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She turns her head, and I feel a sick rush They’re doing it again I’ I don’t want this vision It feels like they’re trying to forcein Don’t let her death be for nothing, they’re saying But it is for nothing I a, without her

"I told you to stop" My voice is a hoarse growl, roughened with disuse It’s been days since I’ve spoken I don’t knofor you"

She jerks at the sounds ofabruptly to face asp, and the hitch of her breath She doesn’t speak They never speak, these visions The voices only came to Lilac on the wind, disembodied, incomprehensible I never heard them "Please, don’t" I don’t know if they can understand hts

She lurches backward, stu the canteen over to clang against a rock She cla out as she backs up to press herself against the stone wall, her breathing harsh, audible over the echoes

There’s sogling to understand what’s changed The canteen The noise This vision is solid--it can touch things

"How did you do that?" I’es

I walk farther into the cave, slow and cautious

She flinches at every footstep and presses herself back against the cave wall She’s watchingaway froh she can’t quite look at me, and can’t quite look away

I want to close ht of her I want to drink her in "Please" I’ for

I’m only a few feet ahen she cries out like she’s in pain, lurching sideways and stu down onto her hands and knees--she scrambles up with a desperate haste, and I tear after her as she disappears through the cave’s entrance

And then I see it, a thrill of shock running through h the narrow opening

How could a vision be bleeding?

My tiredness falls away now as instinct sends adrenaline surging through h the trees after her as she runs along the bank of the strea until we’re nearly there

She only halts when she reaches the center of the clearing, stopping sharply at the bloodstained, flattened spot in the middle of it where Lilac died There, she drops to her knees, chest heaving as she struggles for breath, one hand lifted to shield her eyes froe of the clearing, resting one hand against the tree beside ers, a contrast to the srip of the Gleidel init "What are you? Where did you co shadow quivering as she trembles It’s only then that I realize my hands are steady, my eyes clear This is no vision

She lifts her head to look across at me Her face is flushed with exertion, streaked with tears The eyes that gazed up lifelessly at the sky are wide and fearful now Her h it’s an effort to speak at all

"T-Tarver?"

"And you didn’t notice anything unusual?"

"Unusual"