Page 96 of Song of the Shadow Prince
His voice sharpened. “Think,young lady.”
I replayed that night again and it hit me. “It was raining.”
He grinned. “Precisely. There was a thunderstorm. A thunderstorm opens the portal to your world. Without it, River Elara is just that – a river.”
I exhaled and stumbled backward.Fuck.If I’d only known… I didn’t remember if there had been any thunderstorms after that night. “And you know for certain there will be one this weekend?”
He nodded, his face still shadowed in the ominous folds of his hood. “Saturday night, to be precise. The portal to your world will open and you can leave.”
“What about the real Lady Arya?” I asked. I promised Maeve I’d bring her back, and I had no desire to break that promise.
“According to my vision, the storm will rage for six hours. You’ll havesix hoursto find the real Lady Arya and send her back here. If not, she will be stuck in your world forever,” the seer casually declared.
My eyes widened. “What? Why forever?”
“The portal can only be opened on our side, not through yours.”
The only way I could find Arya in six hours was if she was pretending to be me. If she’d gone off on her own instead, she would never return home. Suspicion crept into my mind. The seer was being awfully chatty. I knew better than to believe he would volunteer this information for free, out of the kindness of his heart.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
He sighed heavily. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, it does. Nothing comes for free, not even in my world. That much I know,” I replied dryly. “What do you get out of this?”
He chuckled. “Nothing, except the comfort of knowing that balance was kept.” He shifted and crossed his arms, the long sleeves of his robe dangling. “You do not belong here. Your continued presence in Elaria will throw our world into chaos. That muchIknow.”
I frowned but kept quiet. Did he know about the mark on my arm? Did that have anything to do with why he wanted me to leave? Maybe I was reading too much into it, because I found it hard to believe I could be the cause of that much trouble. But whatever. I wasn’t going to argue with him.
I shrugged. “If you say so. Can I ask you a question?”
His lips twitched into a wry smile. “You’ll ask it anyway, so go ahead.”
I snorted. “How did you know I wasn’t Arya? Did you see it in a vision or something?”
He laughed. “No, nothing that mystical. You gave yourself away when you came to the luncheon. You did not speak like you were from our world. I realized then that your accident on the river wasn’t an accident.”
“Oh,” I mumbled. I guess I wasn’t as crafty about hiding my identity as I thought I was if he pegged me in our first encounter.
“Saturday night, the storm will begin at nine. I suggest you get to the river on time and try not to get distracted by…otherthings.”
Distracted by other things? Like Damien and our vampire investigation. Shit! Does the seer know what we’re planning?
I peered over at him, but I couldn’t get a read because he was seriously keeping up his cryptic vibe by keeping his face shrouded. He stood stoic and still, leaving only his lips and chinvisible. If he knew what we were up to, he wasn’t going to tip his hand and frankly, neither was I. But this put me in quite a pickle.
This was my best chance to get home, but I promised Maeve I’d solve Arya’s vampire issue before I left. How could I handle both things?
“You should go,” the seer said, breaking the stillness. “You’ve been here long enough.”
I snapped out of my daze, aware that his warning held more than one meaning. “Oh, right. “T-Thank you for the information.”
He nodded. “I wish you the best of luck on your trip home, and I hope you enjoyed your time here in Elaria.”
He walked toward me, and I held my breath as he approached and passed by with a whisper of fabric. In seconds, he entered the palace and disappeared.
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