The giggle came again. I wanted to ignore it. Go away and let me have my moment. It might never come again and—

A small figure slipped from the shadows of the garages. It was the blond girl from my dreams and visions. She wore Mary Jane shoes and an organdy party dress covered in roses.

I spun to check on Gabriel.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “He’s still there.”

He followed my gaze, and his frown deepened.

“He doesn’t see me.” She tilted her head, her eyes fixed on him. “Not really. But he senses I’m here.”

I remembered the alley, how we’d been separated and I’d seen Gwrach y Rhibyn washing what seemed to be his shirt. I glanced back at him. “Stay close, okay?”

Another lift of his brows, as if to say, Of course.

“He will,” the girl said. “For as long as you let him. And you must let him. Both of them. It’s when you choose that you are doomed. All of you. All of us.”

“I’m not good with riddles,” I said.

“Olivia . . . ?” Gabriel’s voice was low, as if to avoid frightening away whatever he could not see.

“It’s the girl,” I said.

“The girl?” She scrunched up her nose. “I have a name. Many of them.”

“And they are . . . ?”

“You already know a few. Matilda. Eden. Olivia. I have more, but the others aren’t as important.”

“So you’re . . . me? Some memory of myself?”

“I am you, and I’m not you. I’m all of you. All of them. They are you, and they are not you.”

“More riddles. Great.”

Her nose scrunched again. “They aren’t riddles. They’re facts. You just don’t understand them. I need to tell you the story.”

“Is that why we were summoned here?”

She hesitated. Then she gave a sly smile. “Yes, that’s exactly why—”

“How’d you do it?”

“Summon you? I . . .”

“You didn’t. Someone else did, for some other purpose.”

“Yes, but it’s not important.”

“It is to me.”

“It shouldn’t be. In the larger scheme of things, it’s inconsequential. This is important.” She held out her handful of black and white stones. “The rest?” She scooped up sand from around her feet and let it run through her fingers. “The rest is not. What you find here will be terrible. But, in the end, it is but a distraction luring you from the path.”

“So you know what I’m supposed to find here?”

“Yes.”

“Will you lead me to it?”

“No. I will tell you a story, and then you should leave. What lies here is best not found. Not by you. Not by anyone, if that were possible. It will only interfere. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

“And if I disagree?”

“Then you’ll have to find it yourself. I’ll not bring you pain.”