I walked for what felt like hours before another nightmare began chasing me.

Exhausted, I reminded myself to stay strong. Keep my head. I could do this.

Only, when I turned the next corner, I came face-to-face with something unexpected. Not a nightmare. A dream come true. The one thing I wanted more than anything else.

“Harper,” I whispered.

I wasn’t prepared for how hard it would hit me to see her again. It had been so long since I’d held her in my arms or heard her voice. But there she was. She wore a crown on her head and a dress that sparkled when she turned.

The swamp around us disappeared and was replaced with a garden full of white roses.

“There you are,” she said. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Where did you run off to?”

I couldn’t move. I wanted nothing more than to run to her, pull her into my arms, and never let go. But I knew that I couldn’t. Not yet.

Instead, I turned away, my heart breaking.

I forced my legs to move, each step taking me further from her. And I was doing it, until I heard the laughter of a small child.

“Daddy,” he said. “Don’t leave us.”

I couldn’t help myself. I turned around to find a boy in Harper’s arms. He was small, no older than two or three at most. When he smiled, his silver eyes gleamed with joy. He reached his arms out to me.

“Why don’t you take him for a minute,” Harper said.

“I can’t,” I whispered.

She stepped toward me, even more beautiful than I remembered, if that was possible.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Just hold him for a few minutes. He’s missed you so much. We both have.”

She looked at me so expectantly, and for a moment, I fantasized about staying here in this dream forever. No more fighting. No more struggle. This was the future we had held onto for so long, and it was right here within my grasp.

But some distant part of me understood that if I took that child in my arms, he would never be real.

“I love you,” I said. “But I have to go now.”

I started to turn again when a shadow crossed behind her. My heart tightened, and I reached again for the dagger that wasn’t there.

The shadow moved closer, and the sky suddenly turned dark.

“What is it?” she asked, bouncing the child on her hip. “Jackson, what’s gotten into you?”

I wanted to warn her to move. To turn around. I couldn’t bear to see her swallowed up by the darkness. Not again.

But this was not my future. This was merely a manifestation of my greatest fears.

I didn’t want the illusion. I wanted the real thing.

I watched as the shadow approached them, threatening to swallow them whole, but instead of going to them, I closed my eyes and thought of the real Harper. The person I loved and would give my life for, if it ever came to that.

“Please,” I said. “I need your help. No more nightmares. No more tricks.”

Laughter seemed to crawl out of the darkness, surrounding me on all sides, and when I opened my eyes, I was again transported to a new place. The swamp was gone. The garden. Harper and our child. All of it gone.

Instead, I stood on a floating piece of earth covered in thick, lush grass, sky surrounding me on all sides. I turned in a circle, searching for the sound of the laughter.

Sabine appeared before me, sitting cross-legged on a cloud of pure white. She was dressed in a gown made of red roses and wore a matching crown on her head.

I wasn’t sure whether to bow to her or cuss her out for what she’d put me through.

I decided the bow was a better choice, especially since I’d come here to ask for her help.

I got down on one knee and lowered my head. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“It’s been my pleasure,” she said. “I’ve always had such a fascination with the fears and desires of others. Yours have proven to be quite enjoyable.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Please, stand,” she said. “For a moment there, I wasn’t sure you’d be able to resist that last illusion. You’d be surprised how many don’t even make it through the first.”

I straightened, looking her in the eyes for the first time. Her eyes were as iridescent as her wings, like opals.

“I was hoping you would come,” she said. “You want me to help you get back to Harper?”

“Yes,” I said. “Please.”

I wanted to ask her why she’d helped the amethyst priestess at all if she’d also planned on helping me. Was this all just a big game to her? An amusement? Did she even care about the outcome? Or did she just find pleasure in putting the pieces in play and watching how it would all end up?

“I met her, you know,” she said, picking at one of the roses on her dress. “I can see why you care so deeply for her. I can’t say I’ve ever felt that way about anyone.”

“Rend told me,” I said.

“I can tell a lot about a person just by touching them,” she said. “It’s one of my many gifts. For example, with a single touch, I could see the torture she’d endured at the hands of the emerald priestess. Nasty stuff.”

I winced. I didn’t want to know about the things she’d endured. I knew enough of that already. I just wanted to bring her home.

“I could also see her connection to you,” Sabine said. She glanced up from her roses to look at me. “And in that connection, I could see your gifts.”

My stomach knotted. So, we had come to talk terms.

“What is it you want from me?” I asked.

“It’s a rare ability to be able to see the future,” she said casually. “One I have often coveted for myself. There are many things I can do with time and space, but when it comes to the future, I’m completely blind. I’ve tried, you know, but I can never see it for myself.”

I swallowed, my throat suddenly very dry.

“You want me to show you a vision of the future?” I asked, trying to figure out exactly what she was asking of me. “It doesn’t always work like that, I’m afraid. The visions come to me on their own. I don’t control them. I’m not a psychic or anything. And I rarely see visions of things that don’t affect me directly. I’m not sure what use that would be to you.”

She laughed again, the sound like windchimes floating through the air.

“No, Jackson,” she said. “I don’t want some drawing of my future.”

I sighed in relief. I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to force a vision of her. I’d never done something like that before.

“What I want,” she said, “is your power to see the future.”

I shook my head, not quite comprehending.

“My power?”

“Yes, your ability,” she said. “I want to take it from you so that it will be mine to control and use however I see fit.”

I felt sick to my stomach. She wanted to take my ability away? What would that mean for me?

“I didn’t know that powers could be transferred from one person to another,” I said.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “It’s one power most of the Summer Court have access to. I couldn’t take it from you without your permission, of course. Not without breaking the rules, anyway. But you can give it to me as a gift. And in return, I can open a portal to the past.”

“How would that work?” I asked. “I would never have visions again?”

“No, the ability would be gone from you forever,” she said. “And, of course, any visions you’ve already had would no longer be guaranteed.”

My eyes widened, and I stepped backward, my hand on my pocket.

Sabine raised an eyebrow and smiled. “May I see?”

She stretched a hand out to me, expectantly.

Not this. I can’t.

Slowly, I reached into my pocket and withdrew the worn piece of paper I had carried with me for months. It was nearly falling apart now, the pencil markings slightly faded.

With a trembling hand, I held it out to her.

Like a giddy child, Sabine unfolded the paper and studied it.

“Oh, my,” she said. “This is quite the choice for you, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“If you walk away from me, refusing to give me what I ask, this future is still guaranteed to you,” she said. “Your visions always come true eventually, right?”

I nodded. “Sometimes they’re different from what I’ve drawn,” I said. “Or rather, I should say, sometimes I interpret the images wrong. It isn’t always as it seems.”

“But it’s always true,” she said. “So, if you leave without my help, someday, the two of you will sit in this garden as King and Queen, your child playing in the grass like one big happy family.”

She placed a finger to her cheek.

“On the other hand, without my help, Harper may never get home,” she said. “She’s trapped in the past now with no portal back except through the dungeon of the amethyst priestess. That’s if Priestess Black allows her to live at all. So, what do you do? Do you walk away and trust that you’ve interpreted this vision correctly? Or do you risk it all for the chance to save her yourself?”

She handed the drawing back to me, and I ran my thumb along the image.

How many times in the past few months had I looked to this drawing for hope? How many nights had I stayed awake, dreaming of this future?

Giving it up seemed impossible.

But at the same time, what if Sabine was right? What if I had misinterpreted this vision all along? What if, like my nightmare here in the swamp, there were shadows surrounding us even there?

I had always imagined this would be our life once the Order was defeated. I thought it was promised to us.

But what if I was wrong? What if we were only guaranteed this one happy moment before it all disappeared?

Was I willing to give up the guarantee of that one moment in time?

But then I thought of the assassins hunting her down. Torturing her. Even if I managed to save her in some other way, what more would she have to endure just so I could hold onto a moment I didn’t even fully understand?

My entire life, my visions had been a part of me. When the rest of my magic had been taken from me by the Order and placed in the statue, these visions were the one thing I still had that were mine. To part with them would be like giving up a piece of myself.

I folded the paper again and handed it back to Sabine, my decision made.

“Are you certain?” she asked. “There’s no going back once the transfer is complete.”

“I’m certain,” I said.

I didn’t need a piece of paper to tell me that Harper and I were meant to be together. That we were meant to live a happy life beyond the darkness of the Order’s tyranny.

All I needed was her.

Sabine climbed down from her cloud and placed a hand on my forehead. My eyes closed as she whispered words in a tongue I didn’t recognize. Something tugged inside me, pulling and stretching as it flowed up from my core. It didn’t hurt. Not exactly. But it pained me to lose something I had held so dear.

When the transfer was complete, Sabine stepped away and nodded.

“Thank you for this gift,” she said. “Once the portal is opened, you will have twenty-four hours to return before it disappears.”

“The amethyst priestess has a head start on me by nearly a day,” I said. “What happens if they’ve already taken her?”

Sabine smiled. “To make it interesting, I’ll send you back to almost the same exact moment I sent them,” she said.

“Almost?” I asked.

“It wouldn’t be as interesting if I didn’t give them a tiny head start,” she said. “Let us see if love truly does conquer all.”

My heart raced, but I would not complain. She was giving me a chance, and that would have to be enough.

“I wish you strength and good fortune on your journey,” she said. “You have a good heart, Jackson. I hope we meet again someday.”

She stepped back and removed a single rose from her dress. She held it in her hand and whispered into it. When she set it down on the grass at my feet, a light shone forth, rising into the sky before feathering out to form a perfect oval made of shimmering light.

“Your twenty-four hours starts now,” she said.

I nodded and stepped through the portal, determined not to come back until Harper was at my side once again.