“You said Kairoth is gone. That means there’s no one here who would be watching.”
He twined his hands together. “Just be careful. If this is too much or you feel weak, then stop and we’ll figure something else out.”
I nodded, but I wouldn’t stop. Not until I found my brothers and made sure they were safe and that they hadn’t done anything stupid.
I blew out a shaky breath, and Leoni lay a hand on my arm, giving me a nod of encouragement. Jitters filled me, and I bounced on my feet. After all this time, I might actually be able to see my brothers, to talk to them.
I lay on the soft grass, staring up at the stars and reaching toward them with both hands. Leoni and Driscoll sat on either side of me. The stars dazzled, their light shining over me as I closed my eyes and directed the light to find my brothers.
The starlight shined over the jungle, and I could see what the stars saw. Could see into the jungle at all the sleeping creatures and boys.
Something tugged at my attention, pulling it toward a waterfall. It crashed down into a pond where seven swans sat, all of them asleep.
I gasped.
“What?” Driscoll asked, voice distant. “Did you find them?”
I nodded.
Now for the hard part. I followed the starlight down toward one of the swans. Soloman.
I entered his dreams just like I would any elemental. I gasped. There he stood in front of a bookshelf. He was dreaming of our place. The library in the star castle where we’d often go pick out books, then sit in a nook together and read quietly. We did that nearly every day. He never asked what I was reading, and I never asked him.
That was more of a Phoenix question. My other older brother loved to talk about the books we were reading.
But not Soloman. He was content to just sit. To be.
Slowly Soloman turned to look at me. His long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, hands twined behind his back.
“Bell?” he asked.
Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, and I flung myself into his arms. “You’re here,” I said, voice wobbly. “It’s really you.”
“Of course I’m here. It’s my own dream, and it’s... this is real,” he said into my hair.
I nodded against him. “It’s real. I’m here. And you—” I pushed him to arm’s length. “You look the same as you did almost sixty years ago.”
He scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah. And you’re an adult. You look older than me at this point. My baby sister.”
I couldn’t believe I’d never thought to do this before. To think all these years I could’ve actually been speaking to my brothers, visiting them in their dreams. All these years I could have felt like I had an actual family again. It made me feel sick how much I’d missed out on, how different my life might be right now if I’d had my brothers all these years.
But this shouldn’t have been possible. I’d been saying that a lot lately. Too much. A wariness prickled over me.
I clutched my stomach, and Soloman studied me with his dark eyes. “Hey, it’s okay.”
“I didn’t know,” I said. “I didn’t know you’d retained some of yourself in this form. I never even thought to try and enter your dreams.”
“I know,” Soloman said. “We were with you, though. We got to watch you grow, even if it’s been slower than normal because of the Wilds.”
I thought about my other brothers. “Did I bring all of us together somehow when I was sick?”
He led me over to the little nook with its purple cushion, the window giving view of the twilight sky and the ribbons of green undulating through it.
He sat me down. “Yes,” he said. “We’ve been able to communicate in our swan form, but none of us have been able to use our star magic. We couldn’t enter each other’s minds or yours. In that dream state, that was the first time we’d all actually seen each other in our human forms in a long time.”
Tears pricked my eyes again. I couldn’t imagine how that must’ve felt after so many years stuck as a bird.
I threw my arms around him again.
