She screamed again. And a third time, before she heard running feet and shouts of her name. Her chamber door swung open and Heidel and Briette sprinted to her bedside.

"What happened?" Heidel shouted.

Ivy held her head and sobbed through a description of her nightmare. Heidel sat on the bed and wrapped an arm around her. Briette, who had made the practical move to light a candle, stood holding it and shaking her head.

"I know. I've had dreams someone snuck into the castle and killed all the servants," Heidel said. "Once I dreamed it was me that did it. Nightmares are the worst."

"It felt real." Ivy wiped her eyes and sniffled. "I could see every one of you. I could feel the knife." She touched her throat.

"You can't feel things in dreams," Briette said.

"Well, I could! The cold air, too. And Gavin's hand when I danced with him."

"Stop thinking about it." Heidel rubbed her shoulder. "It's gone now. It wasn't real. Now come - lie down again."

"You're staying?" Briette said to Heidel. Ivy could tell Briette wanted to leave. The distance between Briette and Ivy was as vast as the chasm in her dream. Briette had probably never had a nightmare in her lifetime.

"I'll stay until she's asleep again. Leave the candle," Heidel said.

As she turned to place the candle on the bedside table, Briette glanced at the painting still propped on its easel near the window niche. She smiled and took a few steps toward it. "How did you know that, Ivy?"

"Know what?" Ivy said.

"About the bandage. I didn't notice it before." She had already seen the painting Ivy had created of Briette reaching up to light the hanging candelabras. Her pose - stretching upward toward the candles - exposed her left ankle beneath her skirt, and a thin blue bandage wrapped around it.

"A few weeks ago, a burning log tumbled out of a fire I was stoking and touched my ankle. It was only a mild burn. I didn't want to bother Heidel, so I wrapped it with a thin scarf from my room. But it fell off later as I was lighting the candles. Did you see me?"

Ivy shook her head. She was never awake when Briette got up. She had never seen her lighting the candles at dawn.

"You must have," Briette said simply. She set the candle on the bedside table. "I hope you feel better soon."

Ivy nestled into her pillow again, grateful but ashamed. As Briette left the room, one of the castle cats walked in, and Heidel scooped him up to give Ivy further comfort. She lay with her arm around the cat's warm body, while Heidel stroked her shoulder, and the candle kept back the darkness.

It was nice. But strong women didn't need to be comforted like little girls. Strong women didn't get debilitated by a silly dream that was never going to happen.

*********

The dream left Ivy uneasy and unrested the following day. She couldn't paint. She barely talked to Giles. He looked too much like Gavin for her to want his company just now. She wandered around the gallery, but the hanging art gave her no solace. She felt very much alone. Briette's talk of the blue bandage had bothered her because it brought to the surface a phenomenon she preferred to keep buried and smothered.

"The portraits," Ivy whispered. She didn't mean the ones in the gallery, or even the ones she had painted. She meant the ones that appeared in her mind, fully formed, sometimes even ornately framed. A random flash of color inside her head, the portrait burned into her memory. Occasionally, she painted what she saw, but usually she tucked them away into a mental gallery and tried to forget them.

She headed downstairs and peaked in the throne room. No one. Which probably meant a slow day, and Maelyn had gone to her library. Ivy worked through the corridors, ignoring the ache in her lower back. Something always hurt. When she reached the library, she slowly pushed the door ajar until she spied Maelyn in a chair, hands empty and eyes shut.

She opened them when she heard the door. "Ivy?"

"I'm sorry. I thought you'd be reading."

Maelyn shook her head and sighed. "Are you alright? Heidel said you had a bad night."

"It was only a dream," Ivy said. "I just wanted to ask you a question."

Maelyn waited expectantly.

"I know it might sound strange. But a few days ago, in the morning, did you wake up and sit by your window and look at a goldfinch who had landed on the sill outside the glass?"

Maelyn smiled. "Yes, I did! He was beautiful and his song cheered me so much. How did you know that?"

"Not important," Ivy said, shutting the door and thumping away quickly. Not that she could outrun Maelyn if her sister tried to chase her. She just didn't think Maelyn would accept her explanation. And she would get the look Ivy hated so much. That half-pitying, half-tolerant look people sometimes gave her when she said strange things. She had seen it on Briette last night.

Come on. Out with it! Giles appeared beside her. You sometimes see things in your head. And what you see is real - it really happened. Or it's really going TO happen.

Go away, Ivy said crossly. I don't want to talk to you.

Not my fault I look like Prince Gavin! You did that. Now come on, Ives, let's talk about this. You've ignored it for too long.

I don't want to talk about it, Ivy said.

Then why did you go to Maelyn? Were you hoping she would say that never happened? You knew it did before you asked her.

Ivy shook her head. It doesn't make sense. People can't know things before they happen. Not like that.

Unless they have a gift. Giles skipped up the steps on his wiry legs, keeping on her right side, as always.

I don't want to have that kind of gift! It just makes me more strange. I have weird thoughts sometimes, that's all.

Giles raised his eyebrows. Like the weird thought you had of your father lying dead two days before it happened? There were no warnings, you know. No one expected it.

Leave me alone! Ivy swung her arm through the empty air, pushing Giles away. He vanished and she refused to let him come back. She wished she could switch to a new friend - at least for now - but for some reason had little control over that. Her friends manifested without her asking. They changed without her asking. She sometimes missed Janeska but she could no more make her reappear than she could resurrect a dead body.

She returned to her bedchamber and looked at Briette's portrait, now detesting it. She pulled it off the easel and propped it backwards against the wall. She didn't want gifts. She wanted to be normal.

She looked at her bed but felt too afraid to nap. Looked at her easel and felt too afraid to paint. Fear... always fear. She wasn't afraid to cry, though.

So she did.