“Em, are you all right?”
Emory opened her eyes to see Romie frowning at her. The worry in her voice had her plastering on a smile. “Yeah. That magic just took a toll on me, I guess.”
The promise they’d made earlier left a bitter taste in her mouth.No secrets.But this wasn’t entirely a lie.
Surely that made it okay.
5ROMIE
ROMIE WAS DREAMING AGAIN.
The sleepscape was strange and foreign to her here, as if being in another world strained her connection to it. It was still the same dark expanse, but there was a distinctive quality to the stars that made themfeeldifferent. Romie could tell the dreams they bore belonged to the witches, for they left in her the impression of earth beneath her feet, the scent of rain and moss in her nose. Their dreams were tinged green, as if they carried the woods in their souls even in sleep.
She’d never noticed how dreams in her own world were imbued with sea salt and brine, the faint scent of iron and copper, as if the sweetness of blood—of magic—made up the very fabric of people’s subconscious. Only now that she was here did she miss it.
One thing remained steadfastly the same: the song woven between the stars. It anchored her. She could trust that she remained on the right path so long as she still heard the call of her destiny, this song tethered to her soul.
Romie knew Emory wanted nothing more than to return home, and though Romie herself yearned to see her brother again and her parents and Dusk and Nisha—Nisha, whom she thought about constantly, knowing the Wychwood had been her favorite part of Clover’s story—she couldn’t turn from this path now. Not after everything she’d lost to get here, the relationships she’d let burn to ashes in her wake.
She wasn’t one to dwell on past mistakes. What was done was done. To turn back now would mean Travers, Lia, Jordyn, and all the other Selenic Order initiates would have died in vain. To turn back now would mean she had broken things off with Nisha for nothing, when together they could have beeneverything.
The only way was forward.
Romie walked through the sleepscape with purpose, her feet guiding her to that one star that always shone brighter than the rest. She was called to it the same way that song called to her. Even when she tried to avoid it, she felt that she couldn’t, nor did she particularly want to.
Aspen’s dreams were always lovely, rich with the life of the forest she was intricately tied to.
But tonight Romie paused before slipping into her dreaming. There was a second star shining just as bright beside Aspen’s, tugging on Romie’s soul in a similar manner.
Without hesitation, Romie reached for this second star, knowing who it might belong to.
It occurred to her only once she had stepped into Bryony’s dream that what she’d find here might not be so peaceful after what happened at the ascension. Romie braced for the worst, thinking whatever had possessed Bryony might be lingering here in her sleep. But what she found was laughter and merriment, the rich taste of chocolate sneaked out of the kitchens by younger versions of Bryony and Aspen.
No demonic possession here.
But there was a different sort of darkness pressing against the edges of her dream. The umbrae looking for something to devour.
These creatures of nightmare feasted on dreams, turning them into something bleaker than nightmare, like black holes of despair. If a Dreamer like Romie found themselves in a dream that the umbrae chose to feast on, they needed to pull themselves out of it before the monsters could devour them, too. If not, their consciousness would remain trapped in the sleepscape forever, severed from the body they left in the waking world. They would become an umbra themselves, hungering for dreams.
Like Jordyn, Romie thought with a pang. A part of her wished she had Emory’s ability to heal the umbrae the way she’d done in the sleepscape, to set these trapped souls free.
Romie was used to the umbrae’s presence by now, though shehadnoticed that they were quicker to appear here in this world. She could never stay for very long in a single dream without them pressing in, as if they were tracking her through the sleepscape, eager to devour her soul.
And then there was that other thing, looming in the darkness just as the umbrae did. Though it didn’t feel like a typical umbra. It was darker, stranger,olderthan anything Romie had ever encountered here. Whispering in that strange tongue, an unsettling melody that seemed so at odds with the lilting song that tugged on Romie’s soul, like dissonant harmonies.
Romie wasted no time leaving Bryony’s dream behind, hoping that dark presence would not follow her. Back on the star-lined path, she looked for the other bright star, longing to find herself in Aspen’s dreaming again.
But the other star was no longer there. Aspen must have woken up. Crestfallen, Romie began to walk around aimlessly—andstopped dead in her tracks as she spotted someone else in the sleepscape.
Aspen was here. Not in dream form, buthere, standing on the starlit path as though she were another Dreamer wandering around.
Back home, it wasn’t uncommon for Dreamers to cross paths in the sleepscape. They weren’t exactly corporeal here, but they appeared to each other exactly as they did in waking, clothes and all—something many Dreamers had learned the hard way, after falling asleep barely clothed or wearing nothing at all, only to slip into dreaming where other Dreamers saw them stark naked.
Aspenwasclothed, wearing a flowing white nightgown, her dark hair unbound. The frizzy curls around her face were damp with sweat, and she had the look of someone who had just woken up.
So how was shehere?
“Aspen?” Romie’s voice was soft; she didn’t want to scare Aspen off. But even as she got nearer and repeated herself, Aspen did not look at her. In fact, her eyes were glossed over, covered in a diaphanous white film.
