Page 2 of Realm of Dreams & Shadows

“I bet it’s this place,” she says. “It’s thin here.”

“Thin?”

“You know. Where the boundary between worlds is the weakest. Easier to do magic where the veil is thin.” She wiggles her fingers. “And lots more spooky stuff happens too.”

I shiver. Thin. Why is that word so familiar?

It takes me a minute, but then I remember—that’s how Mom had once described St. Augustine too. We’d come to visit Uncle Finn back when he was a professor, not yet the dean. We’d been staying in his apartment, me sleeping on a couch, and Mom’s screams from the guest room had sent both Finn and me bolting out of bed to find Mom cowering in a corner.

She waved our concern away, saying it was just a bad dream, but later she told me that she should have anticipated it. That St. Augustine was a thin place. And the nightmares are always worse where the veil is thin.

I curse the memory as I stifle a groan. Why, why, why the hell did I think coming to school here was a good idea?

Oh, right—free tuition and housing. Plus—bonus!—dodging death in my sleep will help me stay in good cardiovascular shape.

Always the cock-eyed optimist—that’s me.

As our group reaches the dorms, the guide pauses dramatically in front of a twisted oak that dominates the center of the quad. Its massive branches stretch in all directions, some dipping low enough to touch the ground before curving upward again like arthritic fingers.

“This is the Widow Maker,” she announces, her voice dropping an octave for effect. “The oldest living oak in St. Augustine.” She points upward. “On moonless nights, students have reported seeing the shadows of hanged men swinging from those limbs.”

A few kids in our group shudder and step back. I stare up at the gnarled branches, thinking not about ghosts, but about those limbs reaching for me in a dream, then closing around me tighter and tighter and tighter until my ribs crack and I can’t breathe and⁠—

“Cora!”

The familiar voice washes over me, and I take a moment to shake off the nightmare fantasy. Only when I’m certain I’ve locked in my Happy Cora persona, do I turn toward my uncle, who’s striding across the courtyard toward me. At forty-nine, he’s tall and trim, and he still moves like one of the college kids he oversees. His salt-and-pepper hair is the only indicator of his age, and on another coast, he could easily pass as a movie star.

For most of my life, he was the shiny beacon I’d clung to when my mom went away. Not physically—she was physically there for me until the day she died. But the rest of her? I didn’t get it before, but I do now. The rest of her was lost in the confusion and fear of living halfway in a world where dreams can kill you.

Whenever Mom had gone into one of those dark moods, Uncle Finn had been there, assuring me that Mom loved me, but that she was ill, and I needed to remember that her poor sleep made her weak and exhausted and touchy.

Over and over, he’d promised to always be there for me, and I’d believed him. Why not? Hadn’t he always been my rock?

But that rock had become a bludgeon when he’d shoved me into a hideous boarding school after Mom died.

I’m over it now, though. Hell, maybe I should even thank him. That place was like a prison, and doesn’t everyone say that prison toughens a girl up?

And you have to be tough to survive when nightmares stalk you.

So, yeah. I’m over it.

“There’s my girl,” he says, wrapping me in a hug that I quickly shimmy out of.

Okay, well, maybe I’m not so over it, after all.

His brow furrows. “Everything okay?”

“What? Yes? It’s great.” And since it mostly is—and since I really don’t want to do a deep dive into the past—I slide back in for a sideways hug, letting myself remember all the butterfly kisses and piggyback rides we’d shared when I was little.

By the time we separate, my smile is genuine. I mean, the past is the past, right? He’s not going to use his almighty powers as the dean to fuck me over again. Especially since I’m a grownup now. All shiny and legal and badass at nineteen.

“How was the tour?” he asks, snapping me back to the moment. “See any ghosts?”

“Just a lot of suggestible freshmen.”

He chuckles, and I’m about to introduce him to Tia, but that’s when I see her talking with a cluster of guys. Probably not the time for an introduction, so I turn back to Finn.

Growing up, he’d been the eccentric academic who brought me strange gifts from his travels to “educate subtly.” He’s also the one who suggested I come here on a full scholarship. “A fresh start,” he’d said.