Court of Dreams (Institute of the Shadow Fae Book 4)

by C. N. Crawford

  “Sure, that makes sense,” I muttered. Weirdo.

  Well, it wasn’t like I had my own clean clothes here, and I wasn’t going to put the filthy, piss-stinking jersey on again.

  “But if we’re going outside,” I said, “I’m going to at least wrap something around myself. I don’t need Barry leering at me.”

  I strode into Ruadan’s bedroom and pulled one of his sheets off the bed. When I turned back to Nyxobas, he’d vanished.

  With the sheet wrapped around me, I crossed to the window. The sun had set completely now, and darkness had fallen over London. The moon seemed startlingly bright, a jewel hanging over the courtyard, and the stars cast silvery light over a transformed courtyard. Where wildflowers had been just moments before was now a gaping chasm, about twenty feet across, filled with dark water.

  I swallowed hard as I looked out at it. I was supposed to jump into that abyss, and I had no idea what I’d find when I did.

  Ruadan said I’d be facing the sins of my past—but I had too many to count.

  Wrapped in Ruadan’s bed sheet, I stood at the edge of the portal, where the grass and soil simply gave way to dark waters. I had to journey into one of the hells, but at least I felt rested. Sleep deprivation was its own sort of hell, and one that I’d escaped.

  Nyxobas—inhabiting my lover’s completely naked body—stood nearby, horns gleaming over his head, tattoos slithering around him.

  The rest of the Shadow Fae had joined us, wrapped warmly in their cloaks. Fever flushed most of their faces, and beads of sweat dotted their brows. I had to get this over with as fast as possible so we could find my father. It was the only way to heal them all. What did they plan to do if I turned out to be the traitor, as they imagined? They thought they could petition for my father’s help after they threw me into the shadow hell? Aengus and the others hadn’t thought this through at all.

  If the portal sealed over me, it would at least relieve them from a harrowing trial in the shadow hell. Sick as they were, I couldn’t imagine they wanted to jump into freezing waters to face possible torture. But didn’t they realize they needed my help to rid themselves of the death magic? Right now, they could hardly see beyond their own misery.

  I stared into the portal, dreading my own imminent trial. In my heart, fear twined with an insane desire to leap in.

  Aengus cleared his throat, then gestured to urge me on. The movement was interrupted by a coughing fit.

  I glanced at Nyxobas, who looked like some sort of combination of Ruadan and the god of night—Ruadan with paler skin, darker hair, and phantom horns. He loomed over the edge of the portal, tattoos slithering over his powerful body. He looked beautiful and remote at the same time—strangely alluring despite his otherworldliness. This time, when I looked down at the waters, the urge to jump in was overwhelming.

  And this was the essence of shadow magic, wasn’t it? The shadow creatures: vampires, incubi, succubi, fomoires of heartbreak…. These creatures possessed the kind of magic that lured and seduced you to your own death.

  I took a step closer to the portal, nearly ready to drop the sheet when I remembered everyone was looking on.

  I shot Aengus a sharp look. “Turn around. All of you.”

  Aengus nodded at the other Shadow Fae. Melusine gave me an encouraging nod before she turned away.

  As the rest of the Shadow Fae turned away from me, I stared into Nyxobas’s silvery eyes. I took one long breath, steadying myself.

  Then, I leapt into the portal—but I didn’t hit the water. Instead, I plummeted farther down, dropping into pure darkness. My arms lifted above my head, cold air racing over my bare skin.

  Then, I could no longer feel my body at all. It was just me and the darkness. I had no sense of up or down, no sense of horizon. Had I ever existed at all?

  Emptiness began to poison my thoughts. If I’d never been alive, then I’d never loved…. It had always been this way—just me and the darkness.

  No, no. Had I been alive once?

  It didn’t matter. I wasn’t alive now. I didn’t exist now. And now was all that mattered.

  Wisps and fragments of thoughts floated in the wind like dandelion seeds.

  Love dies when we die….

  I never loved.

  The pain of this thought hit me so intensely I was sure my mind would shatter, and the portal would close me inside forever.

  Chapter 11

  It was at that point that a new thought struck me. I could feel pain.

  I could feel. If I could feel, it meant I existed.

  I exist.

  Feeling started to return to my body, to my limbs and my fingertips and the tips of my toes. I touched my own throat, my fingers warm against my skin.

  “I exist,” I said out loud, the sound of my own voice a strange and illicit thrill, vibrations rumbling against my hand. A stony floor materialized beneath my feet, and I sighed with relief at the feeling of stability. Something solid underneath me.

  Then, a thin, silver light, like the light of the stars, washed over the space around me.

  I wasn’t naked anymore. I’d been dressed in a long, silvery gown, the fabric pure gossamer. My purple hair cascaded over bare shoulders.

  I wasn’t wearing shoes. As I walked forward, a world began to take shape around me, the contours oddly familiar. A gray cottage of rough-hewn wood, a narrow village road. Buildings wrapped in flowering vines.

  Just on the edge of the village, beyond this clearing, dark forests yawned on either side. I didn’t want to look into those woods…. It wasn’t safe there. They’d always seemed so alive to me, the trees breathing and moving, but now their trunks stood like stone sentinels ready to kill me.

  It was only safe here, in civilization. The darkness in the forests was just a little too dark, too savage.

  Why was it so empty here?

  It took me a little while to realize what I was looking at. Then, the shock of familiarity hit me.

  This was Eden—where I’d lived with my mum and dad long ago, before Ruadan had come. This was the village they’d created—the wooden homes, the elaborate stone temples, overgrown with honeysuckle and moonflowers. The perfect melding of the wild and the divine. This beautiful world was the only one I’d known in those days, before I’d leapt through the portal to London.

  Sadness pierced me as I was forced to face the truth.

  I’d killed all of them, hadn’t I? And this was my reckoning.

  That’s why the buildings were empty. Gods, I just wanted to see another living person, someone with a beating heart. Here, the loneliness was crushing.

  The sound of footfalls pattered behind me, and I whirled.

  “Hello?” I called out.

  Silence greeted me. I exhaled, walking again.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to see my old house, the one where my mum had tried to teach me to dance, where my dad had read me books in his lap. I didn’t want to see it empty and dead like these buildings. These were the carcasses of my past life.

  Footfalls again, and I turned. This time I caught a flash of pale skin, a glimpse of purple—

  My heartbeat raced. “Hello?”

  Whoever it was had disappeared around the corner of a house, and I picked up my pace to follow.

  “Who’s there?” I needed to find them. I couldn’t be alone here.

  When I rounded the next corner, I saw her—the little girl with the amber eyes; the short, purple hair that she’d cut herself. A white dress short enough to show off her skinned, dirty knees. Her mother had wanted her to wear it. She hated dresses, the way you were supposed to keep them clean and unwrinkled, and she wanted to run through the woods and pretend to hunt.

  I swallowed hard. “Liora,” I whispered.

  She giggled, then ran off into the gloom of the forest.

  “Wait!”

  I chased after her, my bare feet pounding the dirt. How could a little girl run so fast? My blood turned cold as I ran deeper into the forest. Blossoming hawthorn tre
es surrounded us, but their branches looked oddly sharp and spiked—half tree, half medieval weapon.

  She ran on the narrow path, and I tried to keep up with her. The branches scraped my skin, drawing blood like claws.

  My pulse pounded in my ears. I had to chase her. I had to tell her to be careful—that a fae cohort would come here today. A fomoire would ruin her world, and she had to be ready. I broke into a sprint.

  How the hells was she so fast?

  “Stop!” I yelled.

  Abruptly, the little girl stopped and turned to see me.

  She gaped at me, her eyes black and empty. “You don’t exist. You never did. You never loved.”

  My legs started shaking, and I felt the ground giving way beneath my feet again. A seed of understanding began to bloom in my mind. “I’m onto you.” I gritted my teeth. “You’re not a little girl. You’re not me. You’re a demon of the void.”

  At my words, her body began to shift, limbs elongating. A tall, pale demon appeared before me.

  No longer a little girl, the demon loomed over me. Silver horns jutted out from his blond hair, and his canines glinted. He wore a blue T-shirt and jeans, which seemed a bit weird for a demon.

  “Liora,” he chanted in a singsong voice. “Liora. Liora, Liora. Death poisons her aura.”

  Anger tightened my lungs, my fists clenching. As he sang, that old image rose in my mind—the one of my mum lying flat on her back, the skin around her neck discolored to a bruise purple.

  The demon’s form flickered away again. “She killed her mum, she killed her friends, and they won’t come back anymore-a.”

  Rage ignited, and I ripped a spiked branch off a tree. “That doesn’t even rhyme properly, you stupid twat!” I shrieked.

  “Liora, Liora….” He continued on with his enraging chant. He kept flickering between the tree trunks—just glimpses of his tall, pale body.

  This was a trial, wasn’t it? That meant I probably had to kill him. Good. I really wanted to kill him.

  But the more I chased him, the farther away he seemed to slip. The ground looked purple here, discolored and rotten. The color of bruises, of rotting flesh … blood stained the soil.

  If I didn’t kill this demon, I’d be trapped here forever, forced to relive my worst memories. Forced to tread on my mother’s neck.

  That’s what Hell was, wasn’t it? Nyxobas, you fucker. Was this really necessary?

  Baleros’s twentieth law of power: Bring your enemy to you.

  I stopped in my tracks, closing my eyes, catching my breath.

  Silence yawned around me. Then, the icy stroke of the demon’s fingertips up my spine sent a sharp pang of loneliness shooting through me.

  You never loved….

  I spun around, driving the spiked branch right into the demon’s heart. His hazel eyes widened with shock. There was something familiar about them….

  Dark blood poured from his chest. Then, he disintegrated like dust, and particles of his demon body floated away on the wind.

  I sighed. There. Alone again.

  I looked around me, waiting for the portal to open once more. I’d swim out of the portal water and drag Ruadan back to bed before we went off in search of my dad.

  But no portal was opening in the earth. Instead, the forest around me began to shift, the sharp lines of the trees growing softer. Then, the godsdamned blond demon appeared again, farther along down the winding forest path. He walked toward me, his smile mocking. I was sure he was about to start singing again.

  “How many times do I have to kill you?” I shouted.

  I gripped my head, my mind whirling. Maybe I’d approached this wrong. Since joining the Institute, there had been a few trials where I wasn’t supposed to kill someone. The gorta, the creepy banshee in that East London shop….

  It would be nice if someone would lay out the ground rules ahead of time, given that my first instinct was always to kill.

  I let out a long, slow breath, studying the creature before me. The closer I looked, the less it looked like he was mocking me. In fact, his strangely familiar hazel eyes looked haunted. By his pointed ears, I could tell that he wasn’t just a demon. He was at least part fae.

  “What do I know you from?” I asked.

  His mouth opened and closed mutely, and the stricken look on his face filled me with guilt.

  Then, he spoke again. “I … a darkness. I … a darkness. Dick.”

  I scratched my cheek. “Okay, friend. What am I supposed to do here?”

  “Amgggr pentagra bus hole.”

  “Yeah, I’m going to need something a little clearer.” I scrunched my nose as a seed of understanding began to bloom in my mind. “Did you used to be a fae? Have you been trapped in the demon world, slowly turning into a demon?”

  He nodded. “Stank rubs.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  He gripped me hard by the shoulders, his lip trembling. “Eternity.”

  “Literal eternity or…?”

  His fingers tightened even more. “Since you killed me.”

  I felt the world tilting beneath me, time slowing down. My mouth went dry. “I killed you. In the gladiator ring?”

  He stared down at me, the planes of his face growing more familiar.

  “Who are you?” I stammered.

  “Liora,” he whispered, his expression desperate, pleading.

  “No. What’s your name?”

  “Darkness. Mike.”

  Panic gripped me. Mike—Mike from Eden. The boy I’d chased through the forest.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I … a darkness….”

  I swallowed hard. “Right. I killed you.”

  He nodded, his grip loosening a little on my shoulders. “Nesting locks of dark. Throglint oak.” His eyes went wide, then he whispered in my ear, “Dick.”

  I swore to the gods that before he’d been in the shadow hells, he’d made sense. This place had warped him completely. Nausea rose in my gut. I’d done this to him. I’d sent him here, and he’d completely lost his mind.

  “Okay, Mike. It hasn’t been an eternity. More like a decade. I know it feels like an eternity.” I frowned. “I want to get you out of here.” I looked around the dark wood, searching for a way out. I didn’t see one.

  Nyxobas hadn’t sealed me in here, had he?

  “Any clues about how to get out?”

  “Infestations demon Tznaia Amman roots, deathling open door. Darkness.” He was speaking a pidgin demon language. Gibberish.

  Or was it gibberish?

  “Please.” He kept his hands on my shoulders. “Miracle. Deathling.”

  Deathling open door.

  “Where is the door?” I asked.

  “Deathling,” he repeated.

  The gods of death had dominion over the dead. I could open the door.

  I’d already seen that my own thoughts could influence the space around me. The less empty I felt, the more power I had. I closed my eyes, thinking of Ruadan and the floral crown he’d given me in Emain. This time, I rewrote the script, imagining that I’d taken the wreath from him. In this version of the story, I put the wreath on my head.

  Warmth spread through my chest, and I stepped away from Demented Mike.

  When I opened my eyes again, I felt Ruadan’s electrifying presence around me, and I smelled the scent of pine. I felt loved.

  Then, I willed the ground before me to cleave open. Dark, churning waters rose from the forest soil, and a portal ripped open the forest floor.

  I grabbed Demented Mike around the waist, and I pulled him into the water with me.

  Chapter 12

  Catching my breath in the air, I hoisted myself out of the freezing portal. I clawed my way onto the grass, then frantically turned to reach into the cold water for one of Mike’s long limbs. I grasped his arm, clutching on tight, and I dragged him out of the portal. He gasped, holding onto the portal’s grassy rim. Mike’s dark eyes were wide with wonder at the stars above
us.

  I tried to ignore the fact that I was completely starkers once more, and that all the male Shadow Fae were staring at me right now. I sat on the grass and folded my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them.

  Aengus frowned at me, folding his arms. “Okay. Okay. So Nyxobas let you back. You’re not the traitor. Now, who the hells have you brought back with you? And must you always bring back these wretches from the hell worlds?”

  “He’s an old and dear friend,” I said, conveniently omitting the part about that time I’d killed him and sent him to the shadow hell. I hugged my legs tightly to my chest.

  From behind, I felt a sheet wrap around my body, and I looked up at Ruadan. It was him again, his eyes violet. The god of night had left us for now.

  “Well,” said Aengus, “that’s the first one over.”

  I glared at him. “Are you going to admit that you were wrong about me being a traitor and that you owe me an apology?”

  Aengus rolled his eyes. “Fine.” His tone was exasperated. “I’m sorry I said you were a traitor and that we should rip out your entrails in a painful execution. You’re still an abomination, though, and I make no apologies for that view.” His forehead wrinkled with consternation. “Is it just me, or are the youth of today particularly sensitive about things? Snowflakes, the lot of you.”

  With every interaction, I was starting to grow more certain that Aengus was the traitor. I fought the urge to just push him right into the portal and watch Nyxobas claim his soul.

  Barry raised his hand. “Just to clarify, we don’t all need to go in, do we? I’m only a recruit, so obviously I’m not a part of this.”

  “Everyone in the Institute,” said Aengus. “Until we find our traitor.”

  Barry paled. It was, after all, a terrifying prospect to leap into a hell world where we were forced to reckon with past sins. Barry would probably be subject to a torturous Neanderthal routine.

  I stood, holding the sheet tight around myself, and started to cross to Ruadan.

  But as I took a step toward him, pale light began beaming from his eyes once more, and his tattoos slid over his powerful forearms, his chest, his muscled thighs. I tried not to think about how sexy he looked right now. The world of magic was always strange, but lusting after your lover while his grandfather’s spirit inhabited his body crossed some sort of line even for me.