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.

“You were one step away from the Brink. A pitiful, lost, loving creature who wanted to live, but did not believe in life. “He did show me an image, probably the same one that so amused Dougal a year ago: a young, sickly pale mermaid sobbing bitterly, irritably scraping faded scales from her tail and sobbing again. – Eternity watched over you, the curse pushed you in the back. If it weren’t for the connection that had managed to form… – the picture changed, now I saw Dougal and myself, sheets of paper with a field for a “naval battle”, myself on the floor of the buffet and later, in the evening, in Dougal’s arms. – You could have left at any moment. You people are funny. One touch of your consciousness was enough for me to understand. And for some reason you waited until the last minute. You love to suffer too much. “He snorted again, and a cold wave washed over my feet. “Sit down, I’ll take you for a ride.”

– To the middle of the lake? – I dried myself off and cast a warming charm. – Thank you, Kels, I definitely don’t like suffering in icy water. Let's wait for summer. But still, what does Jake have to do with it? How did he know? How can you meet a real person in a dream?

“How can you inhabit someone else’s body?”

“There are many things in the world, friend Horatio,” I chuckled.

“Kels, this is my wife.” Find yours and talk half to death as much as you like.

– Dougal! – I threw myself on his neck, he grabbed me by the waist, lifted me, pressing me tighter. It's good that I came back earlier today!

Against the background of my laughter, Kels’s intonations suddenly seemed not sarcastic, but grumpily sad:

“Wives don’t fly to me from other worlds. But this one is boring.”

–You're too old to have fun. And envy is a bad feeling.

“Get out. Both. And don’t even think about returning without foals. Stupid people, you always waste time on things that are not really important.”

Well, of course, Kels always has the last word. Although he usually turns out to be right.

End