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like it though, doesn’t it?”
    “There’s no way.” But what if it was? Our magic together was powerful, first in the dungeon, and then the residual magic at home when I brought Iris out of her bewitched slumber. My light magic with his dark blended effortlessly, and it was strong. Strong in a different way than it was with Logan. With Logan, the blending of our magic was all-consuming, bone-rattling exhilaration. But with Jude it was utter strength, pure and liquid. Easy.
    What if Jude was right? What if I did subconsciously abandon my mission with Logan to keep exploring other options?
    Were the Seven Sisters telling me something? Could Jude—this sarcastic, appallingly irresistible creature—be the one?
    I heard a high-pitched giggle outside my window. Then she floated into view, white hair floating around her face, eyes like fireballs. My doppelganger.
    “What is she doing here?” I asked.
    Jude glanced at the girl then back at me, unfazed, while she hovered outside, staring at us. “She’s a warning.”
    “A warning of what?”
    “You know much about poetry, sweetheart?”
    “A little.”
    “Ah, let me educate you. According to both lore and his own recollections, the great English poet, Percy Shelley, saw his doppelganger in Italy. Saw him pointing silently out at the Mediterranean Sea. The same sea Percy drowned in shortly after.” He gestured toward the floating girl. “Harbingers of death, they are.”
    The doppelganger, reached out a pale hand, calling to me.
    I went to her. Jude followed.
    Taking our hands, she led us through the air until in the distance we saw a golden Mediterranean coast, where a tiny sailboat was fighting the waves. Then I saw him, the poet Shelley, flailing in the water. He looked just like Logan. No—he was Logan, and he was drowning. But why couldn’t he Breathe?
    “I have to save him,” I cried, diving away from Jude into the stormy sea. My amulet shone in the dark water, and Logan’s terrified eyes met mine as I swam toward him. Wrapping my arms around him, I struggled to carry him to the surface. But he was too heavy, and I was too weak to save him. Down, down, we sank like stones, until his eyes were dead and gray, and his body lay limp in my arms.
     

Start At The Beginning
    I jerked awake, alarm flooding my body.
    Swiftly, my eyes took in my surroundings: art posters hanging on the wall, the beginning of dawn’s light peeking through my curtains.
    I was home.
    But the dream was too clear. Logan and Jude and…her.
    The forbidden pleasure, and the panic that followed.
    What if my dream was an omen? I assumed the doppelganger was another Spellspinner, a shapeshifter—what if my doppelganger was what Jude said: a phantom. A harbinger of death? And what about the mark on Jude’s hip? Thank goddesses it was just a dream. He couldn’t be the Chosen. Could he?
    Time for speculation was over. My whole destiny hung in the balance.
    I went to my desk and pulled out Grandma Rose’s journal. The stone adorning its cracked leather cover—a replica of my amulet—flashed as I opened the book.
    “Come on, Rose,” I said, staring at the blank pages. “I need help. Please help me know what to do next.”
    Gradually the text appeared on the page.
His driver picked me up in a carriage dark as night. Its presence chilled my spine like frozen rain. I walked carefully down the icy path, snow crunching under my ill-fitting shoes. I didn’t have to glance over my shoulder to know mother was peering at me through the curtains, watching expectantly.
    Through the window of the carriage, I could see his silhouette.
    He wore a velvet top hat, and his dark hair was pulled back in a thin black leather strap. My heart fluttered at the sight of him, this mysterious escort.

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