Page 42 of Realm of Dreams & Shadows

“We won’t know unless we go. Besides,” she adds, “when a hot, mysterious guy warns you away from a party? That’s practically a signed invitation from the universe to go.”

“Or a legitimate warning about potential danger.”

“Please.” She waves a dismissive hand. “What’s the worst that could happen? You have to talk to boring finance majors about cryptocurrency? It’s not as if they’re going to stab you in the middle of the dance floor. Besides, I’ll be with you the whole time.”

She has a point, sort of. The party may not be on campus, but there will be other students around.

“Okay, but we stick together,” I finally say. “Like glue. No, like epoxy. And if anything feels off, we leave immediately.”

“Epoxy’s honor.” Tia makes a gesture that might be a salute. “Now, about your hair…”

We spend the next hour in our room, perfecting our outfits in a bubble of surreal girly normalcy that almost makes me forget about nightmare creatures and golden-eyed warriors.

Almost.

I’ve just donned Tia’s burgundy shirt when she curses. “Dammit, I totally forgot that I have a Wicca meeting like right now.”

She scowls as she puts some crystals into a velvet bag and grabs a deck of Tarot cards. Then she points at me. “Don’t leave this room. Promise? Not until I’m back. We’ll walk over together. Promise.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” I say, whipping off a little salute.

She hurries to the door, then turns to me. “Back soon,” she calls out as she rushes into the hall, leaving me alone with thoughts of dreams and Hunters and golden eyes, all twined together with the danger that stalks me.

I shiver, almost wishing I didn’t know the truth. That I still believed this was just my mind playing tricks.

It isn’t. And I never really believed that, anyway.

Something happened to my mother. Something is happening to me. Something I don’t yet understand.

I’m terrified. Truly terrified. And all I can hope is that tonight I’ll find an answer or a clue or something to give me hope that I won’t end up dying the same way she did.

I can’t concentrate on picking out funky jewelry for the party. My mind is determined to stay entirely on my mother and her dreams. So instead of pawing through the plastic shoebox I’ve used for jewelry since I was seven, I pull out my mother’s one dream journal.

I flip through the pages as fast as I can without ripping them, my eyes skimming my mother’s neat text for anything about barriers being thin, because I want—no, I need—to better understand what that means.

I find the reference early in the journal on my second, slower look.

I walked between worlds again last night. The veil is thinning, the barriers between realms growing weaker even as I am going deeper, staying longer. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying, especially since I don’t know why he watches me. Only that he does. And I don’t know if he is hunting me, only that someone is. Does he seek to kill me? Does he seek to have me? I don’t know. All I know is that this world of dreams calls to me, and the dark man seeks to claim me. The king bound in shadows who both exhilarates and entices me, perhaps even beyond all reason.

I read the passage three times. Entices. Exhilarates. Calls to me. Passionate words, and with each read, I become more curious. Because right now, I can’t help but wonder if my father lived in the dreamscape.

Is that even possible?

I shiver.

Honestly, the idea is just a little too freaky.

Idly, I flip through the pages, skimming the words, trying to gather my memories of my mom. I’d loved her, and we’d been a team. There was just the two of us, after all. But at the same time, she was always a little distant. The neighborhood mom who the other kids said was just a little off.

I never understood why. Not until my own nightmares started. Not until after she died, and I found her journal.

Mom, why didn’t you tell me?

With a shudder, I flip through the pages, stopping about three-quarters of the way through.

Her last entry.

I run my finger over the ink, reading the words I know so well. How many times have I found myself lost in the nightmares? No more.