See something, right Addie?” Edgar said.
“That’s right,” Addie said. “She—”
“I want you to See Seth, okay, Eddie?” Muirin said brusquely. “You know him—he has red hair and Pathfinder Gift.”
“He ran away,” Edgar said slowly. “In September. I don’t know why he’d do that.”
“I don’t know, either,” Muirin said, her voice deadly even. “And I don’t know where he is now. And he said he’d send me a message.”
“You mean, by, by, by someone like me? Because they wouldn’t let you have his letters, you know,” Edgar said seriously.
“He’d send it somehow,” Muirin said. “So could you look for him? I just want to know where he is and if he’s okay, okay?”
“Sure, Muirin,” Edgar said. “I like doing things for my friends.”
He looked toward Addie and nodded, and she lifted the watering can and poured the water into the bowl. She kept the spout purposefully low, but Spirit could see how Edgar’s gaze followed the flowing water, and as the bowl between his knees filled, he became more and more intent upon it.
“Hi, Seth,” he said, as conversationally as if Seth were in the Greenhouse with them. “Oh, no. Don’t go out there. It’s dark, and you don’t have a jacket. You’ll be cold. Go back to Oakhurst. Nobody will know you ran away if you go back now.”
Spirit looked at Loch in confusion. The other three might be familiar with Scrying and seeing magic done, but neither of them were. Spirit couldn’t tell if what Edgar was doing was normal, and from Loch’s expression, neither could he.
“It’s cold. It’s dark. He’s walking. He’s been this way before, many times.” Edgar’s normal speaking voice was high and stammering, but his voice while in trance was deep and resonant. Spirit saw Muirin nod to herself at Edgar’s words. It was obvious to all of them that Edgar was Seeing the past.
“He hears howling in the distance. It sounds like wolves. A whole bunch of them.”
Spirit saw Loch frown and hesitate, on the verge of saying something, then shake his head and change his mind.
“He looks around. He starts to run.” Edgar stopped, staring down into his bowl. “Now he’s stopped. Listening. What does he hear? Engines? Maybe. They don’t sound right. They shouldn’t be out here. He starts to run again. I’m getting scared.”
Despite that last statement, Edgar’s voice didn’t change its calm even timbre. Addie shifted forward on her knees, obviously intending to interrupt Edgar’s Seeing, but Muirin shook her head violently and reached out her arm to block Addie.
“He’s running as fast as he can now. There are a lot of engines, but it’s dark. He sees a boxcar ahead. He can hide there and, and—no! Too late! Cold! So . . . cold! The riders have found him! They’re here! The dark! The hunters of the night! The hunt! The horns! The horns! THE HORNS! Nooooo—!”
It happened so fast that not even Addie—already primed to stop Edgar from Seeing more—could interrupt in time. One moment he was narrating a confusing description of Seth running from engine noises, and the next he was talking faster and faster, his voice getting higher and higher until he was kneeling upright and screaming out the same words that Nick Bilderback had said in the infirmary.
Burke grabbed for him, but it was too late. Edgar’s final words blended into a wordless wail as his body arched backward. He kicked over his Scrying Bowl as his body arched, jerking as if electrical current were running through it. A few seconds later he went limp.
“Is he dead?” Muirin asked after a moment.
“No,” Burke said after another moment, kneeling beside Edgar and feeling for the pulse at his neck. “Just had a seizure.” He bent down and picked Edgar up in his arms, getting to his feet as easily as if the other boy weighed nothing. “I’m going to take him to the Infirmary.”
“Hey, no, wait, you can’t do that,” Muirin said, sounding rattled. “What are you going to tell Ms. Bradford?”
“Half the truth,” Burke said grimly. “That’s why we came up with the story, right? You asked him to See where Seth is now. He had a seizure. He didn’t say anything.”
He turned away before Muirin could protest further, and Loch scrambled to his feet and ran ahead in order to open the Greenhouse door for Burke.
“I don’t want to be involved,” Muirin said. “I didn’t want to have anything to do with this.”
“Too late now,” Addie said callously. “You agreed. You’re in.” She reached