But there’s one thing that has given me a shade of hope in all this. A noticeable change has occurred in Adelina. Worry creases her forehead. There’s a nervous twitch to her eyes when she thinks nobody’s watching, and they dart from one section of a room to another like a scared, threatened animal, the same way they used to years ago when she still believed. And while we haven’t spoken since I fell into her arms after rushing from the café, it’s these changes in her that have me thinking I might have my Cêpan back.

Darkness. Silence. Fifteen sleeping bodies. I lift my head and glance across the room. Instead of seeing a small lump in Ella’s bed, the covers are thrown aside and her bed is empty. It’s the third night in a row I’ve noticed her missing, and yet I never hear her leave. But I have bigger things to worry about than where she’s gone off to.

I drop my head on the pillow and glance out the window. A full moon, bright and yellow, hangs just outside. I stare at it for a long time, entranced by the way it hovers there. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. When I reopen them, the moon has turned from bright yellow to bloodred and it seems to shimmer, but then I realize it’s not the moon I’m staring at, but rather its reflection, shining brightly in the dark waters of some great pool. Steam rises off its surface, and the air reeks of pungent iron. I lift my head again, and only then do I see I’m standing amid a ravaged, bloodied battlefield.

Bodies are strewn everywhere, the dead and dying, the aftermath of some war in which there are no survivors. I instinctively bring my hands to my body, feeling for puncture wounds or cuts, but I’m unscathed. That’s when I see her, the girl with the gray eyes I’ve dreamed about, the one I painted on the cave’s wall beside John Smith. She lies motionless at the base of the shore. I rush to her. Blood gushes from her side and soaks into the sand and is carried out to sea. Her raven hair clings to her ashen face. She’s not breathing, and I’m completely and utterly anguished to know there’s not a single thing I can do about it. And then behind me comes a deep, mocking laugh. My eyes close before I slowly turn around to face my enemy.