Page 10 of Vale of Dreams

I smile at her. “Oh, Mom, of course I’m happy to see you.”

At least my training as a spy has improved my ability to lie.

CHAPTER 4

Isit on the bed in our room, sipping chamomile tea. In the dark night outside, rain drums against our windowpanes. Warm lamps light up our space. Serana stands beside me, tossing throwing knives against the wall with a steady thunk, thunk, thunk.

“Do you know what?” she says. “This is way more fun than practicing my glamouring magic.”

In the adjacent bed, Tana is muttering to herself. Tarot cards are spread on the bedsheets, and five empty cups of tea are piled on her nightstand. There are flowers in her dark braids, and she wears a bright yellow dress. She looks a million times better than I do, or so I imagine. I feel faded and worn.

When I was a teenager, I had a Joy Division shirt that I wore all the time and washed every week. By the end, it was tattered and almost translucent, more like a memory of a shirt than an actual shirt. That’s how I feel right now. A threadbare version of myself, hardly recognizable.

The sense of warmth I had at coming home to Avalon Tower has already turned to ice. Here, in the tower’s gothic halls, a cold cloud of suspicion hangs over every conversation, frosting the atmosphere. My trio was gone less than a week, but that was all it took for mistrust to fester. In that week, tensions between the “Iron Legion” and demi-Fey have escalated, becoming unbearable. Wherever I walk, humans whisper and stare at me. Some give me dirty looks. Most of them have probably already signed the Iron Legion pledge to inform on us.

With most of the elite knights fighting in Scotland, there are few demi-Fey left here to band together. We’re outnumbered.

I try to imagine how Raphael would handle it, but I can’t exactly picture it.

Over lunch today, my mom told me a story about attacking an accountant with a high heel after he insulted her at a party. As I listened to her ramble, my mind raced about Mordred. As insane as it seemed, I was leaning toward allying with him.

“Damn it!” Tana shouts.

If calm, dreamy Tana shouts, it means something terrible is probably going to happen. My pulse kicks up a notch. “What is it?”

She sighs. “The streams of time are entangled. They crisscross every which way, stars misaligned, omens misread.” Her hands are shaking.

Serana stops tossing her throwing knives and turns to face her. “Sorry, what?”

Tana looks up from her reading. “The future is fucked. Never mind. Go back to what you were doing. It’s fucked, but I need to find out more.”

Serana tosses another knife. Thunk.

“Serana, can we have some quiet? I have a headache,” I mumble.

“Because you haven’t slept normally in months,” Serana says. “And you haven’t eaten normally. Do you know what you need to do? You need to channel your aggression like I do.”

She holds a knife out to me by the hilt.

Reluctantly, I grab it from her. She points to a spot on the floor by my bed. “Stand here.” Too tired to argue, I obey. “Now, imagine that target is the face of someone you really hate,” she instructs. “Can you see it?”

“Tarquin,” I say immediately.

“Good. Go for it.”

I can almost see his thin face before me, the long nose and flared nostrils. The thin lips. Gritting my teeth, I toss the knives, one after another in rapid succession. They hit two feet below the target, clattering off the stone.

“Good on the aggression,” Serana says, nodding, “except you’re supposed to aim.”

“I did. I imagined his face.” I point at the notches in the stone where the knives hit, right at crotch height. “And I hit the target.”

Serana stares at me, her mouth open. “Right. Okay. Not sure if I’m impressed or concerned.”

“All right, hang on,” Tana says from her bed. “Am I losing my mind? The cards don’t make any sense. I’ve checked the stars, but the sky is too cloudy for a proper reading.”

“What about the crystal ball?” Serana asks.

“Absolutely not. It’s tacky. You know what I need? Goat entrails. One can really see the future clearly in proper entrails.”

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