Page 29 of Nightmare's Dance

He raised his eyebrows. “I am not a vampire. I can eat human food.”

“Wait, vampires are real?” Ash leaned forward. She might have a tiny obsession. I hid a smirk behind my hand.

“As real as anything from Dream is real.” Nic was good at those non-answers.

“We’re going to revisit this,” she replied before getting up and grabbing plates. “Ember, I texted Robby. He’s on his way with your equipment. We haven’t notified the cops yet because I imagine you probably need to figure out something to tell them that they’ll believe.”

“Great.” I didn’t even want to think about dealing with the cops.

“So, let’s eat. Then I want to show you the new setup in the gym. You’ll love it.” She carried on while we all served ourselves, keeping us from awkward silence or even more awkward questions. I really loved my cousin, now more than ever. She’d always been my favorite.

Food helped a ton. Nic even appeared to enjoy the meal, and he’d mostly answered the few questions my parents were brave enough to ask. I was sure he knew Ash and I were going to drill him later, but at least right now he acted mostly at ease.

My parents took care of cleaning up, shooing us out of the kitchen after a significant look at Ash. Yeah, they wanted her to get all the information we weren’t telling them. Fortunately, I trusted her to be cautious about what she shared. They were taking this remarkably well, come to think of it.

Nic followed me and my cousin out of the kitchen and to the back door. Daylight lingered and the heat and humidity shimmered in the air. It wasn’t even fully summer, but today had obviously been warm. Birds sang and the riot of colors from the spring flowers filled my heart to bursting. Especially after the grays and blacks of Nightmare.

Speaking of Nightmare, Nic hadn’t followed us outside. He lingered just inside the door, out of the direct sunlight.

I turned and went back to the house. “No sunlight?” I asked him.

“I can do sunlight. It’s simply draining and very uncomfortable. Where are we headed?”

I pointed to the extensive building off to the west. We had to go through the gardens and across an open grassy area we kept mowed and used for outdoor practice.

Nic took a breath and nodded, then followed me into the sunlight. In the shade, his skin tone was either the blacks and grays of shadows or tawny brown. The sunlight grayed his skin unhealthily.

“You’re not joking about the sun.”

“I’ll survive.” He even sounded less vibrant.

Though I wanted to admire the garden, I lengthened my stride for Nic’s sake.

“So, Nic, what are you, then?” Ash questioned the prince.

“I’m a prince of Nightmare,” he replied, as if that answered everything.

“Yeah, but what does that mean?”

“It means I’m one of three charged with keeping some semblance of order in the realm of Nightmare. Mostly that involves making sure especially powerful nightmares don’t bleed over into the conscious realm. Though we’ve neglected that duty as of late.”

“Who are the other two?”

“Baz and Dio. We haven’t seen Dio in years, and Baz has changed significantly.”

Ash unlocked the door when we reached the gym, and let us inside. We only kept it locked when unoccupied by an adult to make sure none of the campers used the equipment alone. We didn’t want anyone to get hurt.

Nic took a relieved breath once we were out of the sun. The building was nice and cool, and dark.

Ash hesitated with her hand over the light switch. “We’ll just leave them off for a minute.”

“Thank you,” Nic replied from the shadows. I couldn’t even see him when I turned to look.

“So, Nic, Baz, Dio, your parents have a thing for three letter names?”

“Did yours?” Nic shot back.

“Touché,” Ash replied. “No, I picked this name to match Ember’s. She’s always been one of my best friends, and when I transitioned, I wanted something that went with hers.”

---