"We're taking you for a swim, pretty Letty. A swim in your new pool."
They wrapped their arms around her and leapt, and as they did, their gowns puddled at their feet and their hair tumbled from its pins, cascading over their bare backs, pitch-black now on one, glowing white on the other. The brunette's skin darkened, too, turning as black as her hair. Their bodies thickened, necks lengthening, as they transformed.
I raced to the pool edge. It didn't matter that it would do no good. I shouted at the kelpies to stop.
They dove into the water with Letitia trapped between them, flailing wildly. Even after the water closed over them, I still heard her screaming. Down they went, so fast and so deep that I was certain the pool bottom was a mirage, that it somehow opened into the lake itself. Otherwise--
The kelpies hit the bottom and they kept going, right through it, vanishing. But Letitia did not. Instead, her body jolted and a red flume of blood swirled up, suffusing the water, spreading out in crimson tendrils.
She floated to the top, her pale blue dress billowing around her. Blood kept pumping from her crushed skull, an impossible amount of blood, the water darkening with it. She floated there, her hair and dress swirling around her. Then she dropped out of sight into the bloody depths.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"Why?" said a voice beside me. I looked over to see the little girl. "This is how we repay death. We know no other way. We have no understanding of mercy."
"I do."
She cocked her head. "I misspoke, then. They have no understanding of mercy. We may . . . and yet we would do the same. It is in our blood. We answer fire with fire. Blood with blood. In our hearts, there is no other way. Protect those we hold dear. The rest can fall to ash and dust."
"I'm still sorry," I said. "For her."
"But are you sorry for him?"
She waved at the house. Nathaniel Mills was leaning over the top railing, scanning the garden for his missing wife. I looked at him, and it was as the girl said. I understood that I should feel pity. And I did not. He'd earned this fate the day he ordered those fires.
"How does one fight fire?" whispered a voice beside me. I turned to see the dark-haired kelpie, in human form now. She reached out and traced a dripping-wet finger across my cheek. "With water. Fitting, don't you think?"
I wanted to retreat from her touch, but I found myself transfixed by her eyes. I saw the blue fire ripping through this field, and other fields and forests, iron circles and dying fae.
"They scream in pain, but they never scream for mercy," the kelpie said. "They know it does no good. The fae learned that lesson from humans, and this is how we pay it back."
She dove into the pool. Except there was no blood in it. Little water, even, only a foot or two in the bottom, filthy and bloated with dead leaves.
"Is it over?" Gabriel asked.
I nodded.
"What did you see?"
"They killed her. Letitia Roosevelt. Kelpies did."
My gaze lifted to the fountains on the hill. Nathaniel Mills had murdered fae and yet he'd had them carved in stone to decorate his home. They'd had their revenge. Killed his wife, drove him away, let the house fall to ruin, reclaimed by nature.
"Hopefully, that means the visions are over, and we can finally do what we came here to do."
"You mean what we were brought here to do," Gabriel said.
I started back up the stairs. "Yes, someone brought us here, and from what the girl says, it's not for tea and crumpets, but it's not to hurt us, either."
"Yes, I believe that's exactly what she said. Whatever you find here will hurt--"
"Me. Just me. Which means it's my choice, right?"
"And my opinion on the matter carries no weight."
With every word, his voice chilled ten degrees.
"You know it does," I said as I continued climbing. "Hell, sometimes yours carries more than my own. But when it comes to matters of personal safety, you can be . . ."