Page 64 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty

I looked back to Gwyneth, noticing the mist clinging to her arms as she rubbed them, as if she were feeling terribly cold or just uncomfortable. The second thought was, I assumed, the more fitting truth.

“Dottie told me the fox is the keeper of what we’re searching for,” I recalled her last words from the dream, and Gwyn’s eyes widened as she started to nod rapidly.

“Yes, she came to me the day before–” her eyes suddenly glazed, and she looked around the room, almost dazed.

Naomi squeezed the place where she still held on to my arm. “That’s precisely how the others reacted too.”

“What are you the keeper of, Gwyneth?” I snapped her out of the trance, and she shook her head, her unfocused eyes blinking away the confusion before she looked back at me again.

“I’ll show you, but you have to trust me,” she answered slowly.

“I don’t know if I can,” I said my truth. My trust was something precious, and I couldn’t have people keep using it against me. Not any more.

Gwyn nodded, understanding. “I know you hate me for what I’ve done to you, but I want you to know that I had no other choice. I’m really sorry.” Tears streamed down her deep bronze-coloured cheeks, and it was fascinating to see that even in death you could still experience sadness and regret.Were all emotions accessible in death?

“What do you mean you had no choice?” I questioned her, feeling Maisie taking my hand. I looked at her for a second, remembering that she could only hear one side of this conversation.

I would explain everything to her later. Right now, she was just trying to give me some kind of comfort.

“I was just trying to do the right thing to–to change–” Her face cringed in pain, and she gasped, visibly unable to continue talking about it, so I cut her off.

“What do I need to trust you with?”

Her eyes gleamed thankfully at me changing the subject, and her features relaxed. “You have to take off your necklace, so I can show you what Dottie brought me that day to keep until it was time, and where it’s hidden. I can’t show or tell you in this form.”

“Yeah, fuck that, she certainly won’t do that,” Naomi hissed at her, and Gwyneth angrily squeezed her eyebrows together. “It’s Doe’s decision, not yours. Your grandmother was so much nicer.”

“Says the girl who casually tries to drown her self-claimed friends.”

“Naomi,” I warned softly. She wasn’t wrong, but if we made Gwyneth angry, she probably wouldn’t want to help us anymore.

I turned my gaze back to the spirit. “You can’t hurt me because I have my friends with me, and they’ll protect me.”

Gwyn nodded, her tight curls spilling down her shoulders at the motion, and she brushed it behind her ears, which made her look even younger than the day she’d died. From what I knew, she would have been almost seventy now. But she was damned to be forever fourteen.

“You don’t think about trusting her, do you?” Naomi asked, not believing what I was about to do. Frankly, I couldn’t believe it myself. This was suicidal.

“She can’t tell us anything about what we’re searching for. If it’s the only way, then I’ll risk it.”

“What are you two talking about?” Maisie looked from me to Naomi, and I could see in her expression that she hated not being able to follow our conversation.

“Gwyneth wants to show Doe a memory of the day Dottie made the fox the keeper of whatever the fuck we’re searching for. For that, she has to take off her necklace and let Gwyneth in, which is madness.” Naomi didn’t care that the dead girl stared at her in disgust. She clearly wasn’t her biggest fan, but why should I care? It’s not like the two of them needed to work together. I just needed Naomi to be my anchor to reality if I started to lose control over my body again.

Maisie looked around the room, almost as if she were searching for the spirit she wasn’t able to see. “I’ve seen the last two times Doe almost died. I don’t recall a third time so far.”

Well, that was delightful to know.

Especially the ‘so far’ part.

I turned to Naomi with a tight smile, “see?”

She rolled her eyes. “Let’s get it over with then, my stomach started growling twenty minutes ago.”

A chuckle escaped my throat, but it died down as soon as my fingers lingered over the clasp of my necklace.

This was mental.

Fuck it.

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