“It could be fabricated,” I reply.
Galen sighs heavily like a child who’s had his new toy taken away from him. “I suppose it could explain our strange bond with her. If she was sent here to mess with us.”
I go on. “Like I said earlier, everyone should keep away from her.”
Galen gives Raith a look, before turning back to me. “Now, that I can’t promise, but I will be sure to keep my senses alert around her. And if that’s all, I’ll be on my way. Raith, how about we go get a drink?”
My brother hesitates. I can tell he wants to continue arguing. For years, there’s been a sort of peace between us. Not forgiveness, but perhaps, understanding? But this new student…she’s lifted old wounds and brought painful memories back to the surface. I glower at the thought, because it’s exactly what adark entity would want. To weaken us from inside the academy. And if she’s not a spy, it changes nothing. She’s upset our balance. If I could send her back to the human realm I would. If only so we could all find that sense of false peace again. But letting the dreamcrawlers take care of her is an even more effective solution.
Galen waves his hand, and a swarm of shadows gathers in front of him. Without another word, he steps into them.
Whatever Raith was about to say, he thinks better of it. “Comin’,” he mutters to Galen, and he spares Thane and me one last glance before disappearing into the shadows.
Chapter Fifteen
~ Shade ~
Darkness. That’s all I see at first. All-consuming darkness that has no end. It takes me a long while to realize it’s because my eyes are closed, and I’m in some weird semi-comatose state. I’m vaguely aware of a blistering heat that comes from someone as I’m lowered onto something soft, a bed I’m guessing, but I still can’t open my eyes. I can’t get my mind to cooperate and move my body.
I hear Kenzie fuss over me as the heat fades, leaving in its wake a frigid cold, and then it’s only silence around me.
Well, this is just great. What did Knox do to me?I can still feel the bone-weary exhaustion, and now on top of that I can’t wake up?Did Knox paralyze me? When they’d been throwing the word ‘replenish’ around, I’d thought the professors were going to heal me or something, but I still feel broken.
As much as I tell myself not to freak out, my mind spirals, and for some time, I’m simply left with my spinning thoughts. I’m just coming to the conclusion that Knox is torturing meagain, when I feel my mind slipping, falling, practically tripping over itself as it hurtles into a dream. It’s the weirdest sensation. I’ve neverfeltmyself fall into a dream before, but that’s what it feels like. As if I’m moving from some weird in-between state and tumbling into the dreamworld.
I recall what Kenzie had said about some of the students. That a few were taken by dreamcrawlers. I have no idea what that means, but if I could shiver right now, I would.
The darkness around me lightens, changing to a gray landscape, and I’m surprised when my body comes into view, and I find myself standing on a patch of ash-colored grass. Well, a dream-version of myself, anyway. Stretching my ghostly fingers, I try to pinch my arm to wake myself up. I don’t think it’ll do anything, but I yelp when there’s a sting of pain.Oh, crap. Well, that can’t be good.I’ve never heard of dreams where you can feel pain.What the hell?
The landscape changes around me, and a number of headstones come into view. It takes me a moment to realize why they seem so familiar, but then it dawns on me that I know this graveyard. I’ve been dreaming about it on and off since the day I became human again. I walk to the closest gravestone. It’s simple with a peony flower design etched near the top of the arch, and cursive text is carved into the stone beneath.
In all my other dreams I’ve never been able to read the text, but this time I can make out:
Alina Moore
Cherished, loved, but never forgotten
There’s more writing beneath that, but I can’t make it out no matter how hard I squint at the symbols and letters. I stand there for a long time staring at the words Icanread.Alina Moore. Cherished, loved, but never forgotten.I keep thinking ofthose words, and I almost jump when something wet drops onto my hand. It takes me a moment to realize I’m crying, and silent tears are streaming down my cheeks.
Never forgotten.Something presses against the edges of my mind. It’s like there’s a memory desperate to break through, but the harder I try to grab for it, the more it slips away.
Never forgotten.My chest pangs, my heart aching for this person I can’t remember. Someone had loved them so deeply that they’d etched those words, but going by the dead vines covering the gravestone, I’m guessing this person was forgotten after all.
I wonder if it’s a family member of mine. Someone my subconscious is trying to get me to remember.Or maybe, this is your grave.The chilling thought makes me feel ill. It’s not the first time I’ve had this thought. That maybe I somehow died and was brought back as a crow. Is my name Alina? Alina Moore?
A high-pitched whistling noise fills the air, and I think I glimpse multiple eyes staring at me from the darkness, when the scene around me changes again, the graveyard fading away.
I gasp as I’m thrown into a memory from not too long ago. I’m in the demon realm during the most recent war. It’s the time when I was turned human…
Blake’s long, black hair flies around her face, her expression filled with sorrow as she talks to the demon king, and I watch on in my crow form, my feathers ruffled and the wind pushing against my small body as I fly in the air above them.
I want to help even though fear rattles through my system. On the other side of the rooftop far below, a dark entity, Reselle, is standing there with a cruel smile that stretches across her face. The possessed being turns her sights onto me, her eyes shining with dark intent, and before I realize what’s happening, she sends a blast of power my way.
“Blake!”I cry out in my friend’s mind as Reselle’s magic crashes into my small form, the force making me fall to the rooftop. I roll, my wings battering against the stone, and a searing pain rips through me. It’s as if all my feathers are on fire while I’m being torn apart, cleaved into separate little pieces. My feathers fall from me, and my body contorts and reshapes, growing in size until I’m no longer a crow… I’m…human.
Reselle cackles like she’s proud of her accomplishment, and Blake stares at me like I’m a stranger.
“Blake?” My lips tremble.Lips.Lifting my hand, I brush my new fingertips against my mouth. Not a beak. A freakingmouthwith lips and everything. “What? I-I’m not a crow,” I stammer, staggering as I stand.
