Page 4

My gaze darted frantically around the room.

No spider, no missing children...

I was in my room. In my bed.

A dream. Nothing more.

If only everything were that simple...

I scanned the room to make sure I wasn't still there and that my brain wasn't throwing me into the next whirlwind of things I apparently had to process.

With trembling hands, I grabbed my necklace so I had something to hold on to.

And then I froze.

My eyes widened as I watched everything float around me: my pillows, books, loose sheets of paper, notebooks, and even the clothes I always threw carelessly on the floor. Even my necklace... was floating. Just like that. In the goddamn air.

A car door slammed in the distance and I flinched for the third time. That was the moment when everything around me fell to the floor with a clatter.

“What on earth...” I whispered, remembering the last time I’d had a dream like this.

I threw back the covers, jumped up, and rushed to the mirror.

And I was right.

My eyes. They were glowing purple.

As if it would help, I raised my hand to the mirror, but my fingers bumped against the glass.

Why was my body doing this?

The purple was intense, much stronger than last time.

“Damn it, Diana, where is she?!” I heard a man's nervous voice and couldn't help but freeze.

Alarik?

“No! Please! You can't take her away from me!” I heard my mother plead, and worry spread through my chest.

I looked at the closed door where the voices were coming from.

“Amara just called me.”

What was Alarik doing here?

“I don't believe you,” I heard Mum call from the ground floor, even more desperate, and looked back in the mirror.

The purple had disappeared. As if it had been an illusion.

Since I was here in Blairville, I no longer knew what was real and what was imagination.

What if I was still dreaming?

The voices brought me back to the present.

“Diana! Listen! Gloria is on her way with the Council members!”

Suddenly, the phone rang.