My story is in my dreams
Follow me there
“Winter will be fine. I’m sure,” Alvise whispered to Niall as they walked. “My father is a good man. He won’t harm her unless she’s a threat, and when she tells him the Flynn motto he’ll know for certain she’s not.”
“He’ll know she was sent by the Flynns,” Niall echoed Alvise’s words, as if to convince himself. A flicker of doubt would always be in the back of his mind until he saw Winter again. If he ever saw her again, if he didn’t die here in the Shadow World, on a suicide mission that was likely to destroy them all.
“So, fill me in.”
“Do you have a few hours?” Niall smirked.
“Before something attacks? Probably not,” Alvise replied. He was a whole foot taller than Niall, his cheekbones high as an elf’s, slanted pale-blue eyes that betrayed his Slavic origins, like many people in the north-east of Italy. Niall had given him a heavy grey jumper to wear over his shirt, but he was still shivering, his breath condensing in white puffs.
“Alvise . . .” Micol began. She had joined him and Niall.
“What now?”
“Hey, no need to bite my head off!”
“You shouldn’t be here. You’ll get yourself killed.” He’d had it with her. Her decision to follow him through the iris had been the last straw. She had complete disregard for her own life, her precious life as a Secret heir, putting herself in danger needlessly.
Micol saw that his aura was turning bright red. “Right, okay, following you probably wasn’t a good idea. But listen. That man there, the blind one.” Alvise’s gaze rested on the tall, pale figure of Nicholas. “He’s not a man. Not as such.”
“How do you know?” Niall asked, curious.
“I can see his aura. It’s black,” she whispered, eyeing Nicholas with a mixture of fear and fascination.
“Black? Mio Dio,” said Alvise, falling back into his native Italian. “Is he an Elemental? He reminds me of fire.”
“Ah. He says that a lot. ‘I am fire.’” Niall mocked Nicholas’ deep voice. “He likes scaring people. Gets a kick out of it. He probably got it from his father. He’s the son of the King of Shadows.”
“He what?” Alvise stopped in his tracks, and Sean turned around briefly. He gave Niall a pointed look, having heard the last of his words.
“Santo cielo!” cried Micol, bringing her hands to her face. “I read stories about the King of Shadows. I thought he was just a legend . . .”
Niall placed a hand on Alvise’s and Micol’s shoulders, gently pushing them along. “My grandfather told me stories about him, too. And he’s real. Anyway, Nicholas is on our side. Or at least, we believe so.”
Alvise ran a hand through his white-blond hair. “And you trust him?”
“No, I don’t. None of us do. But we have no choice. I don’t know how much you know about what’s been happening . . .”
“Not much. Only that we’re getting slaughtered one by one and that all the lines of communication between us seem to be closed. We are very isolated. We know the Sabha are collaborating with the Surari, for some weird reason. And all of our Gamekeepers are dead.”
“The Surari aren’t acting of their own will. It’s the King of Shadows who’s behind them. He made us believe he didn’t exist, that he was just a scary fairy tale to frighten the children. But here we are. Either we destroy the King of Shadows or it’s all over.”
“So that’s why my sister sent me here. To help with this mission.”
Niall shrugged. “It’s always good to have an extra pair of hands.”
“Merda,” said Alvise, spitting on the ground in disgust.
Niall cleared his throat, unsure how to respond to that. “Anyway,” he continued, “Nosferatu there. He turned against his father. He’s taking us to him. That’s how we entered the Shadow World . . . he let us in. He repented.”
“Repented, huh?”
“So we believe. So we have to believe. The King of Shadows punished him for his betrayal, and he lost his sight. You should have seen him . . . I’ve never seen anyone suffer as much . . . and I hope I never do again.”
“So he hates his father. And he’s leading you to him.”
“Yes. Nobody knew where to find the King of Shadows. My friend Mike and I . . .” He winced, like every time he spoke about Mike. He took a deep breath. Mike Prudhomme, the other Midnight Gamekeeper besides Sean, had been killed in the final battle with the Mermen that took place in Islay weeks ago. Niall would never forget how he died – saving Sarah from certain death. He knew why he’d done it – not only for Sarah, but as his final show of loyalty to the Secret Families and to the world. Mike was the most selfless person he’d ever met, and his best friend. Niall’s heart throbbed. “Mike was a Gamekeeper. He got killed. Anyway, we sort of guessed the King of Shadows was somewhere in Eastern Europe, but we could never have found him had it not been for Nicholas. We could have never entered the Shadow World. I don’t know how you made it . . . Nicholas said nobody could, unless he allowed it.”
A shadow of pain passed over Alvise’s handsome face. “My sister’s powers are a mystery. If only she didn’t have to pay such a terrible price for them.”
“I’d heard about Lucrezia’s power. How old is she now?”
“Sixteen. My age,” Micol replied for Alvise, frowning. Lucrezia’s predicament made her angry, furious, really. She didn’t know who to be angry with exactly, so she used the Vendramin family as her own personal whipping boy for everything that had happened.
“You are fifteen,” Alvise said. “A child. A reckless child.”
“I’ll be sixteen in two days!”
Alvise ignored her. His face was dark. “Lucrezia is very unwell. She hasn’t been awake for years. All she does is dream. Since the Sabha did what they did to her . . .”
Micol’s eyes studied Alvise closely. “What do you mean? How . . . What did the Sabha do? Did they hurt her?”
“It’s my family’s business.”
“But . . .”
“Micol. I said it’s my family’s business.”
“You keep her in the palace. You keep her asleep, a prisoner!” Micol hissed. “Just like you keep me prisoner!”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about!” Alvise snapped. “My sister would die if she saw the light. As for you, we are just trying to save your bloody life!”
“Yes, right. You need her! You keep her inside because you need her to dream for you!”
“I’m not even going to reply to that, Micol,” said Alvise. “You know nothing of me, nothing of us.”
For once, Micol was quiet. The pain in Alvise’s eyes was palpable. She knew she’d gone too far. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, but he cut her short.
“Tell me, Niall. What about the others? Who are they?”
“That’s Sarah Midnight, from the Midnight family. They’re Scottish. They keep themselves to themselves . . .”
“I’ve heard of them.”
“Have you? I thought hardly anybody on the continent knew of their existence.”
Alvise studied Sarah as she walked ahead. She was striking, with that endless raven hair and her slender body, aloof and silent, like someone who has many secrets and a lot on her mind. “Somebody mentioned her to me once. What are her powers?”
“She’s a Dreamer. She can dissolve demons with her hands . . . the Blackwater, she calls it. Also, her eyes are deadly, if she wants them to be.”
“Better stay on her good side, then,” Alvise jested, but there was an edge of truth in his joke. “The blonde girl?”
“That’s Elodie Brun, heir to the Brun family. Her powers are pretty incredible,” Niall said with genuine admiration. “She’s psychic, she feels things before they happen, and kills demons with the poison in her breath. Once I was at the receiving end of her kiss, and it wasn’t fun, I can tell you. I suppose you are an heir too,” he continued, nodding towards Micol.
“Yes. I’m heir to the Falco family. My brother and I are the last of the Falcos.”
Niall did his best to hide his surprise and horror in hearing Micol’s second name. He kept walking, trying to keep his face expressionless. Sean and Sarah hadn’t heard her, thankfully – they were striding on.
Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe it was another branch of the same family. “What’s your brother’s name?”
“Tancredi Falco,” she replied, and Niall felt queasy. No coincidence. No other branch of the same family. Micol’s brother was the man they’d just killed. The man who wanted to murder Sarah.
“I had another brother, Ranieri, but he’s dead now. The Azasti killed him. Tancredi wasn’t in Venice with me when it happened. He’d left. He said he couldn’t tell me where he was going, that he didn’t want me to know. He didn’t want me to follow him and get killed.”
“He told me where he was going,” said Alvise, his expression hard.
“What? He told you, and you never told me?” Micol looked pained. “He’s my brother!”
“The Azasti had gone to his head. He was crazy. What he said made no sense.”
“My brother isn’t crazy!” Micol shouted, multi-coloured lights appearing on her fingertips and around her cropped head. Micol kept talking about her brother in the present tense, Niall noticed miserably. Of course she would.
“Whatever this is about, can you save it for later?” called Sean. “We need to keep moving. Niall, did you fill them in?”
“Yes. Sean, I need a word with you.”
But it was too late. Alvise’s voice resounded clear, for everyone to hear.
“Look, Tancredi said he had to find and kill Sarah Midnight. He’s the one who mentioned her to me. She was going to destroy the world, or whatever. A lot of nonsense.”
They all stopped in their tracks.
“My brother wanted to kill Sarah?” Micol exclaimed. “Why?”
Sarah felt her heart sinking. Now she’d have to face what she’d done. Her guilt. She’d have to look her remorse in the eye.
What were the odds?
“You are Tancredi’s sister?” Sarah stood square in front of Micol.
“Yes. Where is he? Did you see him?”
“I killed him,” said Sarah. It was surprisingly easy to say. And quickly met with a fantasy about taking a knife to her own skin, to punish herself for what she’d done.
A pause, a sharp intake of breath. “What?” whispered Micol.
“I killed him. I’m sorry.”
Micol was in shock, eerily calm. “Tancredi is dead,” she said, as if trying to wrap her head around that terrible truth. “Why did you kill my brother?”
Anger burnt inside Sarah again. “Because he wanted to cut my throat, Micol. And he tried and nearly succeeded. What would you have done?”
“Why? Why did he want to kill you?”
“He was convinced I would help the Surari. The King of Shadows.”
And then the tears came, flowing hot out of Micol’s eyes, her chest heaving. Suddenly, she looked like the abandoned child she was, and Sarah’s heart bled.
All of a sudden, though, the girl’s features twisted in anger. “He must have been right! My brother must have been right! He was a good man, a wise man,” she protested, her voice interrupted by hiccupping sobs.
“Tancredi was right, in a way. That guy,” Sarah pointed at Nicholas, “did try to lure me into marrying him. Because he’s a sick bastard. But I was lucky. Nicholas saw the light,” she added sarcastically. Nicholas was close, his blind eyes staring where the voices were coming from, his expression unmoved. “I told Tancredi, but he didn’t believe me.”
“This is crazy.” Alvise touched his head briefly. “Tancredi was ill. He was mad.”
“He was mad if he thought I was going to marry a demon,” Sarah snarled. “Like I said, he tried to kill me three times. The last time, I cut his throat.”
Silence.
“He was all I had left!” Micol cried out, and the sparks coming off her fingers increased in intensity until they wrapped around her like a cloak of lighting. Her cropped hair stood on end.
“Oh, here we go. Another Falco trying to kill me!” Sarah said, trying to hide her guilt, and failing. She’d killed that girl’s brother, for God’s sake. She had. Not a demon. Not Nicholas. She had. She could have given him one more chance, had she not given in to her fury, her fear.
But she’d killed him.
“Micol, listen to me. Sarah defended herself,” Niall began.
“She did what she had to do. Get over it,” Sean intervened, his cruel words shaking them all to the core. Sean wasn’t heartless, but any threat to Sarah, in his eyes, was to be destroyed without second chances.
“You killed all that was left of my family!” Micol screamed again.
“Duck!” Alvise shouted.
All of a sudden there was a blinding flash and the forest exploded in a rainbow of colours, deadly lightning coming from Micol’s hands. “There’s nobody left,” Micol sobbed. More charges left her as her body tensed and arched to release its power. The charges hit all around Micol like a deadly fan.
Sarah dived behind a tree, her body telling her what to do before her mind could register what was happening. A burnt smell hit her nostrils as she lay on the undergrowth, shaking with terror. She glimpsed from behind the tree, trying to gauge if she could get up or if she’d be hit again by Micol’s lightning. Then she saw Alvise holding Micol in his arms. Micol was unconscious, and a bright-red flower of blood bloomed on her collarbone and soaked her scarf red. She’d lost her ballerina slippers, and her small feet looked like those of a child.
Please, let her be alive, Sarah prayed, and sprang to her feet, frenziedly checking to see if her friends were hurt. Nicholas and Elodie stood unharmed, but Sean was holding his arm, a gash on his black jacket. Niall’s face was bleeding. Only then she spotted burnt tracks on the grass and in the trees around her.
“Is she breathing?” she asked Alvise. Her voice trembled.
“Yes. She’ll come to in a little bit.”
“I suppose I have you to thank.”
“Don’t thank me. I did it because I trust Niall, and Niall trusts you,” Alvise replied. “Micol has to accept what happened. Her power is pretty strong, but she loses it quickly. You would have ended up killing her.”
Micol whimpered.
“How did you stop her?” Sean asked, grimacing. Sarah was at his side at once, holding his arm. His wound was just a graze, but it looked sore.
Alvise gestured to an arrow, lying discarded and bloody on the ground. Only then they noticed that Micol’s shoulder was bloodied. “I only nicked her,” he said.
“Can you carry her?” said Sean, grimacing. “We need to—”
But he never finished the sentence.
“They are coming.” Elodie’s voice rose clear and strong.
“Surari?” Sean’s sgian-dubh ready at once.
The French girl nodded.
“When?”
“Now.”
“In a circle! Micol in the middle!” Sean managed to shout, and then they heard the roar.