Page 41 of Cathmoir's Sons

It’s a text, not a call, but I’ve set a special ringtone for Kellan, so even the text wakes me.

Kellan: I don’t know if Law told you, but he sent me a journal. He wrote a story in it, of your great-grandfather’s funeral. It’s very moving. I’m sorry the reality of death hit you so young. If you’d like to talk about it, I’ll listen any time.

I steal out of bed without waking Rhodes, slink to the cuddle pit in the lounge, and settle down to text my mate.

Even at 3 a.m.?

Kellan: WTF? Why are you awake?

Why are you?

Kellan: I had a bad dream so I read the story again to help me get back to sleep. I didn’t know if you knew about it, so I thought I’d text you before I saw you next and put my foot in my mouth.

I knew about the journal. I helped him pick it out. We talked about it while he was writing out the story for you. What was your bad dream about?

The gray dots bounce as she writes, then stop. The phone rings.

I tap up a video call.

She’s propped up against white pillows in a room that’s not her bedroom. Probably Jane Serpa’s guest room, since Law tells me that’s where she’s been staying.

“That doesn’t look like Cait House,” she says.

“We have a house on campus,” I explain.

“Oh.”

Talk about inserting foot in mouth.

“What was your bad dream about?” I ask again, to try to move her mind on from the fact that Rhodes and I have lived together for years.

She chews her lower lip for a moment. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about my dreams with a student.” More chewing. Her flushed, wet lip is making things happen in my boxers and I’m glad she can only see my face. “But I did hear what you said to me at Teddy’s ball. You’re right. You’re the one person I haven’t confided in, who actually knows things that could help me figure out my Path. I’m trying not to be stupid, Luca.”

“Would it help if I made you a promise? Anything you tell me after nine p.m. and before eight a.m., I promise not to mention, or even think too hard about, unless I’m absolutely sure no one will hear us. I won’t betray your trust, Kellan. You know I’m loyal to you.”

Kellan rubs her fingers over her face but nods. “I know you are.”

“Trust me with your secrets.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, then she says, “I’ve always had nightmares. It’s the curse of our Element, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I say to encourage her.

“When I was a kid, I used to dream about this desolate street. Pavement crumbling under my feet. Bricks tumbling off buildings. Everything decaying as I watched. But I never felt I was looking through my own eyes. I was looking through this strange, circular frame of bone. Years after I graduated, I learned I was somehow sharing this vision with an Air and Earth witch that Teddy knows, Tsara Faa. She told me where she’d had the vision. I went to Boston and saw the street. It was the same as my dreams. I stopped having that nightmare after that and it’s been a few years since I’ve had one as vivid as the one tonight. I guess that’s why it shook me.”

“Is it common for witches to share dreams like that? Are you related to her somehow?”

“Not that I know of,” Kellan says. “Shared visions usually happen when magi are connected in some way and in close proximity, but I only met Tsara as an adult. She lived in Boston. I visited the city a lot when I was a kid to go shopping with my mother, but we never ran into each other that I know of. It’s possible we crossed paths, I guess.”

“And the dream tonight?” I ask, to focus her back on what rattled her enough to text me at three in the morning.

She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “It could have been in Boston, I’m not sure. It was in a lighthouse I didn’t recognize, looking over choppy gray water.”

My first year at Bevvy I took an elective with a dotty Air witch on dreams, divination, and Jungian archetypes. I’d never admit it to someone as practical as Law, but I really liked that class. It kicks in as Kellan speaks. The lighthouse is a symbol of guidance: Kellan’s subconscious is trying to offer her insight. The choppy water is her current, unsettled mental state.

“Next to the reflector thing that casts the spotlight, there was a little boy sitting, playing with marbles. I sat down next to him and asked him to teach me how to play. He handed me one of the marbles. I held it up to my eye and saw that it contained a world in miniature. Forests. Cities. Oceans. All held within this marble. The child grew a long, black beak as I looked at the marble and cawed at me, encouraging me to roll my marble into the pattern of eleven marbles he’d set up. Like bowling pins. I rolled the marble and when it hit the other marbles, they all cracked, blood oozing out of them to cover the floor we were sitting on. The crow-child just shook his head and scooped up the marbles, leaving me sitting in a pool of blood.”

This dream is about her fears. She’s afraid of her power, afraid of the impact it will have on her world.

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