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I whispered thanks and did as she said.

Conn eventually stopped staring at me and sat in the chair beside me. “Two whole days and that was all you saw?”

I stopped chewing, nodded, and then leaned back in my chair. Mulan brought the teapot and refilled my cup. Why was I so reluctant to share that I’d seen Rasmus? I hadn’t meant to scry for him. That had just happened.

Sure, he’d been in my thoughts a lot since he disappeared, but the necklace had a mind of its own. I rubbed my chest and felt the Dagda stone vibrate under my fingers. Had the stone used the necklace to show me what it thought I most wanted to see? Or what the stone itself had wanted to see?

The hand rubbing my chest dropped to my lap at the thought. Conn needed to know. He knew more about the Dagda stone than I did. If I kept such things to myself, he couldn’t help me deal with what happened.

“I saw Rasmus, but I don’t know why, other than the obvious. I can promise you all I wanted to see was Hisser’s location. If the first vision was his location, it was Hisser or Hisser’s child inside that egg. And it’s in a cave somewhere. Is it local? Is it a million miles away? I’d love to be able to tell ya, but I didn’t linger there long enough to get any other information. I got swept away to watch the witches. I don’t know anything about them, either.”

Conn turned away from me to look at Mulan. Her shrug was deep. “Her energy showed intense panic first few hours. It slowed to near-death peace and never changed until she woke. She talks sense and seems okay. This is all I know.”

“What causes near-death peace?” I asked.

Mulan shook her head. “Death or... time problem.”

I frowned at her. “Well, I never died. I think I would have seen The Dagda or Goddess Danu if that had happened—or at least Da. Yer ancestors always greet ya. Many times they’re the ones who send ya back if ya’re there too early. Conn would know if I was close to death. He’d be notified.”

I looked at Conn who shook his head. So I looked back at Mulan. “What did ya mean bytime problem?”

I could see Mulan searching for the right words to explain. Finally, she spoke. “Remember our talk about Wu Shaman who risked time travel?”

I nodded. “Yes. Ya said she came back from it and died.”

Mulan nodded. “What I did not say in short version was she left her body for many months. Her body grew young. It grew old. She withered in flesh and filled out like young girl. Many changes happened while Wu Shamans watched over her. She thinks only minutes pass. This she said before death claimed her.”

I swallowed down my panic. What I’d experienced hadn’t been scary to me, but it had felt like mere minutes. “I can see why yer kind outlawed time travel. What did yer people think happened to her?”

Mulan crossed her arms and leaned against a counter. “Shaman elders say her soul traveled through time but her body failed to keep up. Your energy slowed until your heart barely beat. I fought high demon not to try and wake you. I tell him he must wait for you to return or you might get lost.”

I looked at Conn who sighed and nodded. I reached out to put a hand on his arm. “I would have panicked too if it had been you.” Conn put his hand over mine, but I looked back at Mulan. “I think yer shaman elders were right.”

“Explain,” Mulan ordered.

I slid my hand from Conn’s to wave it in the air. Before I knew it, I was using both hands to illustrate my story. “During the third vision, I flew upward and through a wide expanse of space. Off in the distance, I could see planets and stars. Then I passed through a metal barrier that gave gently and sort of popped me out on the other side of it. I went through several walls of some sort of building before ending up in a lab. Rasmus was standing over a medical table saying things in a language that sort of hurt my ears to hear. With him were a bunch of beings I think were made of light because they seemed transparent. They had their hands on a woman lying on the table. The woman looked like Rasmus. I think it was Zara.”

The room was silent as Mulan and Conn both stared at me.

I cleared my throat to tell them what I sensed but couldn’t prove. “I think I visited the guardians. Rasmus didn’t know I was there. Well, he sort of sensed me when I waved my hand in front of his face but he couldn’t see or hear me. It wasn’t like when the three guardians I saw all knew I was there in astral form. He went back to his work.”

More silence.

I finally broke it again. “Now I sort of understand why Rasmus is always gone so long without realizing how much time is passing for me. He told me once that time passed differently for him when he was doing guardian work.”

Conn stared hard at me. “How long did you think you were there?”

I turned to look at him and lifted both hands in the air. “A couple of minutes at most. The trip back into my body felt like when we rode on that bullet train. I settled back into my body and woke easily. Other than feeling stiff, I had no idea how long I’d been gone.”

“Her energy sped up moments before Aran returned,” Mulan said.

Conn wiped a hand over his face. “This didn’t happen when you scried for Zara and the demon wolves.”

I sighed at the anxiety I’d accidentally caused him. “No, it didn’t. I don’t know if the Dagda stone took over or just protected me. But I feel like it was involved.”

Nodding at my suggestion, Conn took the cup of tea Mulan set in front of him. “We may need to contact The Dagda and get him to teach you how to use the stone, Aran.”

I lifted my hands. “I’ve been thinking non-stop about him but The Dagda hasn’t appeared.”