15 EMORY
THE DECRESCENS LIBRARY FELT ENTIRELY different at night—not the safe harbor Emory had come to know it as during her morning sessions with Baz, but this cavernous beast with mysterious things lurking in the shadows. Blood rushed to her ears as the current cohort of Selenics led her through the rare books collection on Dreamer magic, past the restricted Reaper aisles, and all the way to the far end of the empty, darkly lit library. They had all unmasked, yet somehow felt more mythical and unattainable to her than before.
None of them had said a word since the lighthouse.
Keiran stopped her before the narrow staircase Emory knew led into the Vault. The others were already descending, an eerily grim procession that had her stomach in knots.
She glared at him once they were alone. “You knew I was a Tidecaller.”
“I had my suspicions, yes.” He leaned against the archway, not a trace of remorse on his face. “When you saw me healing that bird and thought the Selenic Mark was what gave me such power.”
“You let me believe we were the same. Why? So I’d walk into whatever trap tonight was and reveal my magic? So you could claim me as this thing you wanted to add to your little Selenic collection of rarities?”
Keiran flinched slightly at that. “That was never my intention.”
“You had to have known the kind of hostility I’d be facing if I showed my hand like that. Artem was this close to bringing me into the Institute—”
“I wouldn’t have let him.” His eyes sparked fiercely in the semidarkness. “Trust me, you were never in any real danger.”
She scoffed, crossing her arms. “As if I could ever trust you now.”
Keiran pushed off the arch, taking a tentative step toward her. “I would never have put you in that position unless I was sure I could get the Council to side with you. They needed to see your magic to be convinced of what you might bring to the table. I needed to see it. And you performed brilliantly, Ainsleif.”
“And if I hadn’t, would you have let them take me to the Institute?”
“Of course not.”
Emory eyed him warily. “Why did you put yourself on the line for me like that? Artem was right to fear me. I don’t know anything about these powers except that they started after Dovermere. For all I know, I did something that night to make the others—” She bit back the words, shaking her head. “Yet you’re still willing to take me in. To trust me. Why?”
Keiran took another step closer. “Because I think we were meant to find each other, you and I. There’s a reason you went into those caves, a reason this magic chose to manifest in you that night, a reason our paths have kept crossing since. I’ve been trying for so long to unlock the secrets to wielding all lunar magics, and here you are, able to do just that.”
The intensity in his gaze left her breathless.
“That kind of power… It’s incredible.”
Emory shook her head. “It’s unnatural.”
“No.” Keiran closed the gap between them, his fingers brushing a strand of hair from her face. She was too stunned to move as he gently tilted her chin up. “It makes you exceptional, Ainsleif.”
An involuntary shiver ran up her spine. It was such a different reaction to how Baz had acted when he found out. There was no fear in Keiran’s voice, no accusations. Just this undiluted awe and the warmth of his hand as it cupped her cheek.
It was exhilarating.
“I knew there was something about you the moment I found you on the beach, but I never dreamed it might be this,” he mused, letting his hand fall to his side. “I told you I know what it’s like to search for answers after losing someone to Dovermere. Your magic is the very answer I’ve been seeking.”
“How?” she asked, enraptured despite the warning bells in her mind.
The corner of his mouth lifted. He laced his fingers through hers and said, “You’ll see.”
Emory let him guide her down into the Vault. She’d never been before, and marveled at the towering shelves, the cascading water in the center. The Vault was empty, the others nowhere in sight. Keiran brought her to the S aisle, at the entrance of which a freestanding wrought-iron staircase sprouted from the stone floor and spiraled up to the high ceiling above. He ran a hand along the intricate motifs of frothy waves and lunar flowers woven in the metal. A spiral like the one they both bore was hidden among them. At his touch, the base of the stairs unfurled, stone grumbling to life in the Vault’s half-light. Beneath their feet, the staircase wound on, and on, and on. An odd, bluish light shone at the bottom.
Their steps echoed ominously as they climbed down. Damp cold seeped through Emory’s dress, making the fine hairs on her arms stand to attention. She wished she’d taken a jacket, wished Keiran would tell her what exactly she was walking into. The sound of water was deafening as they neared the bottom, where the stairs spilled into a large circular chamber carved into stone.
A cavern.
For a second, everything in Emory seized. She was back in Dovermere, in those algae-slick caves that would become a death trap once the tide rose, and that was the sound of the sea rushing in, ready to take her under—
But no. The water came from above, a continuation of the Fountain of Fate’s sacred waters that spilled into the heart of the Vault and into this chamber below. It pooled into a great basin in the middle, the sides of which were adorned with weathered carvings of the moon’s phases. Soft light shone from the bottom of the basin, making the water refract turquoise light on the walls around them. Sixteen chairs lined those walls, carved into the stone itself. A throne for each tidal alignment, she realized. The rest of the Selenics sat upon them, an echo of the Tidal Council from earlier, though much less formal. Indeed, Virgil was sprawled carelessly on his chair, legs draped over a throne arm, cheek resting on his hand in an almost bored way. He winked at Emory.
“Welcome to the Treasury,” Keiran said at her side. “The crown jewel of the Selenic Order.”
The name slithered over her bones. The Selenic Order—which she had agreed to swear an oath to, become part of, for whatever that meant.
“This was the first seat of our Order,” Keiran continued. “According to our records, they were the ones who built Aldryn College, selecting this precise location for its closeness to Dovermere. They say the Fountain of Fate flows with water from the heart of Dovermere, which the first Selenics believed was the very birthplace of the Tides themselves.”
He ran a hand through the glowing pool. “It’s with this water that they made the first synthetic magic, the diluted kind you saw earlier tonight. And it’s with this water that we were able to experiment with something stronger. Our way of accessing other magics no matter our tidal alignment or the moon phase ruling the sky.”
Emory looked at the pool, at the thrones and the Selenics sitting upon them like kings and queens. “Why not hold the soiree here instead of the lighthouse?”
“The Treasury always belongs to the current cohort,” Virgil drawled from his seat. “Those old bags had their time in the limelight when they were at Aldryn. Now it’s ours.”
This earned smiles from Louis and Javier.
“The Tidal Council watches over the Order at large, but here at Aldryn, we’re the ones steering the ship,” Keiran added. “The introduction soiree only serves to present candidates to the Order’s alumni, and we take care of the rest. We make the initiates swear their inaugural oaths, give them their preliminary trials, prepare them for the Dovermere initiation, and finally induct those who survive it into the Order.”
He moved to stand in front of her. The subtle smell of his cologne was intoxicating, his eyes more teal than hazel in the glowing pool’s ethereal reflection. “And tonight, we welcome the first Eclipse-born into our ranks. Our very own Tidecaller.”
A sneer from Lizaveta. “Call her by her proper title, Keiran. She’s a Tidethief.” Her contempt was icier than the cavern’s damp seeping into Emory’s bones. “That’s what it is, isn’t it? You leech magic off those around you, magic that doesn’t belong to you. Just like the Shadow stole the Tides’ magic from them.”
Virgil snickered at that, and Lizaveta snapped, “Something funny, Virgil?”
He waved his hand toward Emory in a nonchalant manner. “How is her magic any different from what we’ve been doing with the synths? We took Nisha’s blood to borrow her Sower magic.” He craned his neck to look at Nisha. “I don’t see her complaining about how we leeched off her.”
Nisha threw Lizaveta an apologetic look. “I feel fine, honestly. It’s like Louis said when we tried it with his Healer magic during the new moon. It doesn’t feel at all like bloodletting outside of my lunar phase; my magic doesn’t feel depleted in the slightest.” She peered at Emory with open curiosity. “Maybe it’s the same thing when she uses her Tidecaller magic. She’s calling on other magics without depleting their bearers’ reservoir.”
Lizaveta crossed her arms. “Whatever. It doesn’t change the fact that she’s Eclipse-born.” She gave Keiran an accusing look. “I can’t believe you of all people are okay with this. After what happened to your parents? To my dad?” A quiver broke through her voice, but Lizaveta quickly gathered herself. “Artem was right. We should have let him take her to the Institute before she inevitably Collapses and kills someone.”
Horror dawned on Emory. Was that what had happened to Keiran’s parents, to Lizaveta and Artem’s father?
“No one’s bringing her to the Institute,” Keiran commanded, and Emory had to wonder again why he was so intent on helping her join the Order, especially if he had suffered such a loss at the hands of Eclipse magic.
His eyes found hers, glowing with something more than just the pool’s reflection. “She’s going to help us call the Tides back to our shores, and once they return, we’ll ask them to bless us with the former glory of their magic.”
A laugh nearly escaped Emory’s mouth, but the solemnity in his voice, on his face, was not feigned; he truly believed the Tides were more than myth, that they could somehow be brought back to life. The others looked just as serious.
“What are you saying?” Emory asked.
Keiran took a step closer. “This is what our cohort has been trying to achieve. The rest of the Selenics… They’ve forgotten the original purpose of our Order, content with these small magics they’ve fabricated over the years, but never pushing for more.” He motioned to the others sitting on their thrones. “We have sought to make the synths stronger, hoping to use that magic to bring back the Tides.”
“And how do you suppose you’ll bring them back?”
“I’m not sure yet. But you’re a Tidecaller. If the power of all four Tides runs in your veins… you might very well be the key to waking them.”
Your magic is the very answer I’ve been seeking.
This was the reason he’d fought for her back at the lighthouse. Why he’d been so willing to risk his position within the Order. He needed her. Her power. And if they succeeded in waking the Tides, returning magic to what it once was… then her own Tidecaller magic might not be viewed as such an aberration. She might even be praised for her role in bringing back the Tides—if such a thing was even possible, and that felt like a stretch.
Keiran seemed to read her hesitation. He drew closer again, making her heart race. “If we’re the ones to wake them, to bring them back to these shores they once ruled over, think of what they could do for us, the favor they might grant. They hold the power to everything. Life, death. Rebirth.” His eyes danced with a fervor that both scared and enthralled her. “They could bring back Romie. Farran. All those we’ve lost.”
The words were slow to settle in her mind, like feet sinking in wet sand.
Emory had only wanted answers about her friend’s death, but this was better than anything she had dared let herself hope for. If there was even the slightest chance this was doable, if she might be able to see Romie again…
“We’re Selenics.” Keiran turned to the others. “Our Order has pushed the boundaries of magic for centuries, and we owe it to ourselves now to try this one great feat.” He looked at her again. “But only if our Tidecaller is willing.”
A charged silence filled the cave. Only Lizaveta still looked at Emory with that icy guardedness, but the rest of them seemed genuinely curious—and most of all, hopeful. There was no trace of fear in them, only sheer wonder at what she might accomplish. They looked at her, she realized, the way everyone had always looked at Romie. It made her feel valued—wanted—like she’d never been before.
Purpose thrummed at her fingertips, as if the strings of an old instrument had finally been tuned somewhere deep in her soul, and the melody it produced rang clear and true.
She’d always felt lacking significance. A mediocre Healer, not better or worse than any other, but middling. Unimportant. Now her power promised greatness. Made her into someone noteworthy—someone who might hold the key to everything: waking the Tides, throwing the floodgates of magic open wide for all, and bringing Romie and the others who’d drowned back from the dead.
She lifted her chin, her blood singing.
“Where do we start?”
It started with an oath.
Keiran handed her a small silver flake like the one she’d seen Virgil imbibing earlier. An Unraveler synth, he explained. It’ll force you to tell the truth when swearing your oath.
A distant, drowned-out part of her had a terrible sinking feeling as Keiran led her to the large pool. They waded through the shallows until they stood waist-deep in the center of the basin, just out of the cascade’s reach. The rest of the Selenics gathered around her, forming a tight circle in the order of the moon’s phases. All Emory could think of was how surreal they must look to the outside eye, dressed in their sopping wet suits and gowns, their faces cast in dancing turquoise light.
“Here before us you must share three truths,” Keiran intoned. “A painful memory that haunts you, a dream that calls to you, and a secret that burdens you. Let these truths serve as a reminder of the Order’s secrets you carry, and those of yours we now hold.”
It was a reminder, she realized, that if she should ever betray the Order, her deepest, darkest secrets might be used against her.
Keiran and Virgil helped her lie floating in the pool with her face turned to the dark ceiling above. The water was cold, the salt on her lips a bitter shock. The rest of the Selenics grabbed on to her limbs, holding her aloft.
“Speak your truths,” Keiran commanded, his voice made distant by the water filling her ears.
Emory spoke slowly. “A painful memory… is the one I have from the initiation, of waking up on the beach next to those bodies.” There was a faint, pleasant hum at her fingertips, as if the synthetic magic delighted in the truth of her words. She knew she couldn’t lie even if she wanted to. “Sometimes I feel this phantom impression of a corpse brushing against my skin, and I wish the sea had taken me, too, so I wouldn’t have to carry this guilt with me.”
She swallowed past the lump in her throat, focusing on the cascading waterfall. She couldn’t look any of them in the eye.
“A dream that calls to me…” She thought of Romie, of the note Baz had found, of her own odd dreams of Dovermere. It called to mind another Dreamer, and the truth slipped from her lips before she could think twice on it: “… is to find my mother, who abandoned me at birth. To finally know her and discover all the ways we’re different and alike. I dream of her coming home so we can be a family together.”
Her cheeks flushed at the thought of sharing such private thoughts—something she had never fully been able to articulate in her own mind—with people she barely knew. Her heart picked up speed at what she needed to share next.
“A secret that burdens me…”
They already knew she was a Tidecaller, and no secret was more of a burden than that. Unless… The words came to her too fast, but she forced herself to speak them slowly, to weigh each one so she wouldn’t say more than she should.
“The night Travers washed ashore was when I first used Tidecaller magic. At least, the first time I remember using it. While I was trying to heal him, everything came rushing up to the surface at Lizaveta’s amplifying touch. I couldn’t stop it.” Her eyes found Virgil. “I felt the Reaper magic at my fingertips, and it was so overwhelming that I was afraid it would kill Travers. That I would be the one to kill him. I…” She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to find the words to work around the Unraveler magic—she didn’t want to drag Baz into this by revealing he’d helped her. “The magic stopped before it could kill him.” Her throat worked for air. “But Travers died anyway, and I’ll always feel responsible for it.”
Your fault.
Emory heaved a breath, somehow lighter for having admitted the truth of that night. She found genuine empathy in Virgil’s eyes.
“Let us seal these truths in the water,” Keiran said solemnly. He bent closer to murmur, “Don’t fight it.”
It was her only warning before her head was shoved underwater.
She thrashed against the seven pairs of hands that held her down, screaming her surprise. This had to be part of the oath-taking ritual, but primal instinct kicked in, a tidal wave of terror that threatened to fill her lungs, pull her under. Visions of dark, turbulent depths rose to greet her, and all around her were bodies, their eyes fixed and unblinking in death. The logical part of her knew it wasn’t real, knew it was just her mind conjuring her worst fear, but still her nails dug into someone’s wrist as she fought against their hold, her screams near soundless in the water.
And then, just as suddenly, it was over. They pulled her up, and Emory broke through the surface, choking on a gulp of air. She clung desperately to Keiran as he pushed wet strands of hair from her face, something dark and lovely and powerful in his eyes.
“The Order welcomes you, daughter of the Eclipse. Arise as a Selenic.”
She did, and nothing had ever felt so right.
Someone popped a bottle, and a flute of sparkling wine was handed to her. They drank in the ethereal light of the pool, and all the while Emory did not mind her sopping gown, her damp hair, because here with Keiran’s jacket draped over her shoulders and the Selenics’ curiosity about her magic—not the academic intrigue tinged with dread that Baz treated her with, but pure, sheer wonder—she was made to feel important, valued.
She slowly learned about the others—that Louis and Javier were an item, melting into each other whenever they were together, that Ife was kind and warm, that Nisha had a quiet magnetism that had her begrudgingly understanding Romie’s infatuation with her. Only Lizaveta kept her distance, and as she and Keiran held a tense conversation at the other end of the grotto, Emory couldn’t help feeling bad for her.
If Lizaveta had lost someone to the violence of a Collapsing, it was no wonder she was so cold to her.
Virgil walked up to her and refilled her glass. There was a disarming earnestness to him as he said, “You know, what you said about Travers… Don’t beat yourself up over it. If you had used Reaper magic, it would have been a kindness, I think. No one should have to suffer the way he did.”
Emory remembered the way he’d looked when Travers’s body was taken away, the profound grief written on his face. She considered him. “Have you ever…”
Virgil lifted a bemused brow. “What, killed someone?” A booming laugh. “Tides, no. You do know most Reapers have never and will never actually reap a life, yeah? We have too much respect for it. Death magic isn’t all doom and gloom. It’s rarely ever about death at all and more about endings. The peace of a cycle coming to its end so that it may start again or not at all. Drying up a rose to preserve its beauty forever, for example. Helping farmers remove crop residues or rid their fields of pests and diseases so that newer things can take root and grow.”
He smiled peacefully, a dreamy, faraway look in his eye, so different from his usual flair. “There’s a classroom in Decrescens Hall that’s as full of life as any of the Sower greenhouses. Vines and flowers fill every inch of it, and in the center is this massive tree. We Reapers practice making the seasons turn, changing the leaves from green to yellow and red and crisp brown until everything is bare. Our own perpetual autumns and winters at our fingertips.”
Virgil seemed to catch himself, and that sardonic smile of his came back. He nudged Emory with a shoulder. “We’re a real catch with Sowers, I can tell you that.”
“I didn’t know that room existed,” Emory said, mesmerized.
“Ah yes, well. We’re a secretive bunch over at Decrescens Hall. But I’m sure I could sneak you in one day, teach you how to use Reaper magic the way it was meant to be used.”
“I’d like that.” She realized she meant it wholeheartedly, now oddly at peace with her Tidecaller magic and all the possibilities she might unlock with it.
A sudden commotion drew their attention. Lizaveta was storming out of the Treasury, leaving a tired-looking Keiran behind.
Unease was swift to swallow Emory up again. Virgil tracked her line of sight and said, “Don’t worry about Lizaveta. There’s history there, and, well… Let’s just say she’s not so trusting of Eclipse-born.”
I don’t blame her, Emory wanted to say. She peered at Virgil. “And the rest of you? How do you feel about having an untrained Eclipse-born in your midst?”
“I can’t speak for the others, but us Reapers? We understand more than most, I think, the kind of challenges the Eclipse-born face. The distrust that follows both our alignments.” He looked to where Lizaveta had disappeared. “I’m sure she’ll come around eventually. But in the meantime, just know you’ve got at least one person in your corner.” A wink. “I’m rooting for you, Tidecaller.”
Emory hid a smile. She caught Keiran’s eye from across the room, and nothing else mattered as he made his way toward them. Virgil excused himself, saying he’d better go check on Lizaveta—I’ll put in a good word for you—making Emory wonder if there might be something between the two of them.
She hoped he was right, and that this animosity Lizaveta had for her would dissipate.
“I hope we didn’t overwhelm you,” Keiran said as he sidled up to her.
She laughed, the wine and tension of the evening going to her head. “Oh, not at all. This is just a regular weekday night for me.”
He smiled that dimpled smile at her, full of genuine mirth. It was disarming.
“Ask me again tomorrow,” she amended, “when all this doesn’t feel so much like a fever dream.”
“Fair enough. Shall I walk you back to your dorm, then?”
There was so much she wanted to ask him still, but her mind went blank under his stare, and all she could do was duck her head to hide her blush. “Sure.”
As they reached her room, it felt to Emory like she was dancing upon a precipice, heart racing to a wild tune in anticipation of the drop. They lingered in front of her door. In the quiet corridor, Keiran’s features were shadowed, edges limned in faint light. His eyes slowly traveled down to her lips, making her stomach go taut at the intensity in them.
“Now that you’ve sworn your oath,” he said, voice lowered to a husky tone, “I can show you what the Selenic Mark actually does, if you want.” A nod at her door. “Can we…?”
Emory opened the door, heart beating so fast she thought it might burst. Keiran brushed past her into the room, and she leaned back against the door, unsure of what to say or how to act now that they were here. Her room felt too small; she couldn’t quite make sense of his presence in it as he strode over to her desk, his hands reaching for the bloodletting instruments she kept there: a shallow bowl, a vial of salt water, a knife. Things every magical adept kept close, but that she didn’t need anymore, she supposed, now that she was Eclipse-born.
Emory watched with growing anticipation as Keiran poured a bit of salt water into the bowl, every movement precise, loaded. His tattooed hand hovered over the bowl. His eyes didn’t leave hers as he slowly dipped his hand in the water, all the way past his wrist. Something changed in the air between them, and when he lifted his dripping hand, Emory could plainly see the symbol on his wrist, glowing faintly silver. A prickling sensation drew her attention to her own wrist, an echo of the burning that had birthed the mark on her skin—which was now glowing just like Keiran’s.
“This is what the mark does,” he said in her ear, making the fine hairs on her neck stand to attention.
Emory drew a sharp inhale, expecting to see him beside her, so clear had been his voice, the murmur of breath against her skin. But he still stood across the room from her, casually leaning against her desk.
“How…”
“It’s a calling card of sorts. With it, you can call on anyone else who bears the mark, no matter how far away you are.”
She saw his lips move, but again his voice sounded right beside her, as if he stood there whispering in her ear. There was something oddly intimate to it, with his gaze so intent on her; it made her glad to be standing so far away, while at the same time yearning to be closer.
She glanced at her own marked wrist. “Show me how to do it.”
Keiran motioned to the bowl. “Salt water activates it.”
Emory pushed off the door and came to stand beside him. He looked at her in a way that made her pulse quicken as her hand tentatively grazed the surface of the water.
“It’s all about intention,” he said over her shoulder, both through the mark and not. She shivered at his nearness. “You have to really think about who you wish to call on, let their essence wash over you. Focus on the act of calling out to them itself.”
Emory conjured his face in her mind. It wasn’t hard to do, with his breath on her neck and his faint aftershave in her nose. I want to speak to Keiran Dunhall Thornby, she thought. She sensed something at the edge of her vision, felt a prickle on her wrist. When she lifted her hand from the water, the symbol was bright silver.
“Like this?” Her voice sounded normal to her ears, but she felt it, somehow—the way it traveled to him through whatever magic, sending a jolt through her spine.
His voice caressed the back of her neck. “Exactly like that.”
Emory turned to find him standing inches from her, his face so beautiful it hurt to look at.
“You truly believe it, don’t you?” she asked, marveling at the way his throat undulated as he stared at her lips. “That we can bring the Tides back.”
His hand brushed hers, twin spirals glowing in question and answer to each other. “I believe there’s power in intention. It’s what makes the magic in our Selenic Mark come alive, what lets us call on each other, a gift we have no explanation for because whatever its original purpose might have been is lost to us now. Intention is how people of old were able to touch all magics, because so long as they honored the Tides, power flowed freely through their veins. Magic from all moons and all tides. Like yours.”
He looked at her from beneath thick lashes. “I think if we truly set our minds to it, if we set out with intention and use your magic for this one great purpose… why shouldn’t we be able to call upon such a force as the Tides themselves?”
Emory supposed it was possible. Up until tonight, she didn’t know such a thing as synthetic magic existed. Before that, she didn’t think her own magic was possible, still couldn’t believe how she could go her entire life thinking she was a Healer and suddenly be something as fabled as a Tidecaller, her blood running with the dark power of the Eclipse. And until moments ago, she never let herself hope—dream—that she might see Romie again.
Nothing was impossible.
“It’s late,” Keiran whispered. “I should go.”
Emory swallowed down her disappointment as he pulled away. What had she hoped for? That he would stay and—Tides. She needed to keep her head straight.
Keiran lingered by the door. “Do you see now why I was so adamant to back you at the lighthouse? Why I asked you to trust me? If this works… it’ll change everything, Ains.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“It will.”
“How can you be so sure?”
His mouth lifted in that boyish grin, though his eyes—his eyes darkened in a way that made her knees weak.
“You underestimate how tireless I can be when I chase after something I want.”
Dovermere finds her again in sleep. Dream, memory, memory dream—the lines too blurred to know one from the other.
Around her, the cave walls drip with not water but tiny stars that plummet slowly to the ground, fading as they reach the growing darkness at her feet. Romie stands alone before the great hourglass with its shifting black sands and wilting flowers trapped inside. A silver spiral burns on the surface where her hand touches the glass.
“I read that there are symbols like this everywhere, strewn about in the deepest, darkest places in the world.”
Romie’s voice echoes strangely around them. Her hair is a wet mess, her skin bloated and wrong. “Some say they were put there by naiads and sirens as a way to contact each other. A bridge between the world’s many bodies of water.”
Her lightless eyes find Emory’s. Behind her, the spiral unfurls into a golden sunflower that burns through the glass and the flowers and the sand. The remaining ash spills from inside, and it is not ash at all but claws of shadow that slither over Romie’s arms and neck.
Her lips are blue with cold death. Water trickles from the sides of her mouth as she tries to speak, but no sound comes out. Her distorted voice echoes ghostlike in Emory’s ears instead: “The water guides us all, even when it claims us.”
“I don’t understand,” says Emory.
Tendrils of darkness crawl into Romie’s eyes, her blackened throat. Her voice sounds all around and nowhere at all. “There are tides that drown and tides that bind, tides with voices not all kind…”
The breath is squeezed from Romie’s throat. She points a single finger to something behind Emory. A great beast of shadow erupts.
It is darkness
fear
nightmare
bound in a soulless form that sets hungry, fathomless eyes on Emory. The beast lends wrongness to the dream, and when it swipes for her, she knows it will devour her and leave her bones to feed the ancient stone.
She runs toward Romie, but Romie is not Romie anymore. She is stardust that turns to ash that sinks below the stone to depths unknown.
A voice sounds in Emory’s ear, velvet as the night:
“That way lies madness, dreamling.”
Emory’s eyes flew open, glancing wildly around her in the dark. The dream was already fading, but that voice…
Only a dream, she told herself before falling back asleep.