The question hit her square in the chest and she squeezed her eyes shut, as if she could hide from her answer. She hadn’t realized how much she missed Shade until now and it sprang on her like a predator waiting in the brush, sinking its claws into her until her breath turned to a sob. “I haven’t seen him since my last night at Castle Dusk,” she said. She considered telling Destonne about the weird dream but thought better of it. “I don’t know if I will again. In our last interaction it sounded like he wasn’t coming back.”
To her surprise, Destonne bowed his head and reached behind his neck to unclasp the crystal he always wore. He gathered the chain in his palm and extended it to her. “I have nightmares too,or I should say I did. I don’t dream when I wear this.” He rolled the crystal with his thumb. “Maybe it’ll help you.”
Emmery eyed it like a dagger. Why would he offer this? What was he getting out of it? And for all she knew, it could be a trick. Yet something in his dark gaze told her he authentically extended his help. But if she used it, what would he do? “I can’t take that from you. It’s yours. You need it.”
“Think of it as a loan.” Gently, Destonne took her hand and pressed the crystal into her open palm. “I need you to sleep so you’ll be rested enough to get in the water. Though I have to point out that youdidswim today.”
As he closed her fingers around the crystal, it hummed against her skin. The magic soothed an ache she hadn’t realized was there, and he was right, he’d gotten her into the water today. Destonne always challenged her. Always pushed. That much she could admit.
“I don’t know what to say,” she murmured. But if it would help her sleep she would try anything.
“You could say thank you. And I'm still waiting on that gift for my spectacular swimming instruction.”
Emmery snorted. “You may wait forever.”
An impossibly long moment passed between them and neither of them dared to move, caught in this rare understanding. This fragile comradery.
He cleared his throat and asked in a low voice, “Make me a promise?”
Gods, he sounded like Vesper. These men and their promises. She couldn’t decipher his expression in the threaded moonlight.
He went on anyway, “Promise me you won’t make yourself sick again. Promise you’ll use it.”
To make a show of it, Emmery sat up in bed to clasp the crystal around her neck. The chain was a bit long on her and the obsidian crystal sat low between her breasts. It hummed againsther skin, calling to her and begging to feast on her dreams, and she would give it every opportunity.
“Don’t lose it. It’s one of a kind, and I gave up a lot to get it.” He stood and stared down at her. “I would wish you sweet dreams, but I think sweet abyss is more fitting.” He strode to the door and tapped his fingers on the doorframe. “Oh, and check under your pillow.”
He winked then vanished from sight before she could reply.
Emmery frowned, but as she slid her hand beneath, she found the familiar bristle of paper at her fingertips. She pulled a book from under the pillow. It was a new copy of the novel that was dropped in the water. And he had marked all the pages she’d dogeared—
Wait, how did he remember which ones she’d marked? And there were other ones from further than she’d read. Her face burned, and burned, andburned, as she thumbed through the oneshe’dmarked.
Emmery slammed it shut and shoved it back under her pillow. She fell back onto the bed and held the crystal between two fingers. As she twisted it in the moonlight, it glittered like Destonne’s eyes and she found herself smiling like an absolute fool. She faded into sleep with it clutched in her hand.
Thankfully, no nightmares or dreams at all visited her that night.
Sweet abyss was right.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
VESPER
After Vesper unstuck his feet from the strange crimson fingers, he grasped Balthasar’s reins, and trekked toward Morana. Once he and Nef reached the stone gates, a blur of black buildings, sharp architecture, worn wood, and boarded up windows lay before them.
And that red stuff waseverywhere—carpeting the ground, the city walls, the cracked windows, even floating on the breeze, and had reduced the once great city to a red-hot steaming pile of shit.
As they walked the streets, they stuck to the town walls to avoid the rattle of sickness stifling the air. Not that there were more than a dozen people inside this vast city, but thosewho lingered coughed, doubled over and pale. He’d never seen anything like this.
A flash of movement drew Vesper’s attention to a nearby shop. A man stumbled out the door, his bloodshot eyes bulging and hand clawing his throat as he violently coughed into his wolf mask, like his breath lingered out of reach, his lungs plugged full of stuffing. With a jerk he wrenched the mask free and vomited crimson on the toes of his boots and pale soil. Strings of bloody drool lolled from his mouth like viscous spiderwebs as the man gagged.
HolyfuckingHollow.
Nef shrank back and yanked her tunic over her nose. “How long do you thinkthishas been happening?” she asked, her voice muffled.
“I haven’t the slightest clue,” Vesper replied, his every instinct screaming to run as he too covered his face, and leaned into Nef like he could shield her from whatever this was. How long would it be until it reached Ellynne? They’d seen this red stuff climbing the mountainside. The thought of his home swarmed by this plague knotted his stomach. “The passage has been open for months, do you think it's been tracked across?”
Her brows creased, but she said nothing.