At once, a silver-masked girl with golden brown skin and hair braided like a crown emerged from the left passage, wearing black robes lined in silver. An Evernight scholar, I assumed, based on her intelligent, appraising eyes and the quiet, confident way she carried herself. She appeared to be my age, if not younger, and I found myself wondering which Weaver she had pledged herself to. Ceres? Theia? I bit the inside of my cheek, undecided. I had no way of knowing what her gifts were, so guessing would be useless.
“Welcome to Evernight, dreamer. My name is Aris,” she said, regarding me with polite curiosity. It was different from the curiosity of the gatekeeper, or the judgmental crowd. “Please, follow me. I can escort you personally.” She nodded to the Shadow Bringer, as if her escorting me was a personal favor. “Have a glorious Revel, Lord Erebus. Ceveon and Sorren are inside.”
The Bringer’s face twisted into cold indifference. “Of course they would be.”
Maybe he would have said more, but Aris gently touched my arm straightaway, cuing me forward. Evernight gleamed overhead, beckoningme to experience something that was only available through the pages of a storybook. Yet still I hesitated.
I should be excited, I told myself. Elliot would be excited. Eden would have been, too.
I looked at the Shadow Bringer one final time, perhaps seeking his approval or reassurance, but he didn’t notice me. He was too busy glaring at Evernight as though it was a foe to be conquered, killed, or strangled with his bare hands.
I turned back to the passage, frustrated.
Maybe I was right to be worried after all.
The moment I stepped over the threshold and into Evernight, a warm breeze licked my boots, curled around my legs, and skimmed my back. Then it cupped my face, examining me, before whisking through my hair and away to something else.
“What was that?”
Aris squeezed my elbow. “It’s Evernight. It does that to dreamers—skims their bodies and reads their minds. Like a thorough guard. Or nosy grandmother.”
“Bizarre,” I breathed, wondering what Evernight saw when it examined me. Did it know that I was from a different time? Did it even care? I glanced around, half expecting to see eyes on the walls.
“When it first happened to me, it felt similar to the attentions of a curious dog,” she said, chuckling softly. “But don’t be alarmed—it happens to all of us. To some, every time. For others, just once and never again.”
“What does it do if it doesn’t like what it finds?” I asked.
Aris shrugged. “That depends. Evernight could deny you entry or throw you out. Or it might steal your secrets and deliver them straight to one of the Seven.”
I did not like the sound of that.
“So did I pass its test, then?”
“Possibly. But sometimes Evernight chooses to do nothing, even if it questions your origins or intent.”
Before I could ask more questions, the passage opened into an excessively opulent chamber. My eyes burned from the brightness of it, just as my nose burned from the smell. Jasmine, lemon, rose, pear, vanilla. Other things that I couldn’t name. Things I had never smelled before but wanted to. Vanity mirrors lined the walls, each with its own golden chair, and botanical arrangements in glass vases sat between each mirror, growing so long and unruly that they trailed to the floor, eventually crossing stems and growing into intricate shapes, whorls, and paths.
Aris stood by me as I stepped to the side, watching as women in an array of colorful dresses, each more gaudy and more intricate than the next, filed in. They chatted excitedly among themselves, taking their seats in front of the mirrors. Once they were seated, male and female scholars, dressed in black with the silver insignia of Evernight on their robes, at once began assessing and altering the women’s appearances. It was a kind of magic that only a dream could produce—instant changes of hair color, makeup, adornments, clothing—and I couldn’t help staring. It was fascinating, and most scholars needed only a minute to work their magic.
One minute of concentration and anything was possible.
Hair of all colors, textures, and lengths was shaped into elegant styles without a single pin. Dresses were shortened, fabric loosened, colors lightened into ivory, rose, and peach. Masks were added last. And while the dresses, makeup, and hair varied from woman to woman, every mask had the same ornate design: carved ivory, inlaid feathers, and rows of delicate beadwork lining the edges. Despite the masks, the women looked lighter as they left the chamber. Unburdened.
Well,mostof them.
“Hideous. This color doesn’t suit me at all,” a woman at the mirror complained. She pinched her skin as she examined her eyes, lips, andcheeks. Her scowl deepened the longer she looked. “Sorren always used a shade darker—less plum, more berry.” The attending scholar brushed a hand over the woman’s face, delicate as a breeze, and the makeup changed. I had thought it looked fine before. But the woman smiled, finally pleased. “There. I look beautiful now, don’t I?”
The scholar nodded, bowed quickly, then promptly moved on to the next dreamer.
“He probably thinks he’s too good for this work now,” another woman remarked. A scholar was in the middle of fixing her hair into a loose braid atop her head. “You saw how he looked at us the last time. Pride is such a sin.”
The first woman rolled her eyes, adjusting her flowing skirts as she rose. “And an unhoused dreamer is still unhoused, no matter what friends they keep. One would think Sorren would understand that by now.”
“One would think,” the second woman echoed. Her attendant finished her hair, and she beamed at herself in the mirror. “Lovely.” To the first woman, she said sweetly, “Have a glorious Revel.”
The woman returned her saccharine smile. “And a glorious Revel to you, too.”
Aris gestured at a chair to my left.
