Page 121 of Wilds of Wonder
“It’s a long story.” His gaze never strayed from Bellamy’s face.
“El.” Aron stepped forward. “I’ve stood by you all these years. I’ve never wavered in my loyalty. But this is a fool’s errand. Your father, he’s?—”
Before Aron could finish, Bellamy raised her hand to the sky. The stars brightened, their glow stretching down, shining on each of us, our own individual spotlights that left us transfixed. Suddenly my eyes were growing heavy. So, so heavy.
It dawned on me too late what was happening. “She’s using her star magic.” I stumbled into Maverick, whose own eyes were fighting to stay open.
And she was using it to put us all to sleep.
I stood in the frost court. My boots sunk into cushy snow. The cold wind soothed me, and I raised my face to a grey sky, thick flakes falling from it. Home. I was home. Then I remembered all the events that had just occurred.
This wasn’t real. I was dreaming. Asleep. I pinched myself.
“Wake up,” I said. “C’mon, wake up.”
I pinched myself again. Harder this time. All I managed to accomplish was giving myself a thick red mark on my hand.
“It won’t work,” a voice said.
My head snapped up as Bellamy emerged through the flurries. Her voice was low, raspy but smooth. It reminded me of a singer. Her blood-red dress was stark against the snow, and in this dreamworld it wasn’t torn or raggedy, but smooth and full and clean. Her raven hair fell in smooth waves past her shoulders.
Her hand moved to her throat. “The only place I can talk. In dreams.”
“Your father is alive,” I burst out.
Her face went slack for a moment, but then her usual hard mask returned. “You’re lying,” she said. “Trying to catch me off-guard.”
“I’m not,” I said gently. “Something’s wrong. His brain. He’s troubled.”
“Then he’s already gone.” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “I have to focus on saving my brothers. I owe them this. I owe them everything.”
Snowflakes swirled between us.
“But not like this. Not when the stakes are so high.” My voice took on a pleading tone.
“You just want the bolt,” she said. “And you’re not going to get it.”
I threw out my hands. “Despite what you believe, I don’t just care about myself. I do care about you, El.”
She flinched.
“I care about you and your brothers.”
“Then you know why I have to do this,” she shot back.
“So that’s it? You’re going to leave us while we’re all asleep, defenseless? You’re going to escape through that hole and keep us trapped here the same way you were trapped so long ago?” Tears welled in my eyes at the injustice of it all.
Bellamy looked away, the wind blowing her black hair so that it covered her face. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
“Yet you want to.” I stepped toward her. “That’s why you’re here, in my dreams.” I said my suspicions out loud, even if they seemed impossible. “You’re the one who lured Annalee here, aren’t you? But why? How?”
I half-expected her to laugh or tell me to stop being crazy. Instead, her eyes widened. “How could you know that?”
“You just put all of us to sleep at once. Five people. There is no star elemental in recorded history with that kind of power. To have the power to enter a girl’s dream who lived all the way in the fire court—it would be someone with the kind of power to sink five people into unconsciousness at the same time.”
It didn’t make sense. Star elementals could enter someone’s mind when they slept, to create nightmares or the best dreams. They could put a person to sleep, but typically just putting one person to sleep could drain their magic, except for the strongest of star elementals. Toreach out to someone in another court halfway across the continent, Bellamy must’ve had powers far greater than I understood.
She swallowed, gaze still guarded. “My brothers and I always had powers that far exceeded other elementals of the star court. My father didn’t know why. He and my mother were baffled by all of us. Well, my mother never knew me. She had already transformed by the time she gave birth to me. But my father told me that before the Shadow War, when they were just a normal family, they’d agreed that my brothers shouldn’t tell anyone about their powers.”
