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As he streaked toward her, snapping at the drifting flower bits, I slowly rose back to my feet, hugging my arms around myself. My smile remained despite a nagging sense of…somethingbuilding in the back of my mind.

The whole scene was like something from a dream I’d once had. Not the feverish fantasy of earlier, but something that stirred a hazy sense of familiarity in my heart. Maybe it was simply the warm air, or the sunlight filtering through the swaying trees, reminding me again of the home I’d left behind.

I was strolling around the yard, absently taking it all in, when the truth finally struck me.

This was the same courtyard I’d seen in my vision, back when I’d first touched Red—that’swhy it felt familiar.

I froze, a mixture of shock and yet more confusion icing my blood.

“Bellanova, isn’t it?” came a sudden voice.

I tilted my head to see a man approaching me.

His hair was similar to my own, both in its raven-wing shade and in the unruliness of the waves, though his waves stopped just past his chin. His grey eyes were serious as they fixed upon me, his lips drawn into an even line—but both looked as though they could, and often did, easily give way to laughter.

I vaguely remembered seeing his tall figure on the fields outside of Erebos before I’d collapsed from pain and exhaustion—though most of what had happened on that battlefield remained a blur to me.

“It’s just Nova,” I corrected, barely managing to stammer the words out as my thoughts raced with my latest realization.

Before we could say much more, Red caught sight of the man and raced toward him, spinning cartwheels and skipping asshe came. It was the most animated I’d ever seen her, and she showed no fear toward this man as he opened his arms to her, allowing her to leap into them.

To my surprise, Phantom didn’t show any discomfort toward the man, either; he watched us intently, but continued to lounge beneath one of the trees on the bed of flowers Red had made for him.

The man embraced Red for a moment before setting her back down, kneeling so they were face-to-face. He spoke to her in a foreign language, but I didn’t need to decipher the words to understand that he’d asked her to return to her games while the grown-ups spoke in private.

“You know her,” I said as she raced away.

He kept his eyes on her as he said, “She lived here, once upon a time.”

“Before she ended up in the dead areas outside of this place?”

He nodded.

“But how could shelivehere? I don’t understand whathereis, and I’ve not been able to get her to speak about any of it, besides.”

“That doesn’t surprise me; she stopped speaking well before she ran away into the Deadlands.” He looked to the sky, thinking. “Precisely two weeks after her mother died, as I recall.”

“Her mother lived in this palace, too?”

“She was a dear friend of my own mother.”

Something about the way his gaze flickered toward me when he mentioned his mother, only to quickly return to watching Red… I couldn’t explain it, but it made me uneasy.

I studied him closer, trying to make sense of him. His features were a strange mixture of powerful yet gentle. A calm, quiet strength seemed to radiate from every move he made. He wore a plain but finely-tailored shirt, the sleeves of it rolled up to his elbows, and…

And there were strange, gnarled dark scars running up the centers of both his arms, disappearing underneath his clothing.

A cold sweat washed over me, along with more confusion. More questions. More potential realizations.

Softly, I asked, “Who are you?”

He finally looked at me, but he didn’t answer the question.

I took several steps back, even though I wasn’t entirely sure why. This man didn’tfeelthreatening. Phantom still had not stirred, either, which was usually a reliable sign that there was no immediate danger.

Yet it still took everything in my power not to run away.

“Nova…” He gestured to a nearby bench. “I think maybe you should sit down.”