He lifted a hand to his face, remembering the heat of Quinn’s blade on his skin. He’d spoken to her in person only once, while standing on a dock outside the Fairmont.

“We’re leaving,” he’d said, backing away.

And she’d responded, “It’s too late for that.”

And then she’d cut him across the cheek with a freaking dagger.

He could still feel the metal against his skin, the flaring of nerve endings, the way his heart had sputtered with shock, and then adrenaline. Not exactly a good first impression.

And yet, somehow, he was supposed to fall in love with her. Prememories didn’t lie, and Ash had been seeing the same prememory every single time he’d entered an anil for the last year: a girl with white hair in a boat, water spread out around her, white trees interrupting the darkness. She would kiss him, and then she would kill him. He would love her, and she would betray him.

Quinn Fox had white hair. Quinn Fox was that girl.

He closed his eyes, swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat. His blood pumped hot and fast beneath his skin.

The prememory was real, as real to him as any memory could be. He could still smell the brine and salt smell of the water. He could taste the heat of Quinn Fox’s lips.

He leaned forward without making the conscious decision to do so, one hand reaching for his back pocket. His fingers enclosed the creased and worn leather book and tugged it loose.

The Professor’s old journal looked like hell. Ash must’ve thumbed through its pages a hundred times over the last three weeks, reading and rereading his mentor’s entries, looking for hidden meaning behind the anecdotes and sketches and jotted notes. He no longer believed there was a way to keep his prememory from coming true, but he would have settled for something simpler. Advice, maybe. Or a promise that everything was going to be okay.

He exhaled through his teeth, wishing that the Professor were here, sitting on the barstool next to him.

But the Professor was dead. He’d died at Fort Hunter complex, on March 17, 1980. All that was left of him was this worn, leather journal.

Ash paused as he flipped through the book, finding a ragged edge of paper peeking out of the journal’s binding. It looked like a page was missing but, when he looked closer, he saw that there were several sheets of paper ripped out, almost like someone had removed a whole entry. He ran his thumb through the torn pages, frowning. Had the Professor ripped them out himself? Why?

The bartender was suddenly before him, again, looking dubious. “Look, man, I let you have one, but—”

“I’ll take another,” Ash said, cutting him off. When the bartender frowned, he fished the cash envelope out of his jacket pocket and slammed it on the bar. What was the point of savings if he was going to die in less than a week?