I swallowed hard and allowed her access.
Charlotte materialized in front of me.
“Hey,” I greeted her, trying to muster up a smile, but my heart wasn’t in the greeting at all.
“Reed!” Her lips puffed out into a pout as she rushed over to me, her red curls flying behind her. “I’ve missed you so much! It feels like I never see you anymore since you started that academy.” Herarms slid around my neck, but I still couldn’t hug her back like usual, and my arms stayed frozen at my sides.
The same wave of disgust coursed through me as it did last time she’d hugged me, and I recoiled, stumbling backward. “Sorry. I just, I don’t know. I don’t feel good.”
Her green eyes widened, and her lips curved into a frown. “You don’t feel good? What’s wrong?”
Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded.
“No, you’re not,” she murmured, her voice soft but not as soft as Pandora’s. Charlotte’s smooth voice missed the rasp that Pandora’s held, and it was something that I loved to hear. “We’re best friends, Reed. Talk to me.”
“I just—I can’t get Pandora out of my head,” I admitted, face heating with embarrassment. I’d talked to Charlotte about anything and everything in the past, but for some reason, it felt wrong to talk about Pandora with her. I didn’t know why.
“The noble?”
“Yes.” I felt myself smiling, and then my words just tumbled out, making me sound like a lovesick fool. “She’s beautiful and kind, and she’s captured not only my waking thoughts. I’ve even brought her here without even thinking about it. She was here already when I came last time, and it was the best thing ever. We talked.”
I could see Charlotte’s face tighten, her discomfort tangible, so I stopped myself from rambling about Pandora. “Sorry, I’m definitely rambling.”
“Why do you even care about her?” Her question was sharp.
I found myself hesitating, my mind a storm of reasons I couldn't fully articulate, but there were a lot of them. “She's amazing. I feel a connection to her, something I can't explain.”
Her expression darkened. “Reed, I’ve known you for a long time, and it sounds like that noble bewitched you. Has she given you anything? Maybe she gave you a love charm or something.”
“What?” I reared back, blinking in surprise. “No, of course not! And she hasn’t given me anything.”
“Maybe she slipped something into your bag when you weren’t looking,” she insisted, her eyes wild. “There’s no way you would just fall at her feet like this.”
“Fall at her feet?” I chuckled, running a hand over my face. “Come on, Charlotte, that’s not…I mean, I like her, okay? Is that so wrong?”
“It’s wrong if she’s involved with…dark magic!” Her arms stretched out as she flapped them around in exaggeration.
“What? No,” I said, taken aback once again. “Why would you say something like that?”
She shrugged, her gaze shifting away. “I’m just saying it’s unnatural for you to be, like, obsessed with someone so quickly. Um, how’s your mom?”
“Mom?” I mumbled, furrowing my brows and trying to breathe out the anger that flushed through me at her questioning Pandora. The Fates were the reason I had started liking her so much; I knew it in my soul. “She called me today, actually.”
She looked up at me with concern and reached out to grab my arm comfortingly, an action that never bothered me so much. “What about?”
I shrugged her hand off and started walking through the cloudy haze and around the trees until I could see the galaxy in the sky and glanced up. I felt her next to me, so I didn’t bother to check if she was still there. “I don’t know. Something about Dad and a void? I just don't know what to make of it.”
Charlotte sucked in a sharp breath before dissipating out of my dreamscape without a goodbye, something sheneverhas done before. Her departure was as abrupt as a snuffed candle flame in the dead of night.
Alone in my safe place, I felt my soul reach out for Pandora’s, seeking the solace of her presence. But she wasn’t there, not among thedreaming, and the void her absence left was palpable.
Maybe that had been what Mom meant? That Dad left a void in her heart? That made more sense than anything else.
27
PANDORA
Darkness pressed in around me like a suffocating blanket made of my greatest fears. If my instincts didn’t scream at me that I was wrong, I would think Skel was somehow behind it. But fear demons didn’t have the power of a drude or dream demon, and I distinctly remembered falling asleep.
