Bryony seemed to mull that over for a while. “There’s a story that’s told to us when we’re young. About twin sisters who ruled the coven together, long ago. They rose to power during a great blight that started after demons broke through the seams of the underworld and corrupted the woods, the magic that flows through it. Many a witch tried to cast them back without success. Until, on a black moon, when the veil between this plane and the underworld is thinnest, the twins were able to cast the demons back to their realm. The woods healed, and the witches lived on happily.
“The story never made it clear how the demons escaped the underworld in the first place. Some think it was a cunning demon king leading his army to conquer the world of witches. Others, that a witch fell prey to a trickster demon and parted the veil for him.” Bryony eyed Emory’s wrist again. “My mother believes you might be trickster demons here to hurt us.”
“I promise you we’re not. We just want to go home.”
From Bryony’s expression, she wasn’t sure if she believed her.
Emory thought of her nightmare, of all those people she’d hurt in some way or other. She vowed to herself that neither Bryony or anyone else would become one of them.
8KAI
KAI WAS IN THAT DAMNprinting press again.
It was the printing press one minute, with Baz held in his father’s arms, and the next, it was Dovermere, with Baz holding Emory in his. The scenes bled into one another, making it hard for Kai to follow. Baz’s father taken away by the Regulators. Emory disappearing through a door. Baz alone in the rubble of blasted machinery, then in a crumbling cave filling with water.
Through it all: Baz’s fear, which Kai tasted as his own.
Kai called out to him. And when Baz twisted around at the sound of his name, it was not Baz at all but an umbra, featureless and empty eyed.
This wasn’t Baz’s nightmare. It was Kai’s.
Kai backed away from the umbra but realized it was notrealas it faded away suddenly, and the whole scene shifted before his eyes.
A room he recognized from his time at Trevelyan Prep. A chess board. Farran Caine smiling at him with that brilliant smile of his, blue eyes crinkled in laughter.
“You’re such a sore loser,” Farran teased as he captured the king on Kai’s side of the board with nothing but a humble pawn.
Farran’s smile dropped, eyes locking with someone across the room—Keiran Dunhall Thornby, his teen face etched in grief. Farran’s chair grated loudly against the floor as he rushed toward his friend, not even throwing a glance back at Kai.
“Don’t leave me,” Kai heard himself say, his voice soft like his younger self had been.
It was a dream that was a memory that was a nightmare. The beginning of the end of an era, ushering in Kai’s understanding that Eclipse-born were on their own, that loyalty among the other lunar houses would always come before loyalty to theirs.
Kai picked up a knight from the board, the only piece of his left standing, and vowed to build matching armor around his heart.
The scene shifted again. Kai found himself pulled back to Dovermere, watching Baz watch Emory leave through the door. Except… no. Emorywasthe door, and she was begging the students closing in around her to leave her alone.
Again Kai found himself puzzling over whose nightmare this was. He certainly didn’t care enough about Emory for this to be one of his own fears. Baz was there, but this didn’t taste like his nightmares.
He focused on Emory, something inside him tugging him to her like she was an anchor in a dark, stormy sea. He focused on the very real tears in her eyes. The plea that slipped past her lips as Keiran Dunhall Thornby’s hand wrapped around her throat, begging to be released from the torment of these students’ accusations.
“You know they’re not real, right?” Kai said.
Emory’s eyes cut to his. The scene dissolved around them until only the two of them remained.
“Areyoureal?” Emory asked.
Kai frowned, noting the dress Emory wore that looked centuries old. Something, perhaps, from another world.
Wasthis real?
This was not, as he’d told Baz, the first time he’d seen Emory in his sleep. But it was the first time they’d spoken to each other, the first time it’dfeltlike the real her.
Before he could figure it out, darkness exploded between them, a great big wave of it looking to drown them both. Only it didn’t—it merely swirled around itself like a spiral, growing darker as it did. Fear cut through Kai as umbrae materialized in its shadowy folds. He swore, looking at Emory. If this was really her, she couldn’t get overtaken by the umbrae. Baz would never forgive him for it.
“Wake up,” he said.“NOW.”
Her eyes widened—and then she was gone.
