Slept in the dreaming cave and saw my handsome Aurënfaie prince again. If only I could learn his name, I might discover his history, but still he greets me with silence, looking yearningly through me like so much empty air, as if there is someone beloved standing just behind me. Then he became so grim he frightened me. I could not look away and watched as he disappeared weeping.

The “dreaming cave” must be part of the oracle’s shrine, Alec supposed. He flipped through the journal, looking for another picture of the man or another mention. Instead, in the back he found a portrait in ink that sent a chill up his spine. It was the face of the ghostly woman he’d seen last night, complete with shells in her hair.

Holding the book closer to the candle, he puzzled out the brief entry that accompanied it.

She came to me again last night and I fear for my dear children. Syana and I are the only ones left here, apart from the servants. I pray Illior she comes for me this time, and not my precious girl! I am sending Syana back to Cirna tomorrow morning. Lightbearer, I beg you, protect us through this foul stormy night.

Perhaps the drowned woman had come for poor Netheli, after all. Turning the page, Alec found that the rest of the journal was blank. Badly unsettled, he set it aside and watched Seregil sleep.

Seregil stirred as the sky began to brighten outside the window.

“It’s early,” Alec told him. “You should go back to sleep.”

Seregil sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. “I feel like I’ve been dragged through a knothole backward, but I’m wide awake. Did you sleep?”

“Not after your nightmare,” Alec admitted. “And not after—Look what I found in the library downstairs.”

He turned the journal to the page with the drawing of the ghost and sat back while Seregil read the entry. When he was done he flipped through the pages for a few moments, stopping here and there, then closed it and looked up at Alec. “Do you think we’re going to die?”

“Do you? Wait, did you see her, too?”

“Yes, when I looked over your shoulder.”

“So if the ghost really means someone is going to die—”

Seregil tossed the book aside and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m not going to get too worked up over it, Alec. I’ll talk to Dorin about it. If anyone knows the history of it, he will.”

“Wait, there’s something else.” Alec retrieved the journal from the rumpled counterpane and found the portrait of the Aurënfaie “prince.”

Seregil raised an eyebrow at that and read the passage carefully. “Well, we don’t have royal titles, of course, but he does have a regal bearing. Handsome fellow, but he can’t have had a happy history, if her dream truly holds any meaning.”

“It makes me want to sleep in the oracle’s cave.”