Page 39 of Sweet Nightmare

Or, more specifically, who their parents are—major players in the biggest underground criminal organization in our world. And while that doesn’t stop me from standing up to them when I need to, it does stop me from ever turning my back on them. And Jude may have done just that.

Whatever may be going on here, fear and truth are suddenly propelling me forward.

To hell with the trepidation currently sweeping through every part of me. Instead, I throw open the doors and plunge straight down the long, decrepit staircase into the dark to try and figure out exactly what’s happening here.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

HIDE AND

SNEAK

I’m halfway down the broken, rickety steps when I remember my phone.

I take a second to shake the excess water off my hands before pulling it out of my soggy pocket and swiping on the flashlight app. Thankfully it still works, despite being soaked, and the entire storeroom is suddenly illuminated below me.

The entire empty storeroom…which makes absolutely no sense.

I sweep the flashlight around the room as I continue to descend the stairs, checking out every nook and cranny for some kind of clue. But there’s nothing.

No Jean-Luc.

No Jude.

And absolutely no explanation of what they might have been up to.

To be honest, there’s not even any sign that they were here.

The room looks like it probably did a century ago—some old shelves line three of the walls while an ancient tapestry covers the back wall of the cellar from corner to corner. Directly in the center of the room sits a wooden table with exactly one chair tucked under it. The table is covered in decades of dust, as is the old canning press that rests on top of it, and there are a bunch of closed, empty jars on the shelves.

Other than that, the room is completely empty.

I saw Jean-Luc open the doors. I saw him disappear down the stairs. I know I did.

But he’s definitely not in here.

I do another pass with the flashlight, just to be sure. Nope, no fae hiding in one of the shadowy corners. But as the light swings around the room, I notice wet footsteps winding in a strange pattern around the whole room.

I see them just about the same time I notice something else strange—namely that there is absolutely no dust on the old, wooden floor. The shelves are covered in years’ worth of the stuff, and so are the table and chair. But the floor doesn’t have so much as one speck of dust on it.

Which is impossible, unless someone—or lots of someones—have been coming in here regularly for who knows what reason. Nothing good, I’m sure.

I try to follow the footsteps around the table, but I didn’t close the cellar doors—trapping myself in here with a pissed-off fae didn’t seem like the best idea at the time. So rain is blowing in, soaking the ground near the ladder and obliterating some of the footsteps. And what the rain isn’t destroying, I am, as I drip all over everything.

I do one more circle of the room, checking for some sign that there’s a secret room or a subcellar, anything that might account for the disappearing footsteps. But I find absolutely nothing.

Nothing behind the shelves. Nothing under the table. Nothing in the corners of the room. And nothing behind the tapestry—except enough dust to send me into a sneezing and coughing fit after I pull it away from the wall to check.

As I struggle to catch my breath—and stop sneezing for the millionth time—my flashlight shines on the tapestry itself. It’s a typical Galveston beach scene from the early nineteen hundreds. A cheery-looking ocean is in the background, along with a multihued sky as the sun sets on the horizon. In the foreground, I recognize the large, circular hotel with its wraparound balconies. An umbrella is set up on the beach in front of the hotel, and underneath it is a wooden lounge chair with an open book resting on its seat.

Beside the chair is an inner tube along with a bucket of champagne, and on the small table beside the chair is a crystal champagne flute. Several yards away is a large, circular pile of sticks, like someone is planning to start a bonfire.

It looks completely ridiculous and as anathema to the Calder Academy I know now as anything I’ve ever seen here. No wonder it’s been relegated to an old root cellar—I can’t imagine my mother letting anything like this hang in the halls of our school. There’s too much cheerfulness in its bright colors, too much hope in that bonfire just waiting to be lit.

Still, it’s strange what you pay attention to when you’re a kid, because I remember there being a tapestry here before, but I didn’t remember it looking like this—so fun and whimsical and bright. I guess when I was young, it seemed normal, while now it just seems too happy for a place like this. An island like this.

Still, time is ticking down, and if I don’t check in at the dorm after class, there’ll be hell to pay. Plus, I can already hear the storm getting worse.

The idea of leaving Jude, and even Jean-Luc, out here in the middle of this is starting to not sit well with me—despite my suspicions. I need to find them or head back to the dorms on my own.

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