Sadie Madison and the Boy in the Crimson Scarf

4 | The Girl Who Could Not Forget

Sadie dreamt of black grass and stone towers. Bloodied arms and screaming voices. Magicians and conjurors with twisted faces and rotten teeth. Grit and sand and dirt and smoke. Three wretched faces, distorted, venomous. Fields of fire where men and beasts burned. Angels with red flickering eyes. Warriors and witches and seers. Wind and water and earth. The white sun and a red moon colliding in the heavens. A screeching and hissing crone. Cages of wild animals, gnawing and lashing at their captors. Amber light and shrouded figures. A monster with glinting talons and leathery wings, its face hidden beneath a thick cowl, enveloped in a dark, swirling mist.

And, amidst the chaos, came a voice. A constant voice, dim and soft and crying out. "I want to go home. Please take me home." Sadie saw her own face. Not a reflection, but the face of a girl who looked like her in every way—save for a ring of dark, cryptic symbols around her scalp. "Beware," the girl whispered. "Murder sleeps soundly. They are close. Do not forsake me." She turned to ash then, drifting away in fragile flakes of grey.

Sadie shuddered.

Her eyes open.

The voice seemed to hang in the air, whispering, haunting, fading into the walls of the eaved bedroom.

I want to go home. Please take me home.

Sadie looked at the brass and chrome clock sat atop her bookcases. Early evening. Six forty-seven. Sadie turned the dream over and over and over in her head. She'd dreamt before—thousands of times—but there was something different about this one.

It felt real.

It felt less like a dream and more like—a memory.

But not her memory. Someone—or something—else's.

Yawning, Sadie skipped to the window seat and rested her head against the glass, staring at the snow-covered street below.

A long, black, important-looking automobile had parked outside Danver's house.

An unfamiliar vehicle, one she'd never seen before. Sleek and expensive. Old yet in pristine condition. Somebody clearly loved it. Sadie did not. It didn't feel right. Not right at all.

Balthasar leaped up beside her and let out a discontented yowl.

Sadie glanced at her hands as they weaved through the cat's fur. Most of Cale's blood had come off, but there were still a few stubborn deposits lurking beneath her fingernails. She dug at them irritably with her teeth. A thin trace of copper wriggled on her tongue.

Larissa's voice rattled through the house calling her to dinner. In the aftermath of the attack on Cale Boswick, she had almost forgotten they had a guest for dinner.

The doorbell chimed.

Natalia pushed up from her chair and sprinted to the door, slowing to a considered walk as she arrived. The door swung open and there, silhouetted against the snowy moonlit world and the jagged Carcassus Mountains, stood a tall, athletic young man with neat golden hair and serious eyes. They whispered conspiratorially to one another, making their way to the dining room. Hands intertwined, eyes sparkling.

"Evening, soldiers!" Michael Madison said, arriving late to the table. "Attention!"

Sadie and Eli stood up straight, hands raised to their temples. Dimitri gave Natalia a quizzical look. She blushed, whispering an explanation.

Michael paced around the table. He stopped behind Dimitri. "This must be a new recruit," he chuckled. "Comrade Rubinov, if I'm not mistaken."

"Father," Natalia began. "Perhaps Mother could use your help in the kitchen."