“Wait.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice despite there being no one else to hear them. “More than two?”
A playful smile curved her lips as she met his eyes again. “Do you suppose I shall reveal all my secrets to you in a single night, Rowanwood?” The teasing lilt in her voice did nothing to mask the very real wall she’d erected between them.
“You’re already privy to my greatest secret,” he reminded her. “I could hardly share any of yours without risking you divulging mine in return.”
Her expression shifted, caution giving way to consideration. “That is indeed true. Perhaps I shall consider sharing them.” She glanced over her shoulder, her smile fading. “But for the present …”
The light dimmed perceptibly, as though a cloud had drifted across an unseen sun. Evryn followed her gaze and noticed with growing unease that the shadowy shapes appeared darker and somehow … closer. The music that had surrounded them since their arrival took on a discordant note, the once-pleasant melody twisting into something vaguely unsettling.
“I believe it would be best for us to return to the waking world,” Mariselle said. “I can’t say how long my simple wards might hold.”
“Indeed,” Evryn said, then looked around at the vast dreamscape stretching in all directions. “Did you build an exit into this fantastical realm?”
“If Dreamland were operating with all magical systems properly integrated and functioning, then yes, there would be an exit, and a dream guide with threshold magic—someone like Petunia—would be stationed there to escort you out. But in the absence of that particular magic, you must be asleep in order to cross the boundary between the dream realm and the waking world.”
Evryn let out a humorless laugh. “I do hope you’ve brought additional portions of that tea you drugged me with. I find it difficult to imagine falling asleep naturally with shadows known asnightmare entitiescircling above.”
Mariselle gave him a smile that was somehow both apologetic and amused. “The process is actually far simpler than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can simply …” She hesitated, meeting his eyes. “Induce a state of slumber.”
Evryn stared at her. “And it did not occur to you to employ this method at the cottage instead of brewing tea laced with a sleeping draught?”
“Well,” she said, giving him a pointed sort of look, “I did not imagine you would willingly permit me to touch you.”
Her words echoed with unintended weight, and Evryn was aware of a flush creeping up his neck. He cleared his throat. “In that case, yes, I suppose the sleeping draught made more sense.”
“But now there is no other way, so …” She lowered herself to the ground and sat cross-legged before reaching tentatively toward him, the patterns on her hand glimmering faintly. “May I?”
Evryn hesitated, then sat across from her and took her hand. The contact was innocent enough, but the markings seemed to pulse with warmth where they aligned, as though recognizing each other. Evryn felt a peculiar tingling sensation spreading up his arm, across his chest, and finally enveloping his mind in a gentle, insistent fog.
“Is this another dream-magic related ability?” he managed to ask, his words already beginning to slur as his eyelids grew heavy.
She gave a small nod. “Indeed it is. My father’s cousin possesses this particular type of magic.” She hesitated, then added, “It appears I’ve manifested quite the collection of dream-related abilities.”
The world began to blur around the edges, colors bleeding into one another, the music fading to a distant hum. Evryn felt himself swaying.
“You have proven,” he murmured as darkness began to claim the edges of his vision, “to be entirely unlike what I had always presumed to know about you.”
And then he tumbled into the depths of sleep.
Chapter Nineteen
The Bridgemere Housegrand salon hummed with conversation and the occasional burst of laughter, all illuminated by the soft glow of crystal orbs hovering near the ornately carved ceiling. Mariselle stood near a refreshment table, absently adjusting her sheer lace gloves and enjoying the distance from her family, who had occupied themselves elsewhere in the room. The evening’s musicale had drawn quite the assembly of Bloomhaven’s elite, all eager to witness the newly renovated music room and the magical instruments the Bridgemeres had commissioned at considerable expense.
Her thoughts, however, remained firmly anchored in the impossible landscape she had crafted the night before. The memory of Dreamland—of standing within her own creation as it flourished around her—still sent shivers of delight cascading through her whenever she recalled it. Even now, as she nodded politely to Lady Fawnwood’s elaborate description of her daughter’s latest magical accomplishment, Mariselle’s mind kept drifting back to cotton candy skies and stained-glass butterflies.
“Ah, there she is—my glitter-dusted bonbon!” a familiar voice called, interrupting her reverie.
Mariselle turned to find Evryn approaching, his sister Aurelise at his side. An unexpected flutter stirred in her chest at the sight of him—so differentnow from how she’d left him in the early hours of this morning, slumped in peaceful oblivion on the sofa at Windsong Cottage.
She’d exhausted her remaining magic transporting his sleeping form out of Dreamland and across the ruins, and perhaps had lingered a moment longer than propriety allowed, studying him in unguarded repose. Without his perpetual mask of rakish nonchalance, his features had softened, lips parted, dark lashes resting against his cheeks as his eyes moved in dreams. This was not the Evryn Rowanwood she thought she’d always known.
She’d been struck by the same realization when stealing glances at him earlier that night at the window seat, quill moving across parchment with focused intensity. There was a depth to Evryn Rowanwood that he deliberately concealed from the world.
She had wondered then, standing there while he slept, what dreams occupied his sleeping mind. If she’d listened closely, she would have heard the whispers.
