"Ana!" She heard Ileus' panic filled voice and felt him holding her before she fell down. After that she slipped back in faint gray smoke, feeling weak and weary as hell.
"What happened to her?" she heard a woman's soft voice. It was comforting just like her mothers. She wanted to open her eyes, but she felt so weary that she couldn't.
"We got Iona's paintings from Silver Vales," she heard a deep cello voice of her husband.
"And?" the woman asked.
A moment of silence later, he said, "She touched one of them and just… fainted."
For a long time, heavy silence lingered in the air. She heard rustle of fabric and then perhaps the woman walked out.
She slipped back into time, into gray smoke and silvery bursts of stars. That was her vision. Maple was whipping her. A mellowed voice sang—
'Whip her Maple
Whip her
To the otherworld we will ship her
I will watch her bleed
