flat quickly. “Mother would never let me write to you about my magic.”
“Oh,” I pause, contemplating my next words. “Well, maybe if you tell me when you plan to visit Beau, I can come too, and we can talk in person.”
She breaks into a huge grin. “That is true! Maybe we can do that!”
I loop my arm in hers, steering us toward her mother as everyone mounts their horses. “And if not, that’s alright, too.”
“It is?”
