Page 8 of Skalterra By Nightmare
I couldn’t stand the absolute betrayal of it all. Jonquil took pity on me, and brushed up against my calf in a rare display of affection.
I would have to learn to stomach Liam. It wasn’t like I could stay at home alone while Mom traveled abroad. Not after what Linsey had done.
My palms turned sweaty, and my chest tightened.
Linsey was far away. I was never going to see her again, even if I did make it off the waitlist. I’d seen to that personally, whether that had been my intention or not.
“Wren Warrender.” It was that voice again. Gravely, old, and familiar, but not in a good way.
“What?” I blurted, scanning the empty shop for the source of the voice. Liam looked back at me, confused.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
I knew I’d heard it this time, the voice saying my name. Maybe I was overtired from my night of poor sleep, but I didn’t like the concern on Liam’s face.
“It’s nothing, I—”
My phone screen lit up next to the register, and it was as if the uneven floorboards had dropped away, leaving me suspended in the salty, dusty air of the shop.
I had an email from the admissions office of Von Leer University.
“Wren Warrender, I know you’re there.”
“Wren?” Liam asked, just as the voice said my full name a third time.
“Leave me alone!” I snapped, more at the voice in my head than Liam.
“Ah,” it replied. “I knew I’d found you.”
The last thing I saw was Liam lunging across the shop floor to catch me.
3. Advanced Botany
I didn’t like waking up in a standing position. My knees buckled, and firm hands rushed to steady me. The world blurred and shifted until shapes and colors that made sense locked into place.
The grove where I stood was sunken, and a ring of towering trees stood guard at the lip of the embankment. Their roots cut out of the dirt before dipping back into the small hillside, leaving me in the middle of a tangle of bark and shadow.
“Welcome back to Skalterra, little Nightmare.” It was that voice again, the one that called for me in the shop. The old man from my dream stood in front of me, his hair more white than silver in the mottled green shadows of day. His goggles perched on top of his head, and he had his hands jammed in the pockets of his leather duster. “I’m sure you have questions, and so do we.”
“No,” I gasped and stumbled away, ripping myself from the hands that held my shoulders.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” a new voice said in my ear. The swelling in Ferrin’s face had gone down since I’d seen him in the tunnel under the fort. His leather shoulder armor wrinkled the edges of the vest he wore over a simple white shirt, and the thick, metal-rimmed goggles pushed up his forehead made his hair stick up like a cockatoo’s feathers. He looked like a steampunk professor, but he’d killed the Grimguard. He was dangerous.
But he also wasn’t real. This was another dream. It had to be.
Behind him, the old man, Galahad, drew a hand out of his pocket, alight with silver fire, and I turned heel.
Nope. Absolutely not. Dream or real, I wasn’t getting stabbed again.
“Grab her!” Galahad yelled. Ferrin’s fingers scratched at my back, but I was already sprinting for the embankment.
I grabbed onto gnarled roots for extra purchase as I heaved myself out of Ferrin’s reach. Blue hair fell in my face, obscuring my vision, and I suddenly missed my usual haircut as I fought to push thick tresses out of my way.
“Orla! Tiernan!” Ferrin shouted just as I pulled myself up over the embankment lip. A river rushed up ahead, and maroon tents stood between the trees to my left, so I banked right, sprinting between tree trunks and over roots.
I thought I might actually get away, but then pain exploded in my flank. I collapsed in the dirt, howling.
“Oh, no, I’m sorry!” The short-haired woman leaned overhead, her forehead creased with guilt.
