Page 53 of A Dream of Stars and Curses

While I can’t die in a dream—unless the Dreamcatcher or the Mara kill me, as it turns out—I can feel pain. I’m unsure if Mischief feels any real pain, though, or how this might feel to her. She’s a figment of my imagination—a very real dream guide, but her shape and attitude and whole consciousness comes from me.

I freeze.

Glance at her.

A very real dream guide? Does that mean...

‘Mischief.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Are you one of the Veiled?’

It’s never even occurred to me. Mischief has always been here. I always understood her as just part of my dreamscape, but now the thought is there I can’t shake it. She’s so tightly bound to my unconscious that I never thought she might be her own being.

She squints at me again. ‘Are spirit guides of the Veiled?’

‘That doesn’t answer anything.’

‘Doesn’t it?’

I want to keep asking until she reveals something, but I bite my lip. I promised that I wouldn’t hassle the Veiled, and as her words start to sink in, I realise that Mischief has answered my question. If she weren’t one of the Veiled, wouldn’t she simply have said no? That she’s dancing around it must mean she can’t tell me the truth outright, which means that I need to uncover the truth myself, which means that there’s a truth to uncover in the first place.

Goosebumps shoot up my arms. For as long as I’ve lucid-dreamed, I had no idea she was more than just part of my mind.

She glides in place next to me in the shape of a raven. I’ve seen this form before—she can technically take on any shape she wants—but I feel like I’m seeing her for the first time. I’m dumbstruck. Mischief is one of the Veiled. How is that even possible? Why wouldn’t it be? I have so many new questions, but Mischief caws at the advancing black cloud, and I make myself fly towards it. Slowly. With all the caution I can muster right after my curiosity was poked with the sharpest stick ever.

‘Can we talk about this later?’ I ask as we fly towards the cloud.

‘You can ask,’ she says. ‘I may not be able to answer.’

I bite my lip again. I always thought that Mischief simply knows everything I know since she has anytime access to my unconscious, but if she’s one of the Veiled... What does that mean for us? Does it mean anything?

I let a breeze stroke around my head to clear it. This isn’t the time.

We reach the Wall of Doom much faster than I’d hoped. It looked far away, but we arrive in under two minutes. Of course, this being a dream, it’s possible that time isn’t doing its usual thing here. Maybe it’s actually years away and we just reached it quickly because dream logic. Either way, I’m no longer too sure about this as we come to a hovering stop right before it.

The cloud moves like mist over water, except it’s black and I’m scared to touch it.

‘What are you?’ I whisper.

I don’t expect an answer, but from inside it comes a deep rumbling. Could this thing be alive? What if this is one of the Veiled, too? I shake my head. Not everyone is one of the Veiled, Esta. Get a grip.

‘Are you getting anything from it?’ I ask Mischief.

‘You mean other than the sense of sinister foreboding?’

I float to the ground and stand before it. Mischief follows and turns into a cat again.

This cloud is big. I wasn’t wrong before when I called it a wall. Standing right at its feet, I almost don’t see the top end. The sides seem to extend forever. Black fog gently roils off it and dissipates. I’m surprised I don’t feel more. I thought I’d be terrified once I got this close, but there’s nothing except some dark curiosity and the sense I shouldn’t touch it. What would happen if I did?

I reach out with one hand.

‘Esta.’

I pause at the caution in Mischief’s voice, just as my fingers are about to touch a wisp of fog. There’s a reason this cloud is here or it simply wouldn’t be here. There’s no perfectly useless information in the unconscious. It all means something. It may not all be big, life-changing information, but the unconscious doesn’t waste time on pointless stuff. That more than anything makes me reach out again.

There’s no resistance when my fingers stroke the cloud. I swallow and reach farther until my hand disappears to my wrist. Nothing hurts. There’s a light softness, kinda like how I imagined clouds would feel but so faint I’m wondering if I’m imagining it after all. It’s kinda comforting. I pull my hand out again, and it’s unharmed; I don’t see any damage, anyway.

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