Free Spirit Prophecy (The Gateway Trilogy Book 2) by E.E. Holmes

to face the courtyard at attention. Several of them, I noted in surprise, looked barely older than me. A moment later a woman appeared upon a small balcony there, raised her arms, and silence fell.
    I knew before she spoke that this must be Finvarra, the woman who, from the shadows, had been pulling the strings on the twisted puppet show that was now my life. She was the high priestess of the Durupinen, the woman who sent Lucida and Catriona to find us, who made sure that every trace of my abilities to communicate with spirits was wiped clean from Pierce’s investigative equipment. She was no more or less than the singular most powerful force within the Durupinen, and I had imagined many times walking right up to her and giving her a piece of my mind. Now, as every breath was held in anticipation of her words, I knew that I never would have dared to do it. Finvarra fairly glowed with an aura of power. Her face looked like it had been carved from marble, from its high cheekbones to its full lips. Her hair was pure, shining white, and I knew that, if the wind hadn’t lifted it into billowing waves all around her, it would easily have reached her waist. Her expression, as she gazed out at us all, contained the kind of peace and surety that one only sees in paintings of saints and martyrs.
    A last quavering note from Catriona’s violin shivered on the air, and then Finvarra’s voice rang out into the attentive silence.
    “On behalf of the generations of Durupinen that have graced this place before you, I welcome you all with an open heart to Fairhaven Hall. Apprentices, you step today onto a path that has been forged ahead of you, over many centuries, as the Durupinen have played our crucial role as the gatekeepers of the portals between the spirit world and the living world. We have maintained, through our commitment to our gift and traditions, a delicate balance between light and dark, between life and death, between secret and knowledge. We are eternal and enduring… ”
    A tiny orange light bobbed around in the corner of my eye. I turned to see Lucida creeping out from between two bushes, a lit cigarette dangling from her mouth. She was slinking her way toward the empty space beside Catriona, whose formerly solemn face was now twitching with repressed laughter. Lucida stumbled slightly on the uneven cobblestones in her wildly inappropriate stilettos and had to grab onto Catriona’s arm to steady herself. I don’t know why she bothered to try sneaking in; she might as well have been wearing a blinking neon sign as the little black dress and leopard coat ensemble over which she’d hastily thrown her blue clan sash. She fell into ranks, ignoring the sideways glances from the women around her. As she turned to flick her cigarette into the grass, she caught my eye and winked.
    I snapped my head back around. Dislike for Lucida welled up inside me just as it had upon our first meeting. Then, it had been her total lack of regard for my feelings or the gravity of the emotional baggage she had unloaded on me; she’d treated the whole encounter like a performance put on for her amusement. Apparently her lack of respect extended into all areas of her life, including sacred Durupinen ceremonies. I mean, okay, I wasn’t exactly sold on all of this Durupinen stuff yet, but I was here wasn’t I? I was standing here, holding my stupid candle, making an effort.
    I tried to pick up the thread of Finvarra’s speech. If she had noticed Lucida’s unceremonious interruption, she wasn’t letting on. Her voice cut through the twilit silence. “For some of you, the knowledge of the Durupinen has been a part of your lives from your earliest memories. Your childhood was steeped in our lore and traditions, and therefore your arrival here has been a foregone conclusion, a long anticipated step on the path you’ve always known you would travel. For others,” and here I felt sure her eyes flickered down to look directly and Hannah and me,