Page 72 of Grim Tidings

Gabriel’s answering laugh is low and rough. I sigh. One little glamour wouldn’t hurt, would it? Aelia said she’d help cover my tracks. I doubt anyone is looking for me anyway.

I stare down at the dandelion. I try to imagine another, identical, right next to it. I snap my fingers the same way Gabriel did, and for a moment, nothing happens. Then his dandelion shrivels up, the stem bending, the yellow bloom turning a sickly-looking brown.

I frown. “Whoops.”

Gabriel’s face softens. “Maybe next time,” he says gently.

But I can’t stop staring at the dead flower. At the way my magic sucked the life from it, even when I did my best to try something different. It feels like an overly obvious omen. One I shouldn’t ignore.

“Ready to go?” Gabriel asks.

I look away from the flower. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”

He holds out my cup, and this time I take it. “Guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

“Are we stealing this boat?”

“No, we are not stealing this boat. I asked permission.” He steps off the dock and into the small skiff that’s tied to the post, maintaining his balance despite the aggressive way it rocks back and forth. “It belongs to Nate. Not that the man should own a boat. He can’t even swim.”

Guilt pricks at the back of my neck. Nate. I still haven’t told Gabriel that he’s the man from my vision. The one that I’ve come here to claim. I’ve seen him around town this week, but I’ve been doing my best to stay out of his way. It’s silly, but I feel like my proximity might usher his death closer.

I need more time.

Gabriel holds out his hand, and I take it, stepping carefully from the dock. It rocks under our combined weight, and I immediately sit on the small bench in the middle, right behind the captain’s chair. Gabriel unties the rope and busies himself with starting the engine while I study the small fishing box tucked neatly under the lip of the boat. There are stickers all over it. One that’s round with pale blue waves that reads ocmd. Another of a small pine tree that reads lovelight. Bits and pieces of Nate’s life on a tiny box shoved in the corner of a boat.

A life that could very well be coming to an end.

I curl my hands into fists.

No, I tell myself. No. This time will be different.

I’m going to save him.

I can be different, too.

Gabriel drops into the chair in front of me and turns to glance over his shoulder. “Ready?”

I nod. Gabriel watches me for another moment, then shifts, gripping the throttle. He eases us out of the dock, the low rumble of the engine cutting through the quiet of early morning.

“Sunrise is in about forty-five minutes,” Gabriel tells me over his shoulder. “We should be able to make it.”

Make what? I want to ask, but he lurches us forward, and any questions I have are stolen by the wind and the water. Salty air whips at my cheeks as we pick up speed, heading out of the inlet. If Gabriel wanted somewhere to dump my body, this would be a great place to do it. It feels boundless out here. Slate-gray water beneath us. Inky blue above. A deep, muddled orange just starting to tease at the horizon.

But I don’t think Gabriel means me any harm. Not today. He keeps glancing at me over his shoulder, his face in profile, his hair curling at the nape of his neck and behind his ear. He points somewhere in front of us, and I lean forward, bracing myself on his shoulder to see.

“Over there,” he yells, and when he turns his head, his nose brushes the shell of my ear. I shiver, and it has nothing to do with the wind. “That’s where we’re going.”

I see it. A lighthouse on a small outcropping of rocks in the middle of the water. A bright burst of red, surrounded on every side by shifting gray waves. It looks small, but it looms larger the closer we get.

Gabriel guides us easily through the metal beams that hold it up, pulling up to a small dock tucked between the rocks.

“Come,” he says, hopping out. “We don’t have much time.”

He hefts me onto the dock and keeps my hand in his as we wind our way around the base of the lighthouse, climbing the metal frame-work that serpentines beneath. I follow him up a rickety ladder and then across a narrow porch that circles the entirety of the exterior. We’re moving so quickly I’m barely able to catalog the details. The white-flecked paint and the forest-green shutters. How up here like this, surrounded by water and sky, it feels like we might float straight into the horizon.

“This way,” Gabriel urges, his hand tightening around mine. “A little bit farther.”

I follow him without hesitation as he pushes through a door he apparently doesn’t need a key for, through a small room with a wrought-iron stove and two faded blue armchairs, up another narrow staircase until we’re at the top where the light circles around and around. Gabriel drags me through another door and it’s—