Ungrateful. All of them.
I slid open the top drawer of my desk and dug the tin pencil case out from the clutter at the back. The threads I stole from the Weaver that night in the storage unit thrashed inside, desperately hoping I would release them. How I wished I could. The only thing stopping me was myself, but that was more than enough. However much I longed to absorb their tiny scraps of power, the memory of the threads from the loom clinging violently to my arm was stronger. Sometimes I could still feel where they circled my wrist like a manacle. I pressed the cool metal of the tin against my chest and shut my eyes. Soon, I promised. I’ll take you home soon.
Suddenly, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Something was in the room with me, watching as it had on and off all day. Something familiar and right, but also perverse. Painful. My pulse thundered, but I was the Weaver now. Lady of Nightmares. The girl who was supposed to fear nothing. I forced myself to open my eyes, and every last cell in my body froze.
A girl in a threadbare white shift crouched on the desk in front of me. Her knobby knees bent up to her ears, her unusually long shins bare and covered in deep black veins. Chocolate brown eyes stared at me through horizontal pupils. “Hello, Lady.” Her voice was a stilted, crackling thing as if she hadn’t spoken in years. “Do they want to play?”
Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid. “W-what?” I croaked.
The creature reached out and gently scratched the pencil case with a long, jagged nail. I held my breath, not daring to move. Thick, fanned lashes rose and fell as she blinked. “Wicked, wicked Lady.”
Sweat beaded on my forehead, and my knuckles turned white around the tin. What was she doing here? How was she here? The nightmares were supposed to be trapped in the Night World. That was the entire reason the Weaver did what he did—to get the secret to releasing his creatures into this world. If they could pop over whenever they wanted, it was all pointless. But it couldn’t be pointless. People had died in the name of his failed mission. There had to be a logical explanation. I sat up straighter and squared my shoulders while my insides screamed to run. “What are you doing here?” I asked in my most authoritative voice. After all, if I couldn’t face one of them in my own bedroom, there was no way I could face an entire realm.
She tapped her fingertips absently over her head of wild, crimped hair. “I’m stuck.”
“You’re stuck?” I glared at her as the grin inside me turned into a deep frown, setting off tiny explosions of envy and anger. “How so?”
“Came before the walls.” She sniffed. “Now I can’t get back. So, I’m stuck, you see. Like you, Lady Nightmare. I can show you how to survive here. Would you like that? It’s easy. You simply—”
“No,” I blurted. “I’m going back, and you should too.”
A smirk crept slowly over her face, not reaching her eyes. “Oh yes, Lady. I would like that very much. The last Weaver did not care to help a poor thing like me. Do you know how to take me with you? That’s very simple too.”
“I—” Heat rose in my cheeks. I didn’t even know how to get myself back. “Who are you, exactly?”
“I have many names, Lady.” She took a step across the desk, her knee bones shifting at odd angles beneath her skin to accommodate her crouched walk.
Don’t back away. Don’t give an inch. “Pick one.”
The nightmare licked her parched, cracked lips. “Mara.”
“It doesn’t ring a bell. What are you the nightmare of, exactly?”
“I was never assigned a particular occupation, though I have my preferred methods of entertainment. Did the Weaver force nightmares to be one thing? It wasn’t like that before the Night World became separate from the Day World, but, stuck as I am, I know very little about what home is like now.”
Something inside me twisted in warning, but I ignored it. She said before the worlds were separate, which meant they weren’t separate entities at one point. How long ago was that? Long enough that the Sandman didn’t think to mention it—not that I should use that to gauge anything. It’s not like we had time for intensive history lessons.
“Are there others trapped here?” I asked.
“We are solitary creatures.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That’s not an answer.”
Her facial muscles spasmed, her smile strained. “The Sandman dealt with everyone the Weaver released a few years ago.”
“I see.” That wasn’t an answer either. I stood and placed the pencil case back in the drawer. “I’m not leaving for a few weeks. Come back then.”
“Why wait, Lady? You’re growing weaker every day, just as I am. Your magic should have been completely absorbed within a week, and yet your arms look as if they’ve been dipped in paint.”
Weaker? But I was training. Preparing. The Sandman wouldn’t let me stay if it hurt my chances of protecting myself. The truth of her words hit home, though—I felt it in every ache. But the magic. How would she know the length of time it took to absorb it if the Weaver had always been the Weaver? Focus, Nora. I had to get rid of her before my thoughts spiraled.
“I have things to take care of first,” I said. “Not that I need to explain myself to you.”
Mara hummed. “As you say, Lady Nightmare. But if you want to go back sooner, I can help.”
“You should leave.” I crossed the room and pulled aside the curtains, then tucked my quaking hands behind me. There was no chance I was leaving her in the Day World to torment anyone. The mere thought of her touching me made me shiver—I could only imagine what she did to mortals. “I’ll let you know when it’s time to go.”
Mara leapt off the desk with surprising dexterity and crept toward me. She barely came up to my waist in her crouched stance. “Call for me, and I’ll hear you.” She jumped onto the sill and paused, balancing effortlessly. “Don’t forget.”
Then she shoved herself out the window. I stuck my head out after her, knowing she wouldn’t purposely splatter herself on the side lawn but needing to be sure. She landed gracefully beside the fence between my house and Natalie’s, then did a frog-like leap into the woods behind the backyard. I stared after her as sweat poured down my neck. The nightmares I’d met in the Nightmare Realm were terrible, but none of them had chilled my blood like Mara. There was something about her—an ancient, foreboding aura.
A light flicked on next door in Natalie’s room, and I slammed my window shut with a startled gasp. My back met the wall beside the curtains, and I wished—oh, how I wished—I could disappear into them. My best friend’s mother had a new nightly ritual that gutted me. Turn on the light. Sit on Natalie’s bed. Smell her pillow. There might have been more after that, but that was as much as I was able to watch. I gripped the fabric of my shirt over my heart and pressed down on the pain. It was my fault Natalie was dead. No matter what anyone told me, I knew it was. I slid down the wall and buried my head in my knees.
All I could do to avenge my friends, I had done.
All I could do to protect the people I was leaving behind, I would do.
Even if that meant taking Mara back with me despite the tiny voice in the back of my head screaming not to.
5
The Sandman
Sneaking around to see Nora at night was a new experience, one I wasn’t exactly fond of. Instead of her simply falling asleep—a perfectly normal human function—and arriving at the beach, I had to turn my gaze inward to her family’s cords. Then I had to wait until they glowed brightly enough that there was no fear of anyone waking so I could follow one of them to Nora’s house. As if voyeurism wasn’t bad enough, creeping into Nora’s room made me feel like a criminal.
I stood in the hallway at one a.m. with one hand pressed against Nora’s closed door. Her anxiety pulsed through from the other side. I felt it constantly, sometimes mixed with other feelings—anger or fear, mostly, but always with the buzz of nerves. I sucked in a breath. Maybe tonight would help, even if it was only for a little while. Seeing her happy was worth everything.
My stomach churned, and I slipped into the dark room, shutting the door with a quiet click.
“Hey.” Nora didn’t look up, her pencil scratching furiously over paper in the moonlight.
“Hi.” Hope fluttered to life. She hadn’t picked up her colored pencils since—since before. “You’re drawing again?”
Her shoulders tensed. “No,” she said after a moment.
Disappointment swept the hope away faster than it had come. “Are you busy then?” I asked when she continued to focus on the notebook.
“Not particularly.” After a few seconds more, she set the pencil down and splayed her hands on the desk. A list ran the full length of the paper, more than half the notes crossed off. “I’m sorry about the way I treated you earlier. It wasn’t right for me to overreact like that.”
“You’re under a lot of pressure right now,” I said, taken slightly aback. She lost her temper more often these days, though not as badly as she had today, and we always pretended it didn’t happen. I understood why she would be cranky trapped in the Day World, unable to sleep and in constant pain.
“That’s not an excuse.” Her shoulders relaxed, and she stood to face me. “It’s been a hard day.”
I knew. The spikes of hatred I felt earlier told me she’d had another incident with her mother. After the phone call during training, I half expected it, which was why tonight was even more important. I held out a hand with a sheepish smile. “Come with me.”
Nora glanced over her shoulder at the window, then back at the paper. A flicker of doubt crossed her face. “Where?”
“It’s a surprise,” I said playfully. Her gold eyes stared, unblinking, as she chewed her bottom lip. The smile fell from my face. “Nora?”
“Sorry.” She let out a quick breath. “I’m trying to figure out what I still need to do before I leave.”
My eyes flicked back to the open notebook. Everything was already taken care of—a fake internship with her late father’s company in New York, complete with a fake address and a working phone number where her mother could leave messages for us to return later. I estimated it would be at least two months before they suspected anything was amiss. All that was left was to pack a bag to keep up appearances, and even that wasn’t completely necessary.
“Can I help?” I asked.
“No.” A crease formed between her brows. “Maybe. I’ll let you know when I’m done thinking it all through.”
I took her hand and laced our fingers together. “Let me give you something in the meantime.”
“Oh? The surprise is a present?” She perked up and squeezed my hand. “Tell me it’s food, because I could eat a horse right now.”
“You’ll see,” I teased.
She smiled and followed me quietly through the house. The excitement made it hard to move with any real stealth. Nora was going to love it. At least, I hoped so. As we turned toward the kitchen at the bottom of the stairs, something rustled in the living room, and I froze. The blue glow of the TV showed an unfamiliar boy slumped on the couch with Katie’s head on his lap, asleep.
Nora bumped into my back, then followed my gaze and groaned. “Just go,” she whispered.
The boy laughed and clawed the air with one hand, mimicking an angry cat. “Careful with that one,” the stranger warned benevolently.
I scowled, but Nora nudged me forward. I paused at the back door and pressed the code into the alarm system before swiping an open bag of potato chips from the counter. “I didn’t know your sister was home.”
“Yeah. You’re not the only one with a surprise tonight,” she said sarcastically.
I hadn’t bothered to check Katie’s cord while she was away at college. I doubted she would tell their parents if Nora snuck out, but it was better to play it safe. “Who’s with her?”
“Don’t ask.”
I glanced back at the living room where the guy laughed quietly at something on the screen. Nora was right—I shouldn’t ask. Nothing mattered tonight except her. Not the Night World, not magic, not training. Just us.
Nora slipped on a pair of flip-flops left on the patio, and we crossed the backyard to the small shed nestled against a pine tree. I lifted the ladder off the hooks screwed into the siding and propped it against the edge of the roof. “Wait here a minute. Hold these,” I added, pressing the chips into her hand.
She wrinkled her nose. “Is this some sort of test?”
“No.” Though I could see why she thought that. The last time I dragged her out in the middle of the night was to train after a rather grueling week in the Nightmare Realm. I grazed her cheek with my thumb. “Trust me.”
I hurried onto the roof and emptied handfuls of sand onto the shingles, forming it into the perfect nest. A thick, down-filled comforter to lay on with an array of pillows and another heavy blanket, big enough to cover us both. There was only one thing missing, but first… “Close your eyes,” I said, peeking down at Nora.
“What?” Her gaze darted to the woods, then back at me. “Why?”
My chest panged. She was still afraid of shadows, and who could blame her? But there was nothing to fear now. Not tonight. “Please?”
She hesitated before complying. I stared at her a moment, taking in each freckle. Warmth radiated through my body, flushing my cheeks. Did anyone in the world love a girl more than I loved her? It didn’t seem possible. If someone told me years ago that the Dream Keeper and I would have feelings for each other, I would’ve laughed at them. She was only meant to serve a purpose, not become the most important thing in my personal life. We became friends one night at a time, despite my attempts to keep distance between us, and then it happened. One night I looked at her, smiling and laughing as she told me about something that happened at school, and new emotions bulldozed me. It took half a second, and I was done for without even knowing I was in danger. But what a wonderful danger to be in.
A warm grin spread across my face as I emptied the rest of the sand onto the blankets. With one upward motion, it soared into the sky and hovered, waiting.
“You can come up now,” I called softly.
The ladder creaked almost instantly. It took all my self-control not to rush her, and when her blonde hair popped up over the edge, my heart did somersaults. Her lips parted in a wary smile. “What’s this?” she asked, patting the blankets.
I held out my hand to help her off the last rung. Once she was on the roof, I lowered myself onto the blankets. She eased down beside me and immediately snuggled into my side. A small groan sounded in my throat before I could stop it. No matter how many times she was close to me, the heat of her skin meeting the heat of mine felt like the first time. It was the most precious feeling in the world to have her pressed into me like I was her anchor. I pulled the top blanket up around us before settling down and loosening a breath. Nora stared at me in the way I always wished she would, but the gold of her eyes was an unwelcome reminder that her feelings might not survive her reign.
When she closed the distance between our lips, I drank her in as if she was the last oasis in the desert. Her hands wound around my neck, and I cupped her face. I kissed her until I was drunk from it. Until everything else fell away, and all I knew was the feel of her. Until the moment a kiss wasn’t all I wanted. I pulled back then, because a kiss was all I could allow myself until our relationship stood on undeniably solid ground. If Nora regretted things later, it would crush me a thousand times worse than a thousand kisses ever could.
I pressed my forehead to hers. When my pulse slowed and my breath calmed, I nudged my magic toward the sand hovering overhead and brought my lips to her ear. “Nora?”
“Hmm?” she answered, content.
“I brought you the stars.”
She twisted in my arms and gasped. Above us danced a million glimmering stars as bright and brilliant as the ones above the Dream Realm. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks, dripping on my hand where I propped myself up. “Thank you,” she breathed.
I kissed her tears away, catchi
ng the ones that escaped with my thumbs. Then I kissed her nose, her mouth, her neck, until it felt as if we were glowing just as brightly under our blanket.
“Tell me something,” she said when I finally put some space between us again. “Something I don’t know yet that isn’t about dreams or nightmares or magic.”
Those three things took up my entire life. What could I tell her that was new? Not that George Washington dreamed of cheese almost every night or that children used to call to me for more than sleep. They wanted stories and, for awhile, I would agree to short ones on the beach, spinning tales before sending them into blissful slumber. Centuries had passed since, but those were other tales of dreams and magic.
“Before you, I never felt real,” I admitted reverently. “I was simply a legend. Even when people believed in my existence, that was all people thought of me—that I brought good dreams. They didn’t see me as an individual. As a person, like you do.”
“Of course you’re a person,” she said defensively. “Different, maybe, but in the ways that count, you’re more human than a lot of us are.”
Nora’s hair slipped between my fingers, smooth as silk, and I lifted another lock. Hopefully she was right. Everything seemed so much heavier than the burdens placed on a mortal. Balancing the Day and Night Worlds wasn’t easy to do alone. Nora snuggled into my side, and peace flowed through me. I wasn’t alone. Not anymore.
“Stay here with me tonight?” she asked. “Like old times.”
I lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “I wouldn’t leave for anything in the world.”
Dawn broke much too soon. I released the magic holding the stars and eased my arm out from beneath Nora’s head. “I have to get back.” I kissed her, slow and lingering. “And you have to get inside before anyone wakes up.”
She stretched out on the blankets with a sleepy grin. “I don’t have to.”
“We have training later,” I reminded her, tracing a line down her side. She jerked away, laughing, when I brushed against the ticklish spot above her hip. “I won’t be gone long.”
Dark Consort Page 4
