Page 9 of Of Fate and Phantoms
"Miss Holloway, you claimed you know things that may help in this situation, but I think it's best if you leave this to me and Fitzroy.
"She stays," Lincoln said before I could respond. At the prince's arched brow, he added, "The supernatural doesn't frighten her."
I wouldn't have put it like that. Some of the supernatural frightened me terribly.
Leisl rose and stepped in front of me so that I couldn't see the prince's reaction. She touched my cheek, her gaze connecting with mine. She sucked a sharp breath through her teeth and her fingers curled on my cheek. The nails scraped my skin but did not break it.
"Yes, you can help," she said. "You see the dead. I cannot."
I could do more than see the dead. I could raise them and control them. I thought it best not to mention that in front of the future king of England, however. Although I doubted he had the power to reinstate a law to burn witches at the stake, I didn't want to take that chance.
Leisl turned to the prince who looked somewhat stunned after her pronouncement. At least he didn't call anyone mad, or demand my arrest. "I came to warn you, sire. You are in danger from your dead father."
"How can a spirit harm me? Are they not made of air?"
"I do not know. It is not clear."
He snorted. "Seeing the future is an imprecise science, is it?"
"The unclear can be changed. The clear cannot. Good fortune is with you tonight, sire. My son and his bride will help if you allow it."
"Oh! I'm not his bride," I said with a silly laugh that I wished I could take back as soon as it escaped my lips.
"I…I…" The prince smoothed his hand over his evening jacket then tugged on the cuffs. "I ought to return upstairs. You must leave now."
"But you are in danger!"
Lincoln placed a hand on her shoulder. "You've done all you can."
The prince held Lincoln's gaze for a very long time before breaking it to once again take in every inch of him…of his son. Did he see the similarities? Did he know or suspect? It wasn't clear from his expression, now closed and unreadable. It was so very like the mask Lincoln sometimes wore to hide his emotions that my breath hitched.
The prince turned sharply and strode up the stairs. Leisl gathered the lapels of her coat at her chest, her dark eyes focused not on the man she'd lain with in her youth, but the man who was the product of that union.
"You were such a little thing." She touched Lincoln's arm and, when he didn't move away, squeezed. "Now you are strong. Fierce."
"Tell me what you know about the danger," he said. "What have you seen?"
Leisl's fingers sprang apart and she let him go and stepped away. I wanted to chastise Lincoln for his coolness toward her when she must be feeling quite emotional to meet her long lost son. But I couldn't do so here, in front of her and others. Seth, Alice and Lady V approached cautiously down the stairs.
"It was his father," Leisl said emphatically. "He may wish to harm his son."
"How, when a spirit has no form?" Lincoln asked.
"I do not know."
"You said you saw it, in your vision. If you didn't see how it harmed him, then what, precisely, did you see?"
"No, no, not see a vision. Not…" She clicked her tongue in frustration. "Not like I see you now. I see it as feeling, in here." She touched her chest. At Lincoln's continued frown, she added, "You do not see my breath, yet you know I breathe. Yes?"
"I understand," I said. "It's an instinct that's nagging you, not an actual vision."
"An instinct," Lincoln said flatly.
"Asyouinstinctively know when I'm near or in danger. You don't see the pictures in your mind's eye, but you do know." I touched his chest over his heart. "In here."
He closed his hand over mine and drew it to his side. "You're supposed to be a strong seer," he said to his mother. "I thought you could see pictures, visions."
"I do, with some. With the prince, it is in the heart only. Is instinct," she said with a smile at me. "As your bride say."
