Chapter 55
Chapter
Fifty-Five
Winter
Ileaned against the couch, watching as Milo carefully sorted through the latest batch of books we'd unpacked.
The afternoon sunlight streaming through our new windows made his brown curls glow like copper, and I found myself smiling at the sight.
It had been a few weeks since we'd moved into our spacious new apartment, and the peace was almost unsettling.
No cultist attacks, no reality-warping incidents, no emergency calls from the Bureau.
The Harbingers had gone silent.
Which was even scarier than their attacks.
"Radio silence isn't necessarily good news," Rook had growled yesterday during one of his increasingly frequent security sweeps. "It means they're planning something."
But right now, watching Milo hum softly to his skeleton crew as they helped organize our growing library, I decided to embrace the quiet. The blue markings on my arms pulsed contentedly, no longer the chaotic storm they'd been when everything started.
"Winter," Milo looked up from where he sat cross-legged on the floor, Jeffrey perched on his shoulder like a bony parrot. "Can I talk to you about something?"
Something in his tone made me straighten. "Of course. What's wrong?"
He glanced around the room, confirming we were alone. Fenric was at the Bureau for a meeting, Zane was teaching a yoga class, and Rook was doing whatever mysterious werewolf errands occupied his afternoons. I was convinced he was grooming his fur.
"It's not wrong, exactly," Milo set aside the book he'd been cataloging. "It's just," he paused, "I've been having dreams."
My blood chilled. "Prophetic dreams?"
"No, not like yours," he shook his head quickly. "These are different. It's like someone's calling to me. Trying to communicate."
I moved to sit beside him on the floor, Horrace immediately relocated to my lap. His tentacles wrapped loosely around my wrist, his colors shifting to calmer blues and greens.
"Calling how?" I kept my voice gentle despite the alarm bells ringing in my head and the panic rising within my chest.
Milo's fingers absently stroked Jeffrey's skull as he organized his thoughts. "It started about a week ago. In the dreams, I'm standing in that vault place you described, with all the bones. But I'm not alone. There's this presence, ancient and sad, trying to tell me something important."
The Oracle's mark on my forehead gave a small pulse, like recognition.
"The Oracle," I breathed. "Milo, they're trying to reach you through your necromantic connection."
He nodded, relief flickering across his features at my understanding. "That's what I thought too. The thing is, I think they want to talk to you again. But not in the way that happened before, when you were pulled into their prison."
I hugged Horrace closer, his warmth reassuring against the growing unease. "What do you mean?"
Milo's eyes lit up with that particular brightness he got when discussing necromantic theory. "I've been thinking about what you told us. The Oracle is consciousness without true death, right? They're trapped but not gone. And you have their mark now, a direct connection to their essence."
"Okay," I let the word out slowly, not liking where this was heading.
"With my necromantic abilities and the help of those mini-skeletons," he gestured to the six tiny figures who had stopped their book-sorting to listen intently, "I think I could temporarily bring the Oracle back to their original self.
Not the broken, imprisoned version you met, but who they were before the corruption. Before they became what they feared."
The idea sent a chill down my spine. "That sounds incredibly dangerous."
"It would be," Milo admitted. "But Winter, think about what we could learn. The Oracle might have the answers we need about the Harbingers, about your choice, about how to stop them before they strike again."
I touched the mark on my forehead, feeling it warm under my fingertips. The Oracle had seemed so lost when I'd encountered them, wrapped in chains and regret. But what if Milo was right? What if we could reach the person they'd been before everything went wrong?
"Even if it's possible, you'd be risking yourself. What if the corruption tries to take you too?"
Milo's expression grew determined, a look I recognized from the times he'd faced down threats to protect us. "That's where you come in. You have their mark, their direct connection. I think you could anchor me, keep me tethered to who I am while I work."
Horrace made a soft, worried trill and tightened his grip on my wrist. His memories might be gone, but his protective instincts remained intact.
I was quiet for a long moment, considering.
The rational part of my mind screamed that this was too risky, that we should wait for Fenric's research or the Bureau's intelligence to provide safer answers.
But the prophecy part of me, the part that pulsed with ancient power, whispered that time was running out.
"You really think the Oracle wants to help us?" I asked finally.
"I think they want to make things right," Milo reached over to squeeze my free hand. "In the dreams, I feel such sadness from them. Regret. They never wanted to become what they were forced to be."
The conviction in his voice decided me. "Then we try it. But not alone. We tell the others first, and we do this as a family."
Milo's face broke into a brilliant smile. "Really? You'll do it?"
"We'll do it," I pulled him into a one-armed hug while Horace protested being squished between us. "Whatever happens, we face it together."
The mini-skeletons began an excited dance, their tiny forms spinning and leaping as if celebrating our decision. Jeffrey clacked his jaw in what I'd learned to interpret as approval.
But even as I held Milo close, feeling his excitement and hope, a part of me wondered if we were about to make a terrible mistake. The Oracle had warned me about choices, about the price of power.