Being back in Cade’s room made Bridget’s head spin. When she closed her eyes, it almost didn’t feel like five months had gone by… that it was just yesterday she’d been sick in his bed or standing by the fireplace contemplating how to get back to the human realm. Back to the life shehadwanted.
Now, she wasn’t so sure what she wanted her future to be.
Nylah was safe and currently being tucked away in a secured room until morning. That was enough for now. In the morning, Stellan would have more answers for them… about Tuathan artifacts and those creatures. In the morning, it would be clearer what she was supposed to do.
When the heat radiating from the fireplace finally calmed her racing heart, she explored the tiny bits of newness scattered throughout Cade’s room. New books were stacked on the table by his large bed. By the bathroom, a hole indented the dark blue wall, along with a cracked vase in the corner. Frowning, she wondered what had happened. Absentmindedly, she flipped through the loose papers on his desk. There was a map of the continent and a few sketches. Some even of her. In one of them, shewas wearing an outfit she didn’t recognize. A dark blue gown with a wide neckline and puffy sleeves.
The door squeaked open behind her. Bridget whirled around and stuffed the sketch underneath the others. Something about it raised goosebumps on her skin.
“Nylah is in the room across the hall with Delphine,” Cade said, throwing his jacket on the edge of his bed. His white shirt underneath, covered in dirt and blood, was hanging on by a button. “She took the potion Echnav made for her, but not before she told me all about the carjacker you knocked to the ground in Boston. I definitely need to hear that story from your perspective, by the way.” Cade slipped his shirt over his head. He used it to wipe some dirt off his face before he threw it to the corner of the room. “Since everyone is focused on what happened at the wall, no one saw us enter the palace. My father should be clueless until the morning.”
“And Finn is with Alexia?” Bridget asked, trying not to stare too much at his exposed chest. Her fingers itched to touch him, especially when he came to stand less than an inch from her. Too close when the weight of five months still hung between them.
Cade nodded. “He’ll stay outside her room until morning. I don’t know why you don’t want her back in the dungeon after what she did.”
“She’s trying to save her family… I guess I can relate.”
Closing her eyes, Bridget leaned into Cade’s touch when his thumb began to trace her cheekbone. The rest of his fingers tangled in her messy hair, loose from the tiny braid she’d tried to secure it in before crossing the gate. Heat traveled all the way to her toes, so simultaneously comforting and awakening that she almost swayed on her feet.
“What really happened out there in the woods?” Cade asked. “Why were you so affected by what Quinn said?”
Bridget searched his earnest gaze. Something inside her unlocked and the pressure to keep just how many dreams and visions she’d been havinga secret deflated. “I’ve been hearing things,” she admitted. “And seeing things.”
“Like what?”
Despite the openness and belief in his voice, Bridget couldn’t help but wryly crack, “Archer thinks it’s magical induced trauma… That my brain has been permanently affected by too much magic and that it’s causing me to imagine things.”
Like Quinn.
She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Anger flickered over Cade’s features. He gently grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. “Archer has never lived through breaking a curse and been told he had a past life five hundred years ago.”
Bridget let out a broken laugh. Leaning against his chest, she reveled in the safety of his arms. Just for a moment. Moving his right hand to her temple, Bridget said, “Try and look. That might be easier than explaining.”
A quick pinch sliced across her forehead, then Cade was skipping through her memories. To make it easier, she tried to bring the dreams to the forefront of her mind. The ballroom. Vega stabbing her mysterious companion. The image of that same girl in the woods, taunting her by the gate. When a trickle of blood escaped Bridget’s nose, Cade dropped his hand. The sudden departure of his presence left her head throbbing.
“And nothing ever changes?” Cade asked, grabbing her waist to keep her now trembling body steady. “It’s the same room and girl, over and over?”
“Do you recognize her?”
“I don’t… She said she was just like you. Maybe you knew her before…”
Before. In the life neither of them could remember. Unable to scrub the image of dripping metal claws from her mind, Bridget swallowed her fear. “You don’t think it’sher, do you?”
The idea that Vega had been messing with her mind from Iegorus had slowly been driving hercrazy.
Cade was silent for a long moment. “I didn’t feel anyone else,” he said, brushing her hair out of her face. “But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t tried. If it happens again, I’ll be here.”
Unable to speak from the knot in her throat, Bridget nodded. She wanted to correct him. To saywhenit happened again. Because it would. The idea she would be back in the ballroom the moment she closed her eyes, even next to Cade, made her stomach twist.
Pushing it from her mind, Bridget picked up the backpack she’d brought with her and zipped it open. “I didn’t take much with me when I left… Part of me wasn’t sure we would even make it here. But this notebook goes into more detail. I wrote down every dream in it.”
Bridget handed it to him and silently watched him thumb through a few of the pages. After a moment, he put it down on his desk.
“What did Echnav say?”
There was a strange tone in his voice, like the question was forced out of his mouth. Bridget titled her head. “I didn’t tell him. I don’t know why.” Or maybe she did. The thought of having another person look at her like she was crazy, especially him, had kept her mouth shut. “His real name is Stellan, actually.”
