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Strange that my dream would bring me here. There were quite a lot of studies about dreams and the subconscious, but I had barely grazed the subject myself. Perhaps it was time to resume schooling. Bess might complain, but there were scholarships I could apply for. It was amazing how much the mind wanted to learn, to grow, and I had stifled mine for too long.
A thin purple ribbon drifted by my face; free magic, ready to be used by any Bright with skill. I watched it and without knowing what I meant to do, reached out with my fingers to catch it. With practiced moves, I drew a simple rune in the air before me, the one for truth, watching as the ribbon twisted and curled in the wake of my finger until it formed the shape I wanted. The little figure for truth bobbed in the air, as clear as ink on a page, and I leaned forward to blow it away, smiling as it twirled and distanced.
In the dream I stood outside Leslie manor, and there were voices murmuring nearby, but I could not make out what was being said. The wards on the building were surprisingly small; mere protection runes placed at all the entrances, and some listening runes in each room that could be seen even through the walls.
Why would werewolves need listening runes?
That seemed odd.
The walls stood tall and formidable, with the healthy growth of vines snaking up their grooves. The brush surrounding the building was equally healthy, and while there were faint traces of magic in their roots that glittered out to me, those were likely from a summoner long ago who first planted them.
Wondering what the place must have looked like at its beginnings made me smile. All things had a beginning, after all, and it was comforting to remember that before there was a manor house there must have been woods that needed felling and landscape that needed flattening. Earth summoners were always the first any Bright called on for such work and they tended to be in ample supply.
It took a moment, but I located a series of runes etched into the foundations of the manor, all half buried in the soil and glowing soft amber. They represented growth and fertility, the usual runes for sustaining a healthy garden, and I congratulated their creator on work well done. It was doubtful that the summoner was still alive – warlocks lived mortal lives outside of Fairy – but their legacy was a joy to behold.
What would my legacy be?
Mind wizards did not leave behind such beautiful work. Ours was restricted to runestones and research papers, of which I had done precious little. I supposed many of the marriages I helped counsel would outlive me. The Belmontes, for instance. But that seemed a shallow legacy, and not one I could fully claim as my own. Olav and his wife had to do the real work to make their marriage a success, after all. I was little more than an interloper.
I took a deep breath and turned from the runes.
It was time to wake up.
Viewing the aether was as natural as breathing for warlocks, but I couldn’t keep the sight open much longer. Maker knew I didn’t want to become like Janice. But I had been locked away from it for so long that I stretched my arms wide and basked in the glow of pinks and purples, reds and golds. I let my fingers trail through several strands of magic drifting in the air. They tingled through me, answering my call like they always did, like they should have done were the runestone not in place.
“What are you doing?”
The voice was close, unfamiliar. I could not determine if it was real or dream, and it did not matter. I still could not get my eyes open, and with the magic coursing through me, I was not sure I wanted to. Here was familiar. Here was safe. Here I could protect myself the way I should have back when the blasted runestone was tossed at me.
My palm itched, but the sensation was distant, part of my body that was still far away, in the waking world.
Someone was watching me, I felt their cold stare and looked up, unease rippling through magic as it responded to my emotion. My gaze caught on the third floor of the Leslie manor, and I took an involuntary step back.
Black, viscous vines coiled around the roof, grasping tight enough the stones looked ready to break. They seemed to burst from the little balcony door, and inside was a void so deep and dark it chilled through me. There was no disguising the menace that ebbed from those choking brambles. Unnatural, twisted things, they crept along the balcony in slow, constant movement, a writhing dark mass against pale stone.
“Wake up,” I told myself. “Come on, come on, Nora, wake up!”
“But you’ve only just arrived.”
The voice was closer this time and before I could turn, a needle of frigid cold pressed between my shoulders. Clawed fingers gripped the back of my head, digging into my skin with a pressure that threatened to crack my skull. Pain rocketed through me, and my spine went suddenly straight and stiff. I cried out, meaning to turn, to face my assailant, but the unyielding grip only turned with me, as though in a grim dance, keeping time with my movements.
My stomach pitched and I fought to breathe around the pain.
This was no normal nightmare.
There was a tugging in my core as something warm slowly leeched up. I could feel its progression from stomach to chest to throat and knew it was heading toward my skull, toward those squeezing claws and whatever monster was holding me. My heart thundered in terror.
Whatever it was, it was sentient. And old. I could sense the age of it through the aether. And its amusement. It found my struggle entertaining.
Confused, I wondered if maybe I was in the Middling and this was a wyrm trying to eat my magic. But no, I wouldn’t be breathing, and what little I could discern of my physical body, I was breathing.
Panting, really.
Panicked, short breaths.
In the distance, someone called my name.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I focused on the voice because that was real, that was physical, and if only I could reach it maybe I would wake. There was a low, unnatural growl behind me, the deep reverberations of something very large and almost reptilian. The sound raked up my spine – my real spine, my physical spine – and I concentrated on that too, willing myself to wake up.
