Page 13 of Dreamer (The Dream World Chronicles)

Mother frowned, ear cocked towards the ceiling. “I thought I heard—never mind.”

I quickly finished the last plate and left the dishes to dry. “I’ll be in my room.” I dashed up the ladder before Mother could find something else for me to do.

Stardust hastily hid something behind her the moment I reached the loft. Her coloring book and crayons lay abandoned on the floor, her picture unfinished. As I’d suspected, she’d spent the entire day up to mischief.

“What are you hiding?”

“Nothing,” she said in a rush, eyes wide with guilt. “I’m not hiding anything.”

“Show me.” Judging by her behavior, it was definitely something of mine. She sighed and revealed one of my dream journals.

“Give that back.” I lunged forward, but she darted towards the ceiling.

“I haven’t had a chance to investigate it yet.”

“I told you not to cause any mischief.”

“Solving mysteries is anything but mischievous.” Her eyes glistened. “I knew you were hiding something, so I started investigating the moment you slipped downstairs. It was nearly impossible to find clues in such disarray, but I persevered. Did you think a clever cloud such as myself, with impeccable observation skills, would fail to notice the loose floorboard beneath the pile of pillows you call a bed, even in this sloppy mess? Please. It’s so cliché I can’t believe I didn’t look there in the first place.” She flipped my journal open to the first page.

“Don’t read it.” But my plea fell on unmerciful ears.

Stardust studied each entry carefully. “These are only dreams.” She raised her disappointed gaze to mine. “You don’t seem the journalling type…which means this being a journal is nothing more than a red herring. Last year I read a book about secret codes. You must have mixed your dark secrets between random dreams to fool potential snoops. I bet three bags of moonbits these dreams are really encrypted messages.” She squinted at an entry so closely her nose grazed the page.

I sighed. “Listen, I don’t know what you’re investigating, only that I have nothing to do with it. Any magic I’ve performed has been too weak to cause any trouble.”

“False. There was a huge surge of magic where I found you this morning, and the magical remnants I discovered match the dream dust I confiscated from you.” She snapped my journal shut and glared at me. “Conclusion: you’re the culprit who performed the largest bit of unrecorded magic on Earth. There’s no room for doubt. Case closed.”

I shifted beneath her accusatory look. “Why does it matter? Nothing bad happened.”

“Itdoesmatter,” she said. “Because your unusual use of magic happened around the same time there was a theft in the Dream World.”

An ominous chill rippled up my spine. “What kind of theft?”

“A dream dust theft,” she whispered. “Thirty-seven minutes after dawn, a Dreamer reported that some of their dust had gone missing,stolen.”

“Maybe they just misplaced it.” In my short experiences with dream dust thus far, it had proven to be a rather slippery form of power.

Stardust shook herself back and forth. “Dream dust can’t just vanish. Dream lockets are enchanted to keep magic protected until it’s used, and only a locket’s owner can open and close it. Otherwise, only dark magic is strong enough to break such a secure charm.”

I sensed where her conclusions were leading. “You think there’s a connection between my magic and the magic linked to the theft?”

Stardust rolled her eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? Two impossible occurrences happen within moments of each other. That’s no coincidence. I’m here to prove the two are connected, because I need to be the one to solve this mystery if I’m ever going to become a famous detective.”

“Not only am I not the only potential suspect—there was that Nightmare whose dust you found beneath the tree—but there’s another problem with your theory: how could I have stolen anything from your world if I was on Earth the entire time? I’ve never even been to this Dream World of yours.”

Stardust slumped and slowly drifted from the ceiling. “I suppose that’s a solid alibi.” She didn’t remain droopy for long. “But it’s too soon to declare this a dead end, not when I’ve recently discovered another lead.” She morphed into her notebook, flipped through a few pages, and tilted herself towards me so I could see what was inside. My stomach dropped. Staring back at me were several of Mother’s plants, drawn in such detail I almost tried to pull them from the pages.

“When did you—how—”

She smirked. “I followed you the moment you left the attic. Did you think I'd let my prime suspect out of my sight for a moment, or sit quietly here the entire afternoon when there's a case to be solved? Please.”

“But I didn’t see—” Then all at once I understood. “Youwere one of the butterflies hovering around the garden.”

“I was many things, a butterfly only being one of them,” she said. “Even after witnessing my morphing powers firsthand, you failed to notice me as I watched you and your Mother for several hours; I was able to gather many clues completely undetected.”

How could I have been fooled by such an obvious disguise? I gritted my teeth.

“Back to business,” she said. “What exactly are these plants? They’re unlike any I’ve ever seen in myMortal Studiesbook or my wanderings around Earth, and there’s an air of foreign magic about them. Did you create them with your powers?”

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