Common images for blood prophets living in different parts of Thaisia. But these weren’t the pictures she and Jean and Hope needed. These were scenic and pretty, and prophecy was rarely about things that were pretty. If that wasn’t true, blood prophets wouldn’t need the euphoria to veil what they saw and cloud their memories.

She had lied about the dream because Simon, Vlad, and the rest of her friends would be upset if she told them about the part she remembered.

There was no scar along the right side of her jaw. But there was going to be. Sometime soon she would make that cut to save Simon and the rest of the Wolves.

•••

“Vladimir.”

Looking up, Vlad forced a smile. “Grandfather. What brings you to the Market Square?”

In his human form, Erebus Sanguinati looked like an old man with a lined face. His hands had knobby joints and big veins, but the fingernails were not as yellowed or horny as they used to be—a slight adjustment in appearance that had been made after Meg began delivering packages to the Chambers, the Sanguinati’s part of the Courtyard. His voice had a slight accent and belied the lethal nature of the vampire who commanded all the Sanguinati in Thaisia.

Erebus sat beside him on the bench. “Our Meg saw a couple of movies at the store here that she thought I might enjoy. So I have come to look. Then I saw you.” He smiled gently. “You are troubled?”

Meg lied to me. Not something he would say to Erebus now or ever. Grandfather doted on Meg.

“Yes, I’m troubled,” Vlad admitted. “I keep coming back to what happened this morning and how prophecy usually works.”

“Prophecy is about the future, about something that is going to happen. Is that not so?”

“Yes. And sometimes that future possibility is just minutes away, leaving a person with very little time to act.” Vlad blew out a breath. “Daybreak. That’s what is bothering me. A mound of bison is bothering me. They must be connected with the dream Meg had and the drawing Hope made, but Joe Wolfgard said the bison fell where they died. They weren’t mounded.”

“You think the sweet blood saw something else, something that hasn’t happened yet?”

Vlad nodded. “And whatever Meg and Hope saw, each in her own way, is connected to something that will happen around a place called Prairie Gold.”

Erebus said nothing in a way that kept Vlad silent. A minute passed. Then two.

“We are more suited to hunting around larger human cities than other forms of terra indigene,” Erebus finally said. “Not so well suited for small human places, like so many of the towns in the Midwest Region.”

“I’m aware of that, Grandfather.”