In the painting, his back was to the viewer, but his long dark hair and black velvet jacket were unmistakable – it was Oren, my father. He had come to the palace and caused al this carnage. He kiled countless people, at least twenty or more bodies littered the scene Elora had painted, and he had kiled me.

We were al dead.

“When did you paint this?” I asked Elora when I found the strength to speak.

She sat in a chair to the side of the room, staring out the window at the snow faling on the pines. Her hands were folded in her lap, the skin gray and wrinkled. She was dying, and this painting had probably nearly pushed her over the edge.

“Last night, while you were gone,” Elora said. “I wasn’t sure if I should tel anyone. I didn’t want to start an unnecessary panic, but Garrett thought that you al should know.”

“It might help change things,” Garrett said, and I glanced back over at him. Worry tightened his expression. That was his daughter dead in the picture too.

“How can you change things?” Laurent asked, her voice shril.

“It is the future!”

“You can’t prevent the future,” Tove said. “But you can alter it.” He turned to me for confirmation. “Can’t you?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “That’s what Elora told me. She said the future is fluid, and just because she paints something, it doesn’t mean it wil happen.”

“But it might happen,” Aurora said. “The course we are on now is set up so that this wil be our future. That the King of the Vittra wil destroy the palace and take over Förening.”

“We don’t know that he’l take over Förening,” Wila said, futilely attempting to help. “We only see that some of us are dead.”

“That is a great consolation, Marksinna,” Laurent said snidely, and Tove shot her a look.

“Aurora has something,” I said. “Al we have to do is change the course.”

“How can we possibly know that we’re changing the course the right way?” Laurent asked. “Maybe whatever action we take to prevent this scene is the action we needed to do to cause it.”

“We can’t do nothing.” I stepped back from the painting. I didn’t want to see everyone I loved dead anymore.

I leaned back against the table and ran my hands through my hair. I had to think of something to stop this. Something to change it.

I couldn’t let this happen.

“We have to take out an element,” I said, thinking aloud. “We have to change something in the painting. Make something in it go away. Then we’l know we’ve changed it.”

“Like what?” Wila asked. “You mean like the staircase?”

“I can go get rid of that right now,” Tove offered.

“We need the staircase,” Aurora said. “It’s the only way to the second floor.”