“It doesn’t.” She elbows me, hard enough to sting, and we keep walking. I kind of hope I wake up with a bruise there. “But I understand. We all process things in our own way. Vanessa will eventually eat people.”
“Already do,” Vanessa calls from ahead, not turning around. “Sabina will probably shoot them with an arrow.”
“Arrows,” Sabina corrects. “Plural. I believe in redundancy.”
“You’re all awake?” I laugh so hard my ribs hurt.
“Yeah, it’s trippy and amazing and I love it.” Vanessa spins in a circle, far too balanced for her teenaged self.
“And you?” I ask Pepper.
She flings her hands out and wiggles her fingers, chaos magic sparking at her fingertips like purple lightning. “Poof. Gone. Dead to smithereens.”
Her chaos magic is unrivaled. It’s also kind of terrifying. I’ve seen her unmake a car once—just unmake it, molecules scattering like startled birds.
So I’m not surprised she out of all of us can break the no magic in dreams rule.
“And you.” She sighs, the edge leaving her voice. “Tell me about your magic.”
It’s the first time she’s talking to me without hatred coating every syllable, and I soak it up like the thirsty bitch that I am.
“It’s weird. Faerie is nothing and yet everything I ever dreamed of.” I sigh, thinking of the thorns beneath my skin, of wild magic answering my call, of three men who look at me like I hung the moon. “The courts are a mess. The politics are insane. There’s this bitch named Amarantha who needs to die slowly and painfully. But the magic itself...” I trail off, not sure how to explain it. “It feels like coming home.”
“Speak for yourself.” Pepper shudders dramatically. “I watched a damn tree uproot itself and walk to a sunnier spot yesterday.Walked. On its roots. Like legs.” She makes a face. “I prefer Tartarus.”
I laugh, full-bodied now. Can’t help it. It’s just like Pepper to find the Greek underworld more comfortable than Faerie.
“Where are you three?” I ask, sobering slightly.
“Fuck if I know.” Pepper shrugs. “Vanessa says she knows where she’s going. She gets an aerial view and we head toward her instructions.”
Aerial view. Right. Because Vanessa is a dragon. I keep forgetting that my cousin can sprout wings and scales and burn cities to the ground if she’s feeling spicy.
“Please tell me it’s a legitimate destination.”
“Academy?” Pepper questions.
“That’s a great starting point.” I nibble my lip, doing the mental math. “I’m in the borderlands. Between courts. At a tavern. They need to strip my glamour.”
“Will it hurt?”
“I really have no answer for that. Not one.”
“We’ll just come to you.” She shrugs like it’s simple. Like crossing between realms and navigating hostile territory is a minor inconvenience.
“Hey, how did you get past the sentries? The light and dark guardians?”
“You mean the little bastards that you can’t kill with a sword?”
“That’s the one.”
“I ate them.” Vanessa turns around, and the smile on her face is deeply, disturbingly satisfied. “Now I know why I was told not to eat too many temptations here. They’re delicious.”
Gods help us all.
“I’ll keep her in line.” Sabina turns, too, and then it’s the four of us standing on a street corner in my hometown. Summer light golden around us. Almost like old times. “I’ve been pointing out these vile little bastards in the trees. She picks them off.”
“They get stuck in my teeth.” Vanessa’s face wrinkles in distaste. “Very crunchy. Need sauce.”
