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My mother.
She was pale and lifeless, and her skin had pulled away from her bones.
I couldn’t control my gasp, inhaling a mouthful of water. Choking and coughing, I reached for her bony fingers, my vision growing darker with each passing second. I wouldn’t make it. The pressure building in my lungs was too much. They burned. Wrung themselves empty for the last bit of air that remained.
My mother’s eyes were hauntingly alert as she watched my body go limp, unable to fight any longer. If I didn’t breathe soon, I’d join her.
“This is all your fault,” she said through a lipless mouth, and I took my final inhale, succumbing to my fate.
A glowing light appeared beside me.
A star coming to collect my soul—but it reached inside me, filling me with life until warmth returned to my body.
“Don’t give up, Elowyn.” A deep voice boomed inside my head, “Don’t give up!”
I jolted awake—wheezing—and shook the nonexistent water from my ears. It took me a second to remember where I was.
The gold floral wallpaper. The four-post bed. The rich mahogany furniture, and the musty stench of old air.
I groaned. Still trapped like a criminal.
Peeling my sleep shirt away from my neck, I flung the blankets off my legs and padded into the bathroom. I was about to splash cold water on my face when I stopped myself. The clawing feeling of drowning still clung to me. These dreams were getting stranger and stranger—if only I understood what they were trying to tell me.
Reach within.
They were more vague than the bullshit fae rhetoric everyone gave me. I didn’t need the constant reminder my mother’s life was in my fingers, balancing on splintered wood. Simply being there was the reminder. One wrong decision would cost her everything. I knew that. It was impossible to forget. And as selfish as it was, I wish I could. I wished for one minute I didn’t have the nagging reminder looming over my head, threatening to eat me from the inside out.
Maybe that was the reason I entertained the stupid fantasies about Talon. Not because I was painfully alone but to forget.
I slammed the water off without touching it and padded over to the window seat, resting my shoulder against the glass pane. Stars sprinkled the inky night sky, fighting with the moon to illuminate the world below. I basked in the soft light that cascaded through the window, wondering what my mother was doing. If she too was looking out her bedroom window at this very moment and thinking of me. If she hoped that I’d find my way back home or if she’d resigned herself to the fact that I was possibly dead.
If she was even alive.
I shoved those thoughts as far away as possible. I couldn’t think about that. I refused. Denying the existence of those thoughts was the only thing that kept me from slipping off the edge. It was the small voice at the back of my head that kept me sane. If she was already gone, there would be no point in even continuing.
Keep fighting.
Three loud knocks rapped at my door, interrupting me from my morbid thoughts, and I stilled. The last person to show up at my bedchamber at this hour was Talon, but I’d be willing to bet I was the last person he wanted to see. Not after this afternoon. Not after I’d almost kissed him and pretended like nothing happened.
Curiosity, or rather undiluted hope, had me hopping off the window seat, my ankles cracking as I hurried to the door.
No, maybe it was Calandra needing someone to talk to. Not that she ever needed to before. Two more loud knocks echoed throughout my room, but I pulled it open before they could finish the third.
“What is wrong with you?” I whisper-yelled to a disheveled Talon on the other side of the door. “Are you trying to wake everyone up?”
Talon said nothing. Instead, he held out an intricate blue and gold envelope and shoved past me into my room, lacing his hands on top of his head. A whiff of smoke and cloves trailed in behind him, just as it did the night he’d brought me food.
My belly swelled—he’d been at The White Oak.
“Sure, come on in, I guess,” I said, flipping the envelope between my fingers and shutting the door behind him. “Why couldn’t this have waited until tomorrow?” It was a genuine question, however, as soon as I spoke the words, I realized it came out with more of a bite than I’d intended.
“You’re impossible.” Talon turned around.
I inhaled sharply. His eyes glowed a lime green—from the ale, I assumed—and were accentuated by the flush on his cheeks. It was entrancing. Radiant in the sun, an inky shadow in the dark, and vibrant when intoxicated. I hadn’t before realized the depth and range of his beauty.
“And stubborn, you know that? Not to mention downright infuriating at times.” He ran a hand through his hair, clenching his fist at his side. “Stars, half the time you open your mouth, I want to strangle you.”
And he had the charm to match—lucky me.
