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The warmth of his mouth still vibrated over the skin under my jaw. “I…again?”

He mashed a hand over his face and ran through his hair. “I’m sorry. I missed you, you know that. I can’t seem to help it any more than you can. But you know we can’t do anything right now. Youknowthis, Cass, and I know it…bloody fucking hell, I am sorry.”

I stared at him, ignoring the strands of hair that were blowing into my face and across my mouth. He met my gaze, albeit guiltily.

Finally, I threw my hands up in the air. “Fine. Just…fine.” Without waiting for a reply, I started away from the fire, away from all the festivities.

For the first time in weeks, I genuinely wanted to be alone.

“Cassandra…”

“Donotfollow me.”

I marched off the beach, finding a trail that wound through neighboring fields of grass to find the path that would take me back to my lonely side of the island. Jonathan called my name a few more times, but the cries disappeared into the breeze as I ducked into the old burial grounds next to the beach, into the shadows where he couldn’t see the tears flowing freely down my face.

I’d never been the sort that cried at everything, but these days, tears appeared with everything. Happiness. Anger. Frustration. It all found its way out through the water in my body.

They say the true definition of insanity isn’t losing your mind. It’s doing the same thing, again and again, while expecting a different outcome.

Let go, Caomhán had told me.

Well, I had. Again and again, I opened up to the same person, offering him, well, if not my heart, then the chance at it, at least.

And again and again, he turned it away.

Logically, I understood why. If we gave in, it could potentially cost each other’s very long lives.

But logic didn’t stop the ache. It didn’t stop me from feeling like a teenage seer hating my life. It didn’t stop the gnawing desire to throw it all away for the chance at somethingnormalfor one fucking second.

Seers were lonely creatures. Women, most of us. Doomed with a partner or without.

It hardly felt worth it.

I stumbled on a rock, causing me to lurch forward. The light of the bonfire and the hall had disappeared behind the burial mounds, and now I was surrounded by shadows.

As I glanced back, looking for a bit of light to guide me, I stumbled again, this time catching myself against one of the burial mounds.

Death flooded my vision. It clawed through my soul and screamed in my ears.

The mounds had been confirmed years ago to contain the remains of ancient inhabitants of the islands. There had been a plague, and most of them died in pain, I Saw, though it was clear that more than a few murders were snuck in there. Cruelty cut through my hands, the intentions of tired, angry folks burying their kin without the proper rites. Other voices moved through me, around me, calling for justice, crying for peace in a language that sounded vaguely like Irish, but older, somehow. Deeper.

Help, they seemed to say, their hollowed eyes and skeletal arms reaching out for me.

“Help,” I mewled back, though it wasn’t to them. “Help me!”

The ghosts swirled around me with the force of a riptide, as though they could suck me back into the hill from whence they came. I shoved the heels of my hands into my eyes, begging them to leave, but still, I could See the masses as if they were next to me.

Help us, they chanted in their own strange language.Help us, benfaja, benfiti, bensida.

“Help ME!” I shrieked, my arms flailing now, though it was like passing through the winds of a storm. I could feel the force, but swiped right through it, powerless to stop any of the phantoms. Bodies over bodies, voices over voices, scents overscents from seemingly every event that had ever occurred on this land.

Eons of them piled atop each other, forming a chaotic ocean of tragedy, an ocean in which I could not swim. My own heart was ripped in two as they threatened to drag me away.

A hand grabbed mine, solid and strong. I threw myself toward it and was caught in a pair of strong, wiry arms that cinched around my sides and drew me close.

The warmth under my chin was familiar.

That fresh, woodsy scent.