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Ruan nodded with a frown, overhearing my thoughts. “I have wondered the same. Your man, Hari … he said that there are healing waters here … perhaps there’s something more to it.”

The thought settled in my belly like a stone. “Yes. The selfsame lake that my mother supposedly drowned in.”

Ruan made a low sound in his chest. “That is suspicious.”

I’d not paused to think on that yesterday, but it was terribly suspicious, particularly combined with Ruan’s abilities behaving oddly. Murder and Mr. Owen’s otherworld rarely intersected, but when they did, it never boded well. “It feels significant—whatever it is.”

He furrowed his brow, that dear familiar divot of worry forming between them. “I think you’re right to be on your guard. Something has happened here; I’d stake my life upon it.”

I was grateful he’d come to a similar conclusion to my own. “Do you think you can join me at the hospital this morning? Perhaps you can overhear something…” My gaze drifted to his chest.

“I am sorry, Ruby. I thought—I’d hoped I’d shake this feeling by now. I don’t know what good I’d be to you today in any event—the voices in my head are warring between what is and what lingers beyond the edges of my thoughts.”

I cocked my head to one side. “Is that usual?”

He drew in an unsteady breath. “No. It’s not. Not even in Scotland. Back then everything was loud but this … this is older. Stronger. I’ve never felt anything like it.” His voice cracked as he looked up at me. “I feel … different.”

“What do you think it is?”

He gave me a helpless look, the morning sun catching on the silver strands in his dark curls. “Power. So much of it pulsing in the air that I thought I was going mad with it. The voices were deafening … Gods, Ruby. I could have sworn I—”

I ran my gloved thumb over his lower lip as he relaxed finally against my touch. His unease was contagious.

“Your mother … you should go…” He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut and gulping in a deep lungful of cold morning air. “I’ll get cleaned up and then look around the village. See if I can learn anything in town about the other patient who was with your mother. If I know anything, it’s that small towns talk.”

The February wind whipped through the gap between the buildings, sending a damp chill straight through me. I stood, rubbing my gloved palms over my face. “It’s probably a good idea for us to split up. The sooner we find out what happened here, the sooner we can leave this place. I don’t like it, Ruan. Not one bit.”

There was something that flickered in Ruan’s expression. A thought I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear. He cleared his throat, rubbing his hands on his trouser legs, and disturbing the chickens. “If you aren’t back by midday, I’ll come up to the priory for you. I’ll be right by then. I promise.” He looked up at me at last, his expression unusually clouded.

I hoped he was right. I brushed a kiss to his forehead. Drawing in his familiar green scent, desperately needing the reassurance of him for the task ahead. At this moment I could not bear to have my heart pulled in two directions. I needed to trust that he was right and that whatever was on his mind would ease. Perhaps it was just the power he sensed here, but something deep inside told me it was something more and that it had everything to do with my mother. And me.

CHAPTER SEVENThe Priest and the Naiad

RUAN’S unease only added to my desire to find the truth about what happened to my mother. I checked my pin watch—half past six. Dr. von Keller would still be in the midst of his rounds by the time I reached Saint Oda’s hospital. It was far too early to set out for the priory, and yet I could not remain indoors any longer. Waiting and delaying the inevitable. I wrapped my fingers around the poppet in my pocket. At least there would be plenty of time for me to return it to the children’s home and perhaps speak to others to learn what they knew about my mother. I was particularly curious about this other patient who died with her. Surely two dead patients would be cause for concern, yet the younger priest, Father Étienne, had mentioned others dying in the lake, as if such a thing were commonplace.

I shivered, not much liking the sound of that, and hurried along the path to the priory. The little doll grew oddly warm beneath my fingers. The blood throbbed in my thumb as I touched it, giving the most peculiar sensation that the poppet itself shared my pulse. Odd, as it was nothing more than wood and fabric. Tapping out the rhythm with my fingers, I hurried down the cobbled street out of town.

Leaving the village, I saw a flash of white at the corner of the wood. A trick of the sun, most certainly—but as I turned to see, I caught the distinct shape of a child disappearing into the undergrowth. It was the girl from the cemetery. Today she wore an old-fashioned white dress, embroidered at the hem with a blue apron over the top, in a style one might have expected to see twenty years ago—in my own youth. As if she sensed that I was watching her, she paused at the edge—her hand gently resting upon a gnarled hawthorn. Her dark braids today were neatly plaited and secured with yellow ribbons.

How very odd. She had to be from the orphanage. She simply had to be.

Follow her, Ruby.

The voice echoed in the edges of my mind. She was a child after all, and all sorts of horrible things can happen to a girl in the woods alone.

“Hello?” I called after her, taking a few steps in her direction. “I have your doll.”

But immediately, the girl took off running.

I checked my pin watch again—warring against the prudent impulse to continue on to the priory, but if someone had truly killed my mother as I feared, then the murderer was likely still around. Until I knew for certain what had happened, I couldn’t allow a little girl to run unwittingly into danger. I had to make sure she was safe. Make sure she got home.

In for a penny …

Before I finished the thought, I took off after her. My shoes crunched along the decaying leaves that coated the forest floor. I darted between the patches of snowdrops, careful not to crush them underfoot. Their stark white blossoms a contrast against the barren earth. The little girl ran ahead, slipping farther into the shadowy and gnarled wood. Deeper and deeper, on a path that bent back toward the river. Birds sang out overhead, unconcerned with our presence. The child was slight enough she could go under branches without slowing, the same ones I had to duck and dodge around. Leaves and empty branches whipped at my face and clothes. Tugging me backward, stinging my exposed skin.

My breath came in short spurts as I raced to catch up. Was she trying to escape someone—something?

Or she’s leading you to your death, Ruby Vaughn. Following strange children into the wood—have you learned nothing?