Page 96 of Fearsome Dream

“Like an hour ago. It’s my favorite.”

Another of the girls scratches her head. “Do you think we’ve heard enough music yet that we can really have favorites?”

The first girl sets her hands on her hips and takes on a sassy tone. “Iknowthat’s the best song I’ve ever heard even if I can’t remember most of the ones I listened to before.”

The bunch of them break out into laughter. The sound peals out of the room and wraps around my heart with a glow of relief.

They can be happy. That’s a start.

That’s the most important thing, really. I don’t think any of us shadowbloods had much of a chance to be happy while we were dealing with one villain or another controlling our lives.

One of the guys slings his arm around the first girl’s waist, and she peeks at him coyly through her eyelashes. Then I step into the room, and they all go momentarily silent. Not nervous but aware that they should pay attention to whatever I might say.

It feels weird being treated as an authority figure, even though I do know a lot more about what we are and what we’ve been through than any of them do now.

I smile at them to show I’m totally on board with how they’re occupying their time. “Maybe we could set up a dance party here one night. Andreas did that for me once—it can be a lot of fun.”

The girl who was demanding her favorite song beams at me. “That sounds awesome!”

The glow inside me expands a little. “I’ll talk to the guys about what we can pull together, then. And I’ll see all of you for our powers practice sessions later.”

An eager light gleams in all of their eyes. I don’t totally like how enthusiastic they are to uncover the powers they’ve forgotten, but it’s not as if I can blame them for being eager to own their strength. And we have to teach them what they’re capable of so they can learn how to control those powers.

I just hope we can be good enough teachers to ensure they never take things too far again.

In the next room over, Ajax and Devon are sitting on a loveseat together, flipping through a book of photos from around the world. Ajax is just tapping one of the scenes. “The island we were on looked kind of like this. At least, the jungle part in the middle of the mountains.”

Devon tilts his head to the side. “That doesn’t look so bad. It’s pretty—and peaceful.”

Ajax chuckles softly. “It probably wouldn’t be bad if we were there for an actual vacation or something. Maybe we can actually do that someday.”

I stay silent so as not to disturb them overtly, but think a question toward Ajax.Are you going to tell him abouteverythingthat happened?

We’ve filled the younger shadowbloods in on the broader strokes of our history but kept the events of the past month particularly vague. I’m not sure how they’d react to knowing the full details of what we endured—or the destruction they carried out. But we’re giving Ajax some leeway with his boyfriend, since he knows Devon better than any of us.

Ajax doesn’t give any outward sign that he’s talking to me.Not yet. I’m seeing how it goes. And… I feel like the things he did after Balthazar messed with him weren’t reallyhimanyway.

Yeah, that’s fair.

He’s been taking their relationship slowly too—letting Devon know how important they were to each other but making it clear that he doesn’t need to reciprocate. As I watch, Devon scoots a little closer so he’s tucked right against the other boy.

I don’t need Griffin’s empathic ability to read the joy that beams from Ajax’s face.

I pass the kitchen, where Omar and the other criminal shadowblood we rescued are putting away the recently-washed breakfast dishes. Omar has been surprisingly upbeat since waking up from the memory wipe, and his good mood seems to rub off on the other man.

Rollick has been overseeing their recovery, since they have a little trouble accepting my guys and me as authorities the way the teens do. There are always at least a few shadowkind monitoring them from the shadows too.

Just before I reach the corner that leads to the row of bedrooms, Nadia comes striding around the corner. She stops when she sees me with a hesitant smile that makes my heart ache.

I think she can tell that things weren’t so great between us right before she lost her memories. It’s hard for me to never let my regrets over how those last few weeks played out color my expression or my voice.

She has no idea just how much she lost. I don’t know if it’ll ever make sense to tell her about Booker.

But I’m doing my best to be both a friend and a big sister figure to her now—better than I managed it before.

“Are you ready to shine?” I ask her in a lightly teasing tone.

She lets out a nervous giggle and tugs at the hem of her T-shirt—neon green, a hue she gravitated toward automatically without any guidance from me. “As ready as I’m going to be, I guess. It still seems so weird, that I could do anything like that…”

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