Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely 4)

They moved closer in tandem, as if they were parts of one body. “No one knows their own future.”

“Not even him.”

“Especially not him.”

They all stepped back. Two retreated farther, so the translucent one stood in the forward point of their triangle. “We allowed you to know. That was more than fair exchange.”

“It’s not.” Rae fisted her hands.

“Your knowing saved the Hound’s life, and without her, he cannot become what he is to be.” The leafy one rustled with each word. “If you speak what you know, you will die, and he will fail.”

And they were gone again.

And I am not dead. For that, Rae was grateful.

The first time she’d met them had been after a day of experimenting. She and Devlin had not yet figured out the limits of possession and had spent the day in the cave. He was unconscious, and Rae—still inside him—saw a vision of a girl, Ani, whom he would be ordered to kill. Almost invisible threads wove Ani and Devlin’s lives together. In a disquieting moment, while Devlin was asleep and Rae was awake, she’d seen the cave wall vanish.

Three creatures stood in the cave.

“He’s not to know such things.”

As one of them extended her hand, the other two matched the movement. Thread spindled out from Devlin’s body, from the body that Rae was currently animating. It didn’t hurt, not truly, but it felt curious. In the center of her, she could feel the tug as the fibrous strands of the vision were guided out of flesh and into a seemingly bottomless basket.

“Stop,” she said.

They did. The fibers stretched between the basket and the body, suspended in the air.

“You are—”

“—not—”

“—him.” They each spoke part of the words, but the voice from each tongue was the same.

Rae didn’t answer. She reached a hand to the thread, feeling the truth in it, seeing the possibilities that Devlin hadn’t.

“That’s his future,” she whispered. “The Hound… he is to”—she looked at them—“kill. Does the High Queen know? When she orders the death…”

“He cannot know that you know,” one said.

The three exchanged a look. In perfect synchronicity, they nodded.

“You must never tell him—”

“—or her—”

“—what you know.”

Rae wasn’t sure what to say. These were the first creatures other than Devlin that she’d seen in Faerie—and they were nothing like him.

“Without you, he will fail—”

“—and if you tell either of them—”

“—you will die.” The three women smiled, and it was not a comforting smile.

“Silence or death?”

“His success or his loss?”