Page 67 of Sweet Nightmares
But the memory ended and was filled with swirling smoke and haunting calls. “Come find us, Jane. Find us.”
The words repeated endlessly.
It was a mixture of magic and a present request.
And suddenly, she understood what she needed to do to regain her memories.
Jane jumped up, quickly threw her shoes on, and ran out of the room to exit the mirror because her magic was guiding her. Her mind wasn’t going to give her all the answers like this. She needed a Blood Mirror, so she let her magic pull her. She let the mirror call to her. Mirrors always had, especially the one in the Royalle Ballet, and all Jane needed was to clear her mind and listen.
And listen she did.
She ran, her dress covered with sand and disheveled, her shoes barely holding on. Onlookers probably thought she was unhinged, especially when they saw a tall, dark figure following her, strolling unconcerned behind her.
Nightmare had no anxiety or even emotion coloring his footfalls. It was quite the contrast.
But Jane didn’t care. She followed her magic, her senses. Much like Nightmare’s warm strings of light, her magic lit a path to the Ruins.
The Ruins.
Jane halted at the entrance. A sea of creepy mirrors and wicked gates formed the place. The viciously beautiful mermaid statues on the gate whispered to life, their tails flicking and hair bouncing in the wind—the sapphire gates.
“Enter at your peril, little witch,” the mermaids said in sinister unison.
The hair on Jane’s arms rose.
“Ah, and the man formed of Nightmares,” they said again in unison as Nightmare stepped up next to Jane.
Two things happened at once: the sea of mirrors behind the gates let out a wave of shrieks, the sound piercing the night sky, and an invisible barrier tried to attack their bodies, but Nightmare broke the enchantment with a wave of his arm. When they stepped through the gates, the plane was blanketed in shadows and misty, unnatural smoke.
Jane’s nostrils flared as she tried to ignore the screams and caged souls. But the mirrors were relentless, chanting evil things mixed with horrific lies.
They said things like,We want to devour you, Jane, andYou’re going to die soon.They continued, whispering cruel and damaging words into the blackened night.
“Ignore them,” Nightmare said, linking his arm into hers. “They are just echoes of the souls inside other mirrors. They can’t do anything to you.”
Echoes? Jane wanted to ask what he meant by that, but she didn’t have time or energy for that. So, instead, to the best of her ability, she ignored them, swallowing and following her magic past the mirrors.
When they finally reached the clearing beyond, it was like breathing for the first time. And, as she sucked in a deep breath, she turned her gaze upon the towering vampire ruins—a place that had once been their beautiful palace. Before the Blood Rebellion, when King Emrys won the war and slaughtered all theremaining vampires, at least until the survivors turned him into the same monster he hated so much.
Stone crumbled from the seams of turrets and looked like the jagged edges of a shattered stained-glass window. The once majestic castle festered and rotted like the bowels of a river-soaked corpse. Darkness’s wings surrounded the place and covered it in death. Vines snaked up the shattered stone, and mold grew along the walls like parasites feasting on flesh. Moss and mildew covered the ground, and everything about the place screamed,Get out! Including Jane’s gut.
Monsters worse than death haunted the grounds. Decay had breathed life into this place, and nothing was free from its chokehold.
Above the entrance were dripping words written in blood.If you wish to enter the ruins safely, a blood sacrifice must be freely given.
Without hesitation, Jane picked up and ran her palm against the jagged rocks hard enough to cause a bloom of blood to escape. Then she walked through the barrier. The effect was immediate. Wisps of shadow and glowing blue light leaked out of her body. The same thing happened to Nightmare when he repeated the process.
Jane clutched her chest and reached a hand out to catch herself on the rocks. A piece of herself had been stripped away.
It had stolen her magic.
“Don’t worry,” Nightmare said, wrapping a hand around her waist and helping her up.“It will return when we’re done here.”
The inside of the castle stared up at the cursed night sky. Stars leered down with wicked intent, the rays burning with cruelty. The room shone with crimson light that illuminated the shriveling castle. At its center stood a scarlet mirror—a ruby the size of a boulder.
The crown jewel in a sea of rot.
A Blood Mirror.
