Page 33 of Vale of Dreams

“I found a portal that leads to Auberon’s fortress in Brocéliande. And I got Raphael out of his dungeon. Then he broke up with me and is refusing to leave Brocéliande until we can find the dungeon where his sister is held.” My heart tightens at the thought of him.

“What?” Serana flicks her red hair out of her eyes. “Wait a minute. I have so many questions. You rescued Raphael, and he dumped you?”

“He suddenly cares a lot about the rules of Avalon Tower.”

My eyelids are already drooping, and dizziness clouds my thoughts. All the energy has leached out of my body.

“Nia, are you alright?” Tana asks.

“I need sleep,” I mumble.

“Right. You haven’t slept for two days,” Tana interjects. “Rest for a bit. We’ll go get you something to eat. We can talk about everything once you feel a bit better.”

“But if there’s a portal, we have to tell Viviane,” Serana says. “This is a game-changer.”

“We will talk to her,” Tana says. “With Nia once she gets some sleep. She looks like she’s going to collapse.”

“Thanks.” I crumple into my bed and pull the blankets up over myself.

As I start to fall into a deep sleep, I see Talan’s hauntingly beautiful dark eyes in my mind.

Soon, the Dream Stalker will be trying to find me, to claim me as his mistress.

Tana and Serana wake me way before I’m ready. I’ve slept for two hours, but somehow, it seems no more than four minutes. I feel like I’ve been ripped from the darkest depths of sleep, dredged from the lake of dreams. My thoughts are still sludgy, under water.

Walking between them, I drag myself through the hallway. They’re leading me to a debriefing meeting that can’t wait in the Lady of Shallott Tower.

Blinking, I clutch a blue teacup, its porcelain surface covered in stars and moons. I take a sip. Slowly, the two shots of espresso are starting to work their magic in my veins, clearing my thoughts just a little.

I glance behind me, bleary-eyed, to find two Iron Legion cadets trailing us. I curl my lip at them, snarling. They blanch. Of course they’re scared of someone who can control their minds. What they don’t know is that I don’t have any desire to feel that skull-shattering pain again anytime soon.

Tana pulls me into a narrow hall. “Detour,” she mutters.

Sipping my coffee, I survey this new hall. I’ve never seen this one before—so cramped we have to walk single-file, with Tana in front of me and Serana behind. There’s hardly any light, and a few cobwebs hang from the ceiling.

“This used to be a servant passageway,” Serana explains. “Back in the days when Avalon agents didn’t want to see the help. It isn’t used much today, but it’s a handy place for a smoke break, apparently.”

“Nice.” My voice echoes, and so do the extra footfalls behind us.

We’re still being followed.

“Whoops, my shoelace is untied,” Serana says. “You two go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

I glance over my shoulder at her. She’s kneeling, fumbling with her shoelace in the cramped stone passage. Her red hair hangs down, and her body blocks the hallway. One of the Iron Legion cadets glares at her as he catches up.

His lips press into a thin line. “You can’t just block the hall.”

Serana is working on the slowest shoe-tying job in the history of shoes. “Sorry. I forget how it goes sometimes, you know? Do you make the bunny ears first, or…you know what? I’m going to tie a knot if I’m not careful.”

Tana hurries ahead, and I rush to keep up with her, leaving Serana and the fuming Iron Legionnaires behind.

At the end of the long passage, we turn into a wide corridor once more and slip into a stairwell. My legs burn, shaking a little from fatigue.

“Who, exactly, was the Lady of Shallott?” I ask.

She turns to me with a small smile. “You know, Shalott, the beautiful island in the lake with the weeping willows?” She frowns. “Oh, it’s not there anymore, is it? I think it drowned in the war between Merlin and Mordred. Anyway, Elaine was a countess. She was madly, passionately in love with your father, but he cursed her, trapping her on the balcony of that tower with a mirror and a loom. So now, it’s named after her.”

I swallow hard. The stories about Mordred weren’t getting any better. “Why did he curse her?”

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