Tide - By Daniela Sacerdoti Page 0,34

immune to it … or is it me? Is the gaze failing me, like the dreams? Still, it worked on that boy in school – though it was just a touch, not a full attack.

She turned and ran across the moorland, her eyes scanning the sky as she went, still watching her step for things that might come out of the soil – but now she was too furious to be afraid. Sooner or later, she knew she would destroy the demon-bird.

14

Night Deceives Us

Next time I see you

There will be walls

Elodie ran downstairs and burst into the kitchen. “Someone is here,” she said urgently.

Sean was sharpening his sgian-dubh against a kitchen knife. Without missing a beat, he placed the other knife on the counter, the knife still in his hand. “Did you see something?”

“I felt them. Leave it to me,” whispered Elodie. Her lips had taken on a bluish tinge already.

“Wait!” Sean took her by her arm. “Wait!”

Somebody had called his name from behind the closed door. And the voice beyond the door, the voice that spoke his name – that voice he knew.

He flung open the door and there she was, standing on the doorstep, eyes big with apprehension and cheeks red from the cold. Sean stood still, holding himself back.

“Sarah.”

“Can I come in?” she said in a small voice.

“Of course. Of course. You must be freezing. Come and warm yourself,” he said, ushering her into the hallway.

Sarah steeled herself. She hadn’t risked the scrying spell and come all this way to show him how lost she was. She wasn’t going to play straight into his hands.

But she’d missed him so much, and his parting words had haunted her since he had left her the previous night. She needed to find a way to forgive him.

The awkwardness of it all made Sarah blush. But she was determined to do what she had come to do, to say what needed to be said. She was just about to speak when a blonde woman stepped into the hallway.

Sean spoke without turning his eyes away from Sarah. “Just a minute, Elodie.”

Elodie. Harry’s wife, Sarah thought.

“I couldn’t wait to see you,” she blurted out, and immediately regretted her words. They didn’t sound right. She didn’t want him to know that she’d missed him.

Sean’s eyes widened. He was fighting the urge to take her face in his hands and just look at her, look at her properly, the way he hadn’t been able to do for so long.

“Where’s Nicholas?” he said instead.

Sarah hadn’t expected that. “Probably at my house right now. He’s there every night.” Her voice had an imperceptibly petulant undertone.

“Is he?” Sean shrugged. “What a great boyfriend.”

“Yes, well I think who I go out with is not really the main issue here.”

Sean sighed and lowered his eyes. “No. Of course not.”

Sarah read his face: defeat. Her heart contracted painfully. “I need to speak to you. Alone.” She added, glancing towards the living room where Elodie was waiting.

“Of course. Come upstairs. Just don’t attack me, please.” Sean attempted a smile, one of his dimpled smiles that never failed to stir her.

They walked up the musty stairs. “This place is falling down around your ears, Har—I mean Sean.”

“It serves its purpose, I suppose.”

Sarah looked around Sean’s bedroom in dismay. Mould eating the ceiling, wallpaper peeling off in damp curls, a wintry draught from the window that chilled the whole place. Sean read her thoughts. “Like I said, it serves its purpose. And it’s only temporary,” he mumbled.

“It has to be, unless you want to die from the cold. And … mould poisoning, or something.”

Only then Sean noticed the mark on Sarah’s black jacket. “Sarah?” he asked, pointing at the torn material.

Sarah nodded. “It happened on the way here.”

“Jesus, Sarah!” Sean placed his hands on her arms and looked into her face. Sarah was startled – his touch was sudden, unexpected. But she didn’t move, and she held his gaze. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. The name had changed – Harry Midnight had become Sean Hannay – but those clear blue eyes she had looked into when waking up from one of her terrifying dreams, when she thought she was about to be killed, when she’d found her mother’s diary, when the world was full of threat and he had provided her only place of refuge – those eyes were still the same.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Please don’t make me leave your side again.”

I love you, he didn’t say.

“I forgive you,” she