Page 21 of Lady of the Nightmares

I watched, transfixed, as the orange seemed to shimmer in his palm, then crumbled, turning to dust before my eyes, just like he’d done with the apple so many months ago.

I realized I was holding my breath. “Illusion?”

He shook his head. “Time.”

BAEL

THE WILDES, INBETWIXT

The monster in my head was hungry,

The scent of honey and magic overwhelmed the tent, welcoming and comforting in a way that no other scent was. Except, perhaps, the scent of death. Both were soothing to the creature, driving him further dormant.

Dormant, sleeping, but never completely gone.

“Are you alright, little monster?” I inquired, forcing my voice into a light, neutral tone that felt so unnatural I could have growled instead.

The monster was a constant presence and keeping it at bay a daily battle. It rose when I was too tired or drained. On nights when the dead were loudest, and my other abilities made it too hard to ignore.

Lonnie looked up at me, her motions brisk and unnatural. “Yes,” she answered rigidly.

Like fucking hell she is.

Lonnie’s entire body seemed to quiver with nerves as she leaned toward me to inspect the dust in my hand. One curl of her unruly red hair had already sprung free from its braid, and it was an effort not to reach out and correct it for her. My jaw tensed, and I looked up at the ceiling, trying not to think about how easy it would be to reach out and grab her, have her flat on this bed before she’d even caught her breath.

Perhaps I’m the one who isn’t alright, then.

My little monster put her fingers out lightly and touched the dust in my palm as if it were poison. “You…killed it?” she breathed, sounding uncertain. “Even though it wasn’t alive?”

I let out a small breath. If she was still asking absurd questions, at least she wasn’t thinking of all the ways I might murder her. Not that I could or would harm her—not now—but she didn’t seem to understand that.

“You could think of it that way. If anything is left unattended long enough, it would rot or crumble and eventually return to the earth. I have an affinity for time—for speeding it along in small amounts and for communicating with those who once walked where we now stand.”

“Can you do that to living creatures? Speed them along?”

I nodded. “Does that scare you?”

She swallowed thickly, and I watched, fascinated, as the muscles in her throat worked.

“It should,” she said finally.

The monster in the back of my mind purred.

Lonnie feared Fae, at least in the abstract. The irony of that floored me, but it didn’t make it any less true. I’d never before cared if anyone was afraid of me—I welcomed it, in fact, as a simple fact of life—yet I didn’t want her to be afraid. The fact that she wasn’t was proof she wasn’t ignoring all her instincts. Some part of her knew we were connected.

“I thought your magic was all hereditary?” she asked suddenly.

I was glad she could not hear my heartbeat speed up at her question. “It is.”

“But no one else has this power.”

I paused. It was my own fault for telling her to ask better questions—admittedly, that was quite a good one. “My mother is a seer like Queen Celia, which is a more passive form of time manipulation, and my father—” I broke off awkwardly. “Might be a story for another time.”

She sat up straighter, clearly sensing my tension. “Why?”

Because I’m enjoying you not being afraid of me, and that truth would likely send you sprinting for the trees.

I ran a hand over the back of my neck. She’d likely find out soon enough, anyway. If I was certain beyond any doubt that she had accepted what I knew to be true—that we were mates—I might have told her now. But not yet.

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