“Oh, I know this one.” I smiled. Of the last three times I woke up, it had been the first question for all of them. “No.”
I hadn’t gotten a great grasp on the politics here, probably because this string of delusions was limited by Miss Q’s imagination, aka my own, but instead of towns and cities, the world was broken up into families. Two of them had tried to ‘bring me in’ to their fold. My lower back ached, but I refused to dwell on those nightmares.
Silence stretched between us.
Chancellor Morgen scowled. “Bursting with information, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know shit.
She bristled, her eyes narrowing. “You’ve been accepted into our family, for now. Unlike most families, we’re not bound by blood. We’re bound by our goals.” She leaned in, her gaze unflinching. “Thereare no slaves here. No power chains. Our goal is equality. For everyone, regardless of sex or magical prowess.”
I put my hands up in the air. “I agree with all of that.”
The sheet slipped down, exposing my bare chest. I flushed and quickly pulled it back up.
She leaned back, her expression unfazed. “You’ll work and train. Hard. In ten weeks, we will reassess. Or”—she crossed her arms again—“you can leave. Immediately.” Her right hand darkened, the fingers twisting before they elongated into bark-covered claws, each tip as sharp as needles.
I dragged my gaze away from her ‘fingers.’ Magic. She was pure magic. My heart raced; a combination of fear and adrenaline filled my limbs, but not terror. After all, none of this was real.
“The last three times I woke, no one gave me a choice.” I met her pink eyes. “Men, my own fucking mind, tricked me. Manipulated me. Forced me into bad situations.” I pushed away the memories. None of that had happened. This was all my subconscious. My physical body lay on an operating table. “You might be trying to scare me, but you’re not a monster. Or at least, not one I need to worry about.” I nodded. “I’ll train and work. It’s better than stumbling around in the wilderness and starving.”
Chancellor Morgen grinned with too-white teeth. She inclined her head, and her hand shrank back to size. My heart rate slowed.
If the pattern held, I’d black out in a few days anyway. What was the worst that could happen?
Crazy came in waves. One minute I was okay, and the next, I was shoving everything I could into a pocket only I could see, including stuff I might not have owned in the first place.
Fortunately, Miss Q remembered everything inside my imaginary pocket, which tracked. Made-up delusions. Made-up pocket. Even though it wasn’t real, on some level, having access to all this stuff made me feel better about all the trouble I’d gotten into acquiring it.
After dressing, I followed Chancellor Morgen through a network of passages and up a flight of stairs to emerge into a fog-filled courtyard. The damp cold sent a chill down my back. I reached into my pocket-void, adding a scarf, beanie, and worn leather jacket to go over my bumblebee-yellow hoodie and jeans. Hat in place, I tugged the hood up too.
The chancellor’s gaze skimmed my clothes, her annoyance at my refusing the black robe obvious. “I’ll not presume to tell you how to act, but the vast majority of our trainees are men,” she said as if that should be obvious. “Most women come with their brothers. Especially powerful ones. People will see what they want to see.” She waved her middle finger, completely normal in appearance, but definitely not normal, back and forth. “Since you have no brother to hide behind, I suggest you dress androgynously, play the role of a man.” Her gaze gleamed with amusement. “Though, I do relish a bit of drama. It’s in short supply on the surface.”
I blinked at her.
She smiled. “This way.”
We took two steps into the dreary world before something slimy brushed against my cheek, and the sickly smell of too many roses filled the air. I jumped to the side, bumping into the old woman. She grabbed my arm to steady me and froze, her nostrils flaring. A frustrated hiss escaped her lips, and she tugged me until I faced her.
“I have to deal with something,” she said as her gaze shifted in the same direction as the slime. “Hope’s office is around the coliseum.” She pointed along a curved, dark stone wall. “Past a building shaped like aT.Her office is the only one made of wood. You can’t miss it.”
She released me and stepped away.
Sudden fear gripped my heart. “Wait!”
She turned back to me; her gaze shifting into something softer. “Men will not harm you here.” She clenched a single fist, and a subtle tremor passed through her thin shoulders. “You should be safe. The body snatchers can’t infiltrate our walls, and the other families have no influence... at least over us.”
Another whiff of slimy roses made me sneeze. The old chancellor sniffed the air again before scowling. She walked quickly, if stiffly, away from me. The bright pink of her hair vanished into the fog.
“Should be safe?” I called after her, shifting with unease. “What’s a body snatcher?”
She didn’t stop to answer me as the thickening haze distorting the world swallowed my voice. With a pounding heart, I followed her directions one step at a time. Slowly, the building, shaped like aT, emerged from the fog. The sounds of laughter spilled from glowing light-purple windows. The doors opened, almost smacking me in the face. A group of men, unsteady on their feet, spilled into the gray.
I watched their dull, uniform-clad bodies disappear around the corner before shuffling past the doors, looking for a wood building in the fog. A pair of glowing white eyes met mine. I screamed, lunging backward so hard I rammed my back into the wall.
A man clad in black leather materialized out of the fog.
“Right.” His low voice rumbled through me. “You must be the dragon trainee.”
