Page 73 of Sweet Nightmare

“You should take someone with you. It’s dangerous—”

This time he doesn’t bother to answer. He just rolls his eyes.

And for a second, I’m not staring at seventeen-year-old Jude at all. I’m staring at fourteen-year-old Jude. Still tall, still beautiful, but a lot leaner and less filled out than now. His face is as somber as ever, but his eyes aren’t as guarded. And maybe the biggest tip-off is he’s wearing the old chukkas he gave up sophomore year. Not that I go out of my way to notice what Jude wears, but it was hard to miss when he traded them in for a pair of Tom Ford Chelsea boots.

“Hey—” I call out, totally confused. But then I blink and fourteen-year-old Jude is gone. And in his place is the guy who just saved my life.

“What’s wrong, Clementine?” Aunt Claudia asks intently. “What did you see?”

But I just shake my head—if I tell her, I’ll probably end up in the infirmary for the rest of the night. “Nothing. I’m just worried about him.”

“Don’t be,” Aunt Claudia tells me as she looks into my ears, which have magically stopped hurting along with the rest of me. “He’ll be fine.”

There it is again, my family’s pervasive, soul deep belief that Jude can handle the monsters—and he did, at least with the ones I saw. Not to mention the fact that his tattoos just did whatever they did to save me.

Is that it? Do they somehow keep him safe? And if so, how? And what are they exactly?

“You are in remarkably good shape considering everything you’ve been through,” Aunt Claudia announces a few minutes later, after giving me a thorough check. “Mozart said you’d also gone a couple rounds with one of the menagerie monsters, but I see no evidence of that. Jude must have been with you.”

I start to tell her he wasn’t but then decide there’s no point. It will only upset her. Plus, it’s obvious no one in my family has any intention of telling me what’s really going on with Jude and his powers. Just one more Calder Academy secret, apparently.

I wish I knew more about oneiroi, but Jude is the only one I’ve ever met. I’ve tried looking them up several times over the years, including the summer before freshman year when I was falling for him and wanted to know everything I could about him. But none of the information I found about the oneiroi sounded like Jude at all. When the internet failed me, I even went to our spooky, not-so-well-kept library. But the only book I found that mentioned the oneiroi only had a couple pages. Most of the information was super obvious, and again, what wasn’t didn’t sound like him.

“I do, however, suggest you go back to the dorm, get your dinner, and rest,” Aunt Claudia says as she starts packing up her bag. “Shifting burns a lot of calories, and it takes a lot out of you—especially when something goes wrong.”

“Is it normal for something to go wrong?” I ask the question that’s been bothering me from the beginning. “Or is it just me?”

The thought that maybe my inexperience caused the unmeshing has been gnawing at me. This shift nearly killed me—and a few other students as well, apparently—which only makes it more obvious that Calder Academy has to do something about this mess. They can’t just let students leave here to figure this shit out alone. Is there any wonder so many former students die in accidents?

I had Mozart, Luis, and Simon to explain things to me and Jude to help me through it—Serena had no one. And neither did any of the other unlucky ones.

Tears bloom behind my eyes at the thought of Serena going through something like what I just went through. No, she wasn’t a shifter, but I’m sure at some point, she knew something was wrong, just like I did. And just like me, she didn’t know how to fix it. Only there was no one to help her figure it out. She was all alone.

Rage wells up inside me, but I swallow it down. When this storm is over, when we’ve made it through, I’m going to talk to my mother again. I’m going to make her listen. Because no one deserves to die the way I almost just did, especially when they’re lonely and terrified and broken all to hell.

“Oh, darling, there’s nothing wrong with you.” Aunt Claudia puts a soft hand on my cheek. “We had all kinds of problems with students when the power surge happened. It messed with the system we use to keep your magic safe and contained. Things went wonky for a lot of the students, not just with unmeshing. A few vampires got stuck in fading mode, a banshee screamed her entire cottage down, and several of the witches spelled themselves invisible. We couldn’t even find them to help change them back. Thankfully it’s over for now, and we should be off the island before anything like that happens again.”

“You don’t think we need to worry about tonight?” The last thing I want is to somehow end up unmeshed again. Even knowing Jude can fix me doesn’t negate the pain that comes with it.

“I really don’t. Uncle Christopher is working on the security system now, making sure it doesn’t fail again.”

I choose to believe her because I really don’t have another choice.

Before I can say anything else, Eva and Luis come running up behind me. “Mozart DM’d us. She said you’re okay.” Eva turns to Aunt Claudia. “Is she okay?”

My aunt smiles indulgently. “She’s fine. But I suggested she get some food.” She glances around. “Actually, I suggest all of you get something to eat. You’ve been working hard, and that little mishap can’t have been easy on any of you.”

I follow her gaze back toward the admin building and realize that everyone has made it back.

“Go on ahead,” Remy calls before continuing to board up a window with Simon. “We’ll be done soon!”

Izzy quirks her brows at me before leaning against the building and going back to filing her nails.

When Mozart asks if she’s planning on helping, she just shrugs. “I already did my job. This one’s all yours.”

As if to prove it, she starts sauntering back toward the dorms. Not surprisingly, no one tries to stop her. Not even my aunt.

Instead, she snaps her bag shut and tells me, “All right, then. I’m going to head back over to the gym. We have several students there who still need medical attention after the unfortunate incident.”

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