Page 144 of Whisper of Nightmares

Once they’re back on the upper landing, Kelda stops in the hall. She looks between both of them with a heaviness Euphemia hasn’t seen in her before. A weight she knows Kelda has been carrying, but she has been hiding it better than anyone else could.

Kelda opens her mouth as if she’s about to say something neither of them wants to hear.

Instead, she sighs. “Get some rest, the both of you.”

Then she retreats down the hall before, Asvald leaving as well, his footsteps matching the thunder outside.

The day has turned dark.

The storm outside is brutal.

But Euphemia still holds hope that there is something good to come from the day yet.

She heads to her bedchamber, only to pass the time inconspicuously. After Kelda’s announcement, it now feels more important than ever not to alert her of Euphemia’s and Dagfinn’s plan, not until he’s safely back in his own body.

A full hour passes before Euphemia risks leaving her bedchamber again.

When she does, though she’s loath to take any longer than necessary, she stops first in the kitchen, where she borrows a dinner fork. Since it is a root she was told to retrieve, having something to help gently dig it up could prove useful.

She tucks the fork into a small satchel she found in her bedchamber, leaves the kitchen, and heads out into the night.

Outside, the storm has become feral.

The wind whips through her.

The rain pelts her in the face.

Pinching her eyes shut, Euphemia tells herself just to get it done, and then she can come back inside to the warmth.

This is the final task before she can make the draught and Dagfinn can come home.

Being soaked to the bone is a small price to pay.

She hurries across the dismal cliffs, her face salt-slicked and aching.

Dagfinn’s instructions were straightforward enough: head to the cliffs east of the manor, peer over the ledge, and find the patch of roseroot.

But it’s once she reaches the jagged edge that her bluster ebbs.

The cliff ends in darkness, but Euphemia can hear the ocean beyond it, churning and deadly.

With the wind thrashing at her hair and skirts the way it is, she decides the safest thing to do will be to lower herself onto her belly.

The ground is cold and wet beneath her.

It’s difficult to see anything over the ledge.

The storm blocks most of the moonlight.

But she sees a small patch of something.

Euphemia grabs her fork and starts digging.

She’s lying there long enough that she has to spit out puddles of rain that keep pooling on her lips. Every part of her is drenched, her hair plastered to her face. Her garments weighing her down and rooting her to the earth.

But, Euphemia digs.

Fortunately, the rain has softened what little dirt there is here.