That cold, volatile magic from the man in the street. The one who made roses grow with a touch. This barrier carries a similar signature—like it's built from the same power that thrummed under his skin.
Before I can analyze it further, I’m out the other side and the eerie magic has vanished.
My magic, usually bubbling, goes quiet. Calm.
“Well, that was fun,” Ovie says, looking back at us. “And here we are. Wow. Look at that.”
As she leads us on, I take a minute to let this place sink in.
It’s dark, of course, not like a regular evening, but true night, with stars scattered overhead and the crescent moon hanging low, like it has no intention of leaving. Swirling purple balls of energy fill glass globes that line the streets.
Are those nightmares?
So this is how he keeps the lights on.
And the buildings are so different from ours—tall Victorian structures made of thickly cut gray stone. The residents watch us from stoops and windows like we’re bright gemstones they’ve never seen.
But that’s not all. There’s music in the background, the sound of a violin playing a song that evokes a sense of longing, of wanting something you can’t quite reach.
All of us from Castleview gaze around as we walk, murmuring to one another.
“I wonder if there will be paintings that watch us,” Emory jokes.
“If the inside of the house is as gothic as the outside, the paintings will have eyes,” Dallas adds.
It is gothic, but not in the way that adds gloom. There’s something alluring about this—the purple light, the gray buildings, like it’s the dark side of the moon and must exist because Castleview exists with all its light.
Dallas stops short. “There it is. The manor.”
Sitting in the middle of a busy street is a building unlike any of the others. It’s got the same gray stone, but this one is mortared with silver, making it reflect the moonlight and glow ethereally.
It’s easily as long as a city block and tall, over seven stories.
I practically swallow my tongue as I drink it in.
This is the Nightmare King’s manor? Here I was thinking it would be a black castle with awful gargoyles and bats flying around it.
But this place is anything but. Yes, it’s dark. But it’s also beautiful.
The line outside is long, and as we join it, all I can think is,Here we go.
The queue moves quickly, and when we’re almost at the front of it, Dallas pushes up on her tiptoes. “I can’t see inside.”
“We’ll be there in just a minute,” I reply, holding my stomach as butterflies suddenly kick up a tornado inside me.
“I know, but I want to get a look,” she tells me.
“I see him,” Emory says.
Dallas cranes her neck. “Where?”
“Just kidding. I don’t.”
“Not funny, Emory.”
Ovie turns around. “We’re next. Y’all hush.”
She hands an invitation—one that didn’t turn into a plume of smoke—to the man at the door.
