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The sound of my own scream jolted me back to the present, where I was still submerged in the pool. Water rushed into my mouth, burning down my throat with a raw, searing heat. I thrashed, in desperate need of air.
“Shiori!” Takkan grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to the surface. “Shiori, open your eyes.”
Kiki touched her wing to my cheek. Shiori?
My paper bird tried slipping into my mind, but I wouldn’t let her in. An invisible fortress walled my thoughts from her prying eyes.
She’s shutting me out, Kiki told Gen in distress. I can’t read her thoughts.
“She’s recovering from her vision,” replied the sorcerer, plucking the mirror shard from the water. “Give her a minute.”
I was still coughing and spitting as I rolled onto my side. Sunlight stung my eyes, the green blur of the forest slowly coming into focus. The pool was crystal clear, and I wondered whether I’d hallucinated its dark waters—and the terrible future they had shown me.
If only.
Gen poked my shoulder. “What did you see?”
My eyes found Takkan and didn’t leave him. I saw you die, I almost said, but the words withered in my throat.
I couldn’t tell him. I knew he’d say something obnoxiously reasonable, like that there was more than one way to divine a turtle shell. Or that the waters were showing only one arrangement of fortune’s leaves.
He’d insist on coming. Then he’d die.
“Draw a map,” I said, my tone subdued. “I know where Lapzur is.”
My own composure surprised me. Inside, my emotions were in turmoil. I didn’t want to go to Lapzur anymore. I wanted to abandon my promise and fling Khramelan’s heart deep into the sea, never to be seen again.
But the pearl inside my satchel weighed on me heavier than ever before. Its time was running out.
Meanwhile, Takkan had taken out his writing brush and prepared the ink stone. At his side, Gen was ripping pages from Takkan’s notebook and laying them across the flat surface of the tree stump. After Takkan sketched a map of Lor’yan, I pointed to a spot in the lower left of the Cuiyan Ocean. “The Forgotten Isles are here.”
“Here?” A frown wrinkled Takkan’s brow as he marked the location. “It’s so close to Tambu. That cannot be a coincidence.”
Gen let out a low whistle. “Impressive, Lord Takkan. You do know your lore. The first demons were indeed born in Tambu.”
I suppressed a shiver. What the waters showed is only a possibility, I reminded myself. If Takkan doesn’t go to Lapzur, he’ll be safe from Bandur.
Takkan and Gen were so preoccupied with their demon lore that neither noticed me shrink away, pulling my tunic tight around me.
But Kiki noticed.
That was rude, shutting me out, she admonished as she landed on my lap. Your soul is my soul, Shiori. You can lie to them, but not to me. What are you hiding?
She dipped into my thoughts again, breaking past the walls I had clumsily constructed. With a gasp, she caught a glimpse of what the waters had shown me: my brothers as cranes once more, flying me through storms and seas to Lapzur.
My walls shot up before she could get any further.
Shiori! she cried.
I ignored her. Aloud, I said, “We’ll have to fly to Lapzur.”
Takkan’s brush drooped. “Fly?”
“Lapzur lies far across the sea, and the island is protected by the enchanted waters of Lake Paduan,” I explained. “They’ll sink any ship. We have to fly.”
“How?” Takkan blew on the ink to dry the map. “How will we fly to Lapzur?”
I flinched at the we.
