2
Lucas Frost completed his patrol of the part of Destiny Park visitors found interesting—or, to be precise, didn’t find too strange and unnerving.
There was more to the park if you knew how to find it—or were destined to find it—but no one had bought a ticket for any of the trains, no one had bought a ticket for the bus that traveled to the “neighborhoods” on the island.
Since no one had come to the pavilion to report someone missing, that meant no one had been foolish enough to go through a moon gate without fully understanding what would happen, depending on the gate’s intention at that moment.
Most of the moon gates within reach of determined visitors were transportation.
They took a person from the park to the stations where tickets could be purchased for passage on a bus, train, or ship.
Sometimes one of those gates took a person far beyond the park—and usually beyond any hope of returning unless you were one of the Arcana.
Some of the gates had multiple possibilities—like transformation. A kind of alchemy, changing one thing to another. Changing a person into something else.
Those who came to Wyrd came at their own risk as they searched for something beyond the mundane. Some parts of Wyrd could be benevolent in their own way, but usually people who looked for something other than a bit of fun crossed the river because of a deep need.
Lucas entered the pavilion and stopped at the arched doorway, puzzled by all the signs set out on one side of the pavilion—the side the visitors flocked to. Out to lunch. Back in one hour.
He walked into the room where his wife and her sisters did a different kind of business.
They were waiting for him.
“Someone is coming,” Zerah said, her hand hovering above the cards she’d drawn from her chosen decks. “A desperate journey. Life or death.”
“When?” he asked.
Zerah’s hand moved over the cards. She selected another card and turned it over. “Now.”
Meaning this person was on the ferry.
He looked at Justine. She looked at Lysandra, whose clouded eyes saw much and guided her hand as she sketched possible fates.
Lysandra closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were clear. She turned her sketch pad to reveal what she had seen.
A woman. Attractive, vibrant, holding a book in her hand.
He couldn’t read all of the title, but the author’s name on the cover was Rachel Nightingale.
That sketch blended into the same woman, dull eyed and looking like a walking corpse made of skin and bones.
That sketch blended into the woman laid out in a coffin—and a date that was only a few months from now.
Her destiny if she didn’t do something to change it, if she didn’t have the courage to embrace a different path.
Lysandra had revealed that path too. A dangerous one, and not without fear or pain. But a way to disappear for a while and, after an interval, return as someone else who would have a chance to live.
“Evil will hunt her,” Justine said. “Evil that wears success and a three-piece bespoke suit and speaks pretty words to people willing to look the other way.”
“I’ll go meet the ferry,” Lucas said.
“Tomorrow is soon enough for her to see us,” Justine said.
“If she’s being hunted…”
Zerah turned over another card. “The hunter has a hound. If the woman has courage, she will be gone before the hound crosses the river.”
“I’ll arrange for her to stay at the hotel for a day or two,” he said. “And I’ll ask Jack to stay there, too, and keep an eye on her.”
Lucas strode out of the pavilion, reaching the dock a minute before the ferry arrived. Then he waited for the woman who had come to Wyrd to change her fate.