Page 91 of Dark Victory

Tabby nodded, but even as she did, that fiery vision returned. She would never forget seeing herself become a human inferno. She shut off her thoughts. She told herself she was not going to throw up. She could and would handle what she knew. She was a Rose! And if she was lucky, Macleod was right—she had imagined what she’d seen.

Except, she’d smelled the smoke and she’d heard her own screams.

He whirled to stare at her, his face twisted with revulsion and dread.

He cares about me, Tabby thought. She pushed herself to sit up straighter, too tense to feel any joy. “Macleod, let’s focus on what we do know. That woman is the evil that came from An Tùir-Tara and followed us here from New York. It attacked me twice so far. How can it be Criosaidh? She’s alive and at Melvaig. Right?”

Macleod said slowly, “Criosaidh is alive an’ well at Melvaig, Tabitha. But if her ghost has come here from the sixteenth century, I think it verra dangerous fer them both.”

Tabby tried to think about Criosaidh being alive and just to the south, with her future spirit, having time-traveled into the past to stalk them. Macleod had to be onto something. The pendant he’d brought from the twenty-first century had imploded when it came into contact with its thirteenth-century self. What would happen if that ghost met itself before it had died?

Tabby’s tension escalated. “In the Book, there is a Wisdom that every Rose is taught early on. It’s in Gaelic, but translated it says, ‘Seek it in the sands of time and you will find it in the light of eternity.’”

“That can mean anything.”

“The entire passage is long and convoluted and hard to comprehend, but my grandmother said it means that every moment in time is continuously occurring—that it’s eternal. Until my friend Allie went back in time, I never really understood it, but I do now. Or I think I do. Time is a continuum,” Tabby said slowly. “Every moment exists, for everyone, at every possible point in time, like a sliding ruler. Slide into the future and there we are—at Melvaig, in the Burning Tower in 1550. Slide backward, here we are. Slide forward—we’re dead. Slide back—we haven’t been born.”

His stare was sharp. “But only fer those who can leap. If ye can leap, ye can find anyone at any time.”

“I wonder,” Tabby said thoughtfully, “if the spirit is allowed to move backward?”

“Satan is probably pleased.” He shrugged and Tabby thought about the bottom line—evil wanted chaos and anarchy. Evil followed no rules.

“You told me that the Masters aren’t allowed to go backward or forward in time and encounter their older or younger selves. I think we both have an idea of why that rule exists.”

He confronted her, fists on his hips, reading her mind. “No.”

“I have barely conceived my plan,” she cried. “But maybe we can lure the ghost to Melvaig and get it into contact with Criosaidh.”

“By usin’ ye as bait? Never!”

Tabby stared. If she went to Melvaig, ostensibly to make peace with Criosaidh, maybe the ghost would follow her there and implode. “It can’t hurt to try.”

He was disgusted. “She’ll kill ye then an’ there. There willna be conversation, just yer death at her hands!”

“Because of her vengeance for her husband and her son?”

His expression hardened. “Ye blame me now fer the ghost? Mayhap ye’re right. Mayhap my war started this.”

Tabby hurried to him. She touched his face. “I don’t blame you. I would never blame you. And placing blame right now is pointless.”

He breathed hard. Tabby had the strongest certainty that he was blaming himself.

“This is not your fault. But freeing Coinneach might be a really good idea—and returning him would be the perfect excuse to go to Melvaig.”

“Ye willna be bait.”

In a way, Tabby was relieved, because she wasn’t all that brave. “And Coinneach? Keeping him prisoner can’t be helping.”

Macleod’s expression became hard enough to crack. “She’ll gloat if we return him. ’Twill be seen as a sign o’ weakness. Her revenge against me will continue.”

He was probably right on all three points, Tabby thought. But she suddenly sensed that fourteen-year-old boy somewhere close by. “It can’t hurt to free him. It might appease her, even if for a moment.”

His tension seemed to escalate. “I will think on it.”

Tabby blinked in surprise.

“Maybe it will appease the ghost, too,” she whispered, stunned that he might see reason, after all.