Fall in love in a weekwe get by

“Dougal and I”… Yes, with him it was easy and natural to move from “mine” and “yours” to “we” and “ours”. Not in everything, of course – it’s still “your work and mine”, but this does not interfere with anything. Quite the contrary.

Mrs Freya Norwood has not yet made a name for herself as a journalist. It doesn't happen that quickly. I get to know the world, gain impressions, and at the same time explore interesting topics. Honestly, it’s much more difficult than it was at home, because here I’m interested in everything. Even alchemy conferences, which I went to several times with Dougal. And even though I still only understand prepositions and individual words in reports, conversations on the sidelines are something! You won’t hear anything there, from debates about the advisability of creating the philosopher’s stone (here, by the way, it is considered not a legend of alchemy, but a paradoxical scientific curiosity) to a caustic discussion of the unforgettable “tidal pebbles.”

And Dougal Norwood is a world-famous scientist, one of the leading experts of the Patent Commission, the inventor of one and a half dozen fundamentally new potions and one and a half hundred successful modifications of well-known recipes. Honorary member of five Academies, which does not include the Panacea Academy. Maskelyne bites his elbows in frustration, but cannot do anything. She has no access to Sabella’s house, much less to our London apartment. And when they happen to meet in public, Dougal only bows to her mockingly and politely and suppresses any attempts to start a conversation.

Here is the lake – a magically blue surface under a cloudy sky, a sunny glare, although the sun is not visible behind the clouds. Kels is curious and has already sensed my presence. We still have to wait out his usual water show with special effects, but I know how to speed up the conversation. It is enough to recall the incident that I want to talk about.

I was looking for something unusual as a gift for Sabella. As light, sonorous and magical as she herself. I don’t know how I ended up in an art gallery—a painting would have been the last option I thought of. If only because I don’t understand painting at all.

There I saw… him.

The same portrait.

She froze, clenching her fists painfully, convincing herself that it seemed to me, I imagined it. This is not a dream… not that creepy dream with the “portrait in blue.” But when I managed to breathe and take a step, I saw it myself – and the portrait was not the same. Not so…otherworldly. Without the frightening landscape of the astral world, without ghostliness in the image. Just the face of a girl, very similar to Charlotte and slightly like Sally, in the bluish moonlight, on the ocean shore. Disturbing, yes – but nothing more.

"Jacob Hughes. “The echo of someone else’s fate,” I read and closed my eyes. Jacob. Jake. The same artist and drunken Australian night that I dreamed about. Just a dream. Does this even happen? At least in the magical world, at least not?

Kels's mocking neigh jerked him out of his memories. Kels communicated with Dougal in colorful, visible images, but more often he sent me phrases, spoken in Dougal’s voice and with his most poisonous intonations. I suspect this is one of the kelpies' ways of brightening up eternity by having fun with people.

“You have already been answered. Some bipeds are given the ability to see and know more than others. If they also understood what exactly they see and know, I wouldn’t have to explain the obvious.”

And it’s true… when I showed the purchased portrait to Dougal and Sabella and told about that dream, Dougal just shrugged and replied:

– Inspiration. The thing is extremely unscientific because it is inexplicable. But it happens to some.

“It happens to everyone,” Sabella smiled. – Especially often with creative people. Ideas, pictures, words just come. And no one knows where. Doesn't that happen to you, Freya?

“Probably,” I admitted. – Sometimes.

Kels suddenly appeared very close, snorted in the face, splashing him with cold spray. The purple eyes sparkled with fire.