“No.” Mia shook her hair back, breathed deep. There were times, rare times, when she felt locked inside the bookstore. When she needed space desperately. “I want to walk.”

Ripley had been right about Indian summer. The cold snap had given way to balmy days of warmth and moist breezes that carried the scents of both sea and forest. The sky was clouded up, and against that dull pewter the trees rose like flaming beacons. The ocean mirrored the sky, and its kicky waves foretold a storm brewing.

“It’ll rain within the hour,” Mia predicted. “And look.” She gestured out to sea. Seconds later, as if she’d ordered it, a pale jag of lightning cracked the steel mirror of sky. “Storm’s coming. I love a good storm. The air goes electric and the energy of it pumps into your blood. Makes me restless, though. I want my cliffs in a storm.”

Mia slipped out of her lovely shoes, hooked them on her fingers, and stepped barefoot into the sand. “The beach is almost empty,” she pointed out. “It’s a good place to walk, and for you to tell me what’s troubling you.”

“I had a . . . I don’t know if it was a vision. I don’t know what it was. It frightens me.”

Mia slid her free arm through Nell’s and kept the pace easy. “Tell me.”

When she finished, Mia kept walking. “Why did you give him your locket?”

“It was all I could think of. An impulse. The thing that mattered most to me, I suppose.”

“You were wearing it when you died. You brought it with you into your new life. This symbol of where you came from, this connection to your mother. Your talisman. Strong magic. He’ll wear it because you asked him to, and that makes it stronger yet.”

“It’s a locket, Mia. Something my father bought my mother for Christmas one year. It’s not particularly valuable.”

“You know better than that. Its value is its meaning to you, and the love you have for your parents, the love you’ve given to Zack.”

“Is it enough? I don’t see how it can be. I know what it meant, Mia.” And this was the terror that stretched like a beast inside her. “In the vision his face was gray, and the blood—there was so much blood. In the vision, he was dead.” She made herself say it again. “He was dead. Isn’t there something you can do?”

She’d already done all she could think of, all she felt within her power. “What do you think I can do that you haven’t?”

“I don’t know. So much more. Was it a premonition?”

“Is that what you believe?”

“Yes. Yes.” Even thinking of it stopped her breath. “It was so clear. He’s going to be killed, and I don’t know how.”