The first thing Teagan noticed was that it was hot. The air was not just warm or mildly uncomfortable—it was a heat that pounded at her temples, and sweat instantly soaked her clothes. She opened her eyes and found she was in a desert.
There was nothing around but sand for leagues. There weren’t even any bones. It was just an endless, endless expanse of brown, nearly red sand and a midnight-blue sky filled with stars. Teagan’s mouth hung open as she stared at the brightness of them. There were constellations she didn’t even have names for, and she was mesmerized by the sight. As she stood enchanted, a voice slipped into her head with a soft whisper.
“Teagan.”
She whirled around. Was someone behind her? Had she already caught up to Cress? But there was no one there. The arch was gone, and in all directions, it was just Teagan and the hot air sticking to her skin. An emptiness that made her skin crawl.
It was such a sharp contrast to the Bone Way, but Teagan thought she preferred the cold and the company of the dead to the way this new part of the realm clung to her. She shrugged off her cloak before it could suffocate her with its padded material.
Another path lay at her feet, brick instead of stone, a clear line that divided the sand and stretched as far as her eyes could see. But before she could take another step, her legs collapsed. The run through the Bone Way had stolen most of her breath, and now that the adrenalin had faded, exhaustion enveloped Teagan. She imagined the creature’s poison swimming through her veins, weakening her bones and her heart. Maradin had said she didn’t know what would happen to Teagan the longer the poison had time to cause havoc in her body. She’d never seen someone get bit. She’d used countless potions to help Teagan, and when none of them worked, Cress dragged Teagan all over Wystira looking for a cure. But the only cure was to make a deal with the Shadow Princess. It’d been her creature that got through the gate, her creature that went looking for food and found Teagan.
Teagan traced the fingers of her right hand over her left arm, where angry red marks burned livid on her pale skin. The indents the creature had left behind. She’d have a scar there forever, even if she managed to survive her journey through the realm and convince the Shadow Princess to help her.
Teagan drew in a deep breath; it was time to move on. As she got back to her feet, a hot wind kicked up sand in her face. With it came that voice again, the one that sounded so tantalizingly like her mother. Teagan’s gaze was drawn to the midnight blue above, and the starry sky began to blur. The voice got louder, becoming more like her mother and less like a ghost. “Teagan, you’re here.”
“Mom,” she sobbed. She was struck suddenly with overwhelming grief and anger, the toxic concoction that’d stripped Teagan of her dreams and desires for years, that’d made it impossible for her to get out of bed in the morning.
She’d only been sixteen when her mother passed away. Too young to become an orphan. Images played out in her mind, of what life could have been like if her only parent hadn’t died—the woman who had taken her in when she was a baby, after her birth parents died of a plague that swept through Wystira. Her mother would have been there to wave her off when Teagan moved away to the Academy. She would have seen her fall in love, and get married. She would have been there when Teagan stumbled, bleeding, back into Lefora. Teagan was sure her mother would have known how to save her.
The brick disappeared beneath her feet, and she was back in her home. Her mother was tending to the hearth, sprinkling herbs into a giant pot above the fire. She was plump and small, lovely and warm, but also formidable. She’d faced down countless challenges as a midwife and healer. She’d stood up to the townsfolk who’d tried to cheat her even as they asked for her kindness. She’d been invited to Wystira’s High Council, the court of witches who governed the country, after a particularly gruesome birth had ended happily for both mother and child, and they’d wanted to recognize her for it. But when she’d gotten there, they’d talked down to her and laughed at her clumsiness and poorness. She’d walked out on them after giving them an earful about their terrible manners and never looked back. Didn’t even stop for the night, just hopped on the next train home.
Drisila was everything Teagan had always wanted to become, and she’d lost her years ago. She must be dreaming.
Her mother came over then, placing her palms on Teagan’s cheeks. “My, you look a fright. Was the train ride exhausting? Come, sit. I’ve got your favorite soup on.”
Teagan let herself be led to the table, and then inhaled deeply when a bowl was placed in front of her. The smell of thyme and cheesy potatoes was deliciously familiar. “How is school? I bet the academy has been working you hard.”
“Yeah,” Teagan said around a mouthful. “Especially the medical classes. There are so many parts that make up the human body, I have trouble remembering them all. Not to mention the anatomy class, which can be horrible.”
Her mother looked at her quizzically. “What are you talking about? I thought you were taking aeronautical and engineering courses.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Why, of course you are!” Was she? She couldn’t remember now; it was as if there was a fog in her mind, obscuring her thoughts. She could only see edges of her memories, not a full picture.
“That was your dream, Teagan, all these years,” her mother continued. Yes, it had been, ever since she was a little girl and went to the science fair in town, where a friendly old man introduced her to the world of innovation. Clocks powered by sunlight and moonlight, a mechanical carriage that could fly, clothes that sewed themselves. They’d been magical and non-magical, created by people as old as a grandmother or as young as a small child who’d invented a way to detect malignant tumors before they grew. She’d been enchanted by it all, had kept the fair ticket in the wooden box in her room as a treasure. She’d started educating herself, because what she learned in school hadn’t been enough, and filled her books with her own innovations. And every year when that science fair came back again, with new inventions and new geniuses opening doors for a young girl who dreamed the same as them, she had been just as enchanted as that first time.
Of course she wasn’t taking medical classes. She didn’t know where that thought had come from.
When dinner was finished and Teagan helped her mother clean the dishes, they leaned shoulder to shoulder, inhaling the scents of basil and rosemary and watching the moon peek out of the clouds past the kitchen window.
This life was so wonderful, a path she would’ve taken had it not been—had it not— Teagan shook her head, wondering why that thought wouldn’t complete itself. Her mother didn’t notice, so intent was she on catching the moonlight in a jar for future spells. For the first time, she properly studied her mother. The lines around her eyes that always crinkled into a smile, the full lips that opened with laughter more often than anger, the bright red of her hair spilling over her shoulders and down her back. The strands were graying now, but age couldn’t diminish her beauty. Teagan loved this woman so much. Her heart gave a painful squeeze at the sight of her. She closed her eyes and tears leaked out of the corners of them. This wasn’t real.
Teagan let loose a sob and put her head in her hands. She didn’t want to leave the dream, but if she didn’t, she’d be there forever. There was a reason they called this the Sky of Lost Dreams. Each of those stars was one of her own lost dreams, paths she hadn’t chosen, conversations she hadn’t had, and the realm knew exactly which ones would strike the deepest chord in her. The ones that would lead her off the brick road and into death. The stars were there to tempt her, to speak what was in her heart. If she listened to them, she’d be wandering an unchanging desert for as long as her soul survived.
That was not how she was going to die, no matter how much it made her heart ache to hear her mother again. She’d raised Teagan to be cautious and caring, to have a healthy dose of fear, to be self-sufficient and to do what was right even if the cost was steep. Even if it was difficult.
It was so painful to let the dream go. She wished so badly that it was real. But it wasn’t, and Cress was still out there.
Teagan opened her eyes to find her home had fallen away and the sandy desert claimed her once again. She startled when she realized her feet were sinking into sand, not brick. She hurried back to the path, still visible from where she’d woken up.
The brick shouldn’t have been there, but the Shadow Realm defied the normal rules of Wystira. The princess had shaped this kingdom of the dead with her own hands, her own magical powers, had placed these dangers here to ward off visitors. To make it hard. Because those who made their way to her? They had to be the strongest, not just physically, but mentally. They had to be brave and true to themselves, and they had to be desperate.
Cress had been desperate. So desperate she’d ignored Teagan’s wishes.
Their fight last night was seared in her mind, an almost welcome distraction from the draw of the stars.