A nightmare… or a living hell through his eyes? I need it to be the latter.
Because over the last few days, I’ve practised flitting.
I knew I could do it—I’d done it before, to the cave—but that didn’t make it easy.
Holding an image, breathing it in, then letting go. At first it was simple: bed to bathroom, bathroom to hallway, short little hops until the dots stopped flooding my vision and I could stay steady. Sometimes it felt less like learning, more like surrender, or instinct.
I couldn’t flit far, couldn’t risk them noticing, so I pushed my resilience instead. Flitting over and over, faster and faster, until my body stopped rebelling at the shift. Until the panic dulled and I could trust myself not to unravel.
And all of it has been for this, for a place I’ve never stood, only seen through Julien’s eyes. Kacey told me you can only flit places you’ve been, but what about places you’veseenfrom another?
It could go terribly wrong. It might not work at all. But I have to try.
Gripping the small rock beneath my blouse, hoping Sai’s darkness can help, I imagine it.
Breathe. Repeat it. Breathe. Relive every detail I can remember...
And I flit.
Chapter 22: Jasmine
Intense heat. Distant pops and crackles. The ground rumbles.
I open my eyes.
At first, my vision is blotched with black, fragments of shadow drifting across everything. I blink, and slowly it clears to reveal a wide circle stretching out before me. Miles ahead, scarlet flames writhe, gigantic and alive, their tips vanishing into the never-ending dark above. They pulse like a heartbeat, rising, falling, forever resurrecting.
I look behind me, the same.
At least I landed on something solid: a long, narrow pathway of black stone, barely wide enough for three people, slicing straight across the circle’s centre. To my left and right, there’s nothing, only darkness. I peer over the edge, hoping for a stairway, another level—just an endless drop.
A pit.
An abyss yawning below and an empty void above. Behind me and ahead, the flames keep burning, hemming me in.
It’s like my nightmare, only worse.
This time, there’s no waking up. I’m trapped. There’s nowhere to go, but into the darkness or into the fire—
A flicker of movement catches my eye. I scan the edges, nothing but walls of flame… until something small, something eerily familiar, a thin stretch of shadow, small and serpentine, gliding out of the fire and towards me.
“You?” I gasp. The little creature blinks up at me with empty yet curious eyes. “Why are you here?”
It doesn’t answer, of course it doesn’t, its forked tongue flicks. Maybe it can understand, but maybe I’m just not asking the right things.
“Is Julien here?”
Its head tilts, inspecting me. I push harder, try sending an image of Julien from the last time I saw him, at breakfast. When his darkness was spilling over, with hunger in his stare, fangs bared—
The snake slithers closer but I step back, remembering what happened the first time we touched.
It pauses, lowering its little head, and I swear it looks disappointed.
Great, I’ve upset a smudge of shadow by not letting it fill me with darkness again.
“I’m sorry, Smudge.” Its head snaps up, the tip of its tail twitching. I smile. “You like that name? Smudge?”
It sways side to side, and I find myself laughing.
