Heat flared in the depths of his eyes. “I am not going to kill you.”
Theyetdangled unspoken at the end of his sentence, evident in the cruel tilt of his mouth.
Emory swallowed past the tightness in her throat. He looked so much like Keiran, but she knew it wasn’t him, couldn’t be.
“Tell me what you are,” she demanded, affecting a bravado she did not feel in the slightest.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Keiran-not-Keiran stepped toward her, shadows swirling in his wake. She tried not to flinch as he appeared to tower over her. “I am that which dwells in the dark between stars,” he said, and his voice echoed oddly around them. “How disappointing that one such as yourself can’t put it together.”
Emory’s pulse raced. “But you’re not an umbra.”
“Don’t insult me. The umbrae are mere nightmares—echoes of consciousness, fear given form.” His eyes narrowed to slits as he took her in from head to toe. “You took a horde of them away from me a while back. I felt it, the moment their blackened souls vanished from the sleeping realm. The same way you got rid of those that were with me yesterday.” He cocked his head to the side. “What did you do to them?”
She tilted her chin up. “I set them free.”
Keiran watched her with faint amusement, but there was something else hiding behind his eyes, a sort of wonder bordering on anger that Emory couldn’t begin to understand. “I have not felt that kind of power in a long time,” he said. “Do you even know what you could do with it? The things you could accomplish. The doors you might open.”
Emory’s mouth went dry. The question felt so much likeKeiranthat for a second, she got lost in his gaze, in his words, in the alluring quality of his voice. She couldn’t help it. It struck something within her, got under her skin. And Tides, she hated herself for it. Hadn’t she been in this same position before? Listening to Keiran’s promises, fooled by his lies, drinking it all up like she was a faithful servant worshipping at the altar of some dark, powerful god. He had appealed to her thirst for power, her search for significance, and she had bent to him so easily, she should have been embarrassed for it. But at the time, nothing had felt so right. And all it did in the end was lead to a heap of hurt and death.
Emory wouldn’t let herself get swayed like that again.
“I know enough,” she said, willing iron into her voice.
“Do you, now? And yet you are leading the pieces of her to the godsworld without knowing what it will do. You call yourself Tidecaller, but you don’t even know what that means.”
Emory refused to let him get under her skin, even as a million questions came to mind. “Tell me what it means, then.”
“Are you always this demanding of your betters?”
“Mybetters?”
“I imagine it’s that death wish of yours. I seem to recall you saying it’s what you deserve.” He drew so close, she could see all the unnatural details of his eyes. The outer ring of pure obsidian, the golds and silvers around his pupils that flared brighter, almost molten, as he held her gaze. “All that potential, and you would so carelessly let it sputter out?”
Emory did not dare to answer. She felt dizzy with fear, her pulse racing to a painful throb.
Keiran stared at a spot behind her. “Perhaps you’ll get your wish after all.” Then, lowering his mouth to her ear: “If I were you, I’d run.”
He gave her a shove, and then she was being pulled up intoconsciousness again, the strange, dark world around her dissolving. Emory opened her eyes to the red-hued desert. Hands were shaking her, and for a panicked moment Emory thought the demon had followed her here. But it was Virgil’s face she was looking up at, Virgil’s voice that pierced through the fog of her mind.
“Run!”
A horrible screeching sound had them both putting their hands over their ears and looking up at the sky.
Where a great winged beast stretched its sharp talons toward them.
27KAI
KAI SPENT THE REST OFthat first night searching the sleepscape for the other Nightmare Weaver. He couldn’t find him, not a single trace, because the boy had either woken up or somehow managed to block Kai out. The sun was rising when he finally gave up. By some twist of fate, Kai had found himself in his old room, a small comfort he clung to. Though he sorely missed the quote and stars he’d painted on the ceiling.
Throwing on the same clothes as yesterday, Kai opened his door to voices drifting up from downstairs. Baz was there, nursing a cup of coffee. Polina sat on the counter next to him, watching him with the same doe eyes that hadn’t slipped Kai’s notice yesterday.
“I forgot to ask what your alignment is,” Baz was saying.
Polina seemed flustered at his attention. “I don’t much like talking about it. People… they tend to judge me for it.”
“People are terrible.” This drew a smile from Polina. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“I’m what they call an Enshriner. I can extract memories and bind them to objects.” She ducked her head. “Memories from corpses, that is.”
