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His ears turn red. “You thought that P-word again.”
“And you read my thoughts again. If you’d read them carefully, you’d know I mentally corrected myself.”
“Still,” he says grumpily. “You wouldn’t like it if I thought of you as a meanie-poo and then reminded myself that you’re just having PMS and it’s your hormones to blame.”
“I don’t even know where to start with that.” Reaching the tower, I skim the nooks for Chester. “You realize that thanks to your symbiont nature, when I have PMS, you do as well?”
Pom’s enormous eyes grow wider. “I do?”
“You’re flooded with the same hormones—and get just as cranky.”
He wiggles his ears. “I think you’re just so irritable you perceive me as cranky.”
Ignoring him, I fly over to Chester’s bed, where a cloud gathers above his head. “Puck.”
Pom sniffs the cloud. “It’s bad. Like rotten eggs.”
I reach for Chester’s forehead. “I’m going in anyway.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Sweetheart?” Chester shouts from his office. “Sweetheart, the baby is crying.”
No response.
He frowns and goes to the infant. Stopping next to the crib, he smiles at her, and the little girl stops wailing immediately. Either she’s missed her dad, or he’s using his power to increase the chances of her feeling soothed.
“I’m going to look for Mommy,” he croons. “It’s strange she didn’t hear you. Her earsies are as sensitive as the Big Bad Wolf’s.”
The baby gives him a toothless grin. He reluctantly exits the nursery and starts searching the house room by room.
“Matilda?” he calls out by the master bathroom door. “You in there?”
No reply.
He tries the handle. It’s locked. “Sweetheart, everything okay in there?”
Silence.
Frown returning, he tugs on the door handle. A strange click sounds, and the door unlocks—no doubt the probability of its doing so just got boosted.
He peers inside.
There’s a razor blade on the tile floor and water spilling over the sides of a bathtub. Reddish water.
Pom was right. This is a bad one.
Face losing all color, Chester rushes in.
In the tub lies a gorgeous woman with flawless skin that resembles white chocolate melted over silk. Flawless skin that’s marred by the no-longer-bleeding cuts on her wrists.
Frantically, he checks her pulse. “No!” He grabs her naked body and pulls it out of the tub. “No. Please no.”
He points at the body with his hand and strains, using his power to its fullest potential.
It doesn’t work. There must be zero chance for this woman to come back to life.
“How could this happen?” he wails.
I wish Pom were here now so I could squeeze him. A mother gone forever—it hits too close to home. Would it be so bad to run back to my dream palace to recover and come back to deal with Chester later?
I steel myself. The investigation awaits—and it’s a means to save my mother, who, unlike Chester’s wife, still can be saved.
I force my attention back to the dream at hand. The trauma loop is now over, but some intuition forces me to let the next set of dreams play out anyway.
Chester is sitting in his living room, the baby in his arms. “I’m going to find out what happened to Mommy.” He readjusts his grip on the warm milk bottle. His voice turns grim. “When I do, whoever’s responsible will pay.”
The rest of the dream doesn’t seem to have any answers, and neither does the one after that.
Then I hit the jackpot.
Around us is the lab with cannibal doves, and Chester is there, speaking with Leal the dreamwalker.
“Our dear seer colleague, Darian, prophesied that if my wife didn’t die, our child would,” Chester says in a low, furious voice. “But of course you already knew that.”
Leal stands up. “I didn’t. I mean, we all know how much you hate Darian, but—”
Chester rises as well. “She learned that foul prophecy from a dreamwalker. How many of you scum can there be?”
“It wasn’t me.” Leal backs away in the direction of the bird cages. “I have no reason to lie.”
“You have all the reasons.” Chester’s jaw flexes menacingly.
“I don’t.” Stopping his retreat, Leal straightens his spine. “I uncovered some interesting things in your dreams. If something were to happen to me—even by accident—everyone would learn what you did.”
“You threaten me?” In his fury, Chester’s face looks eerily like that of a puck.
“I’m just reminding you of the consequences of rash action,” Leal says. “And driving home a simple point: I have no reason to lie to you. If your wife had asked for something I thought you’d disapprove of, I’d have come to you first. You’re my fellow Councilor. She wasn’t.”
The dream cuts off here, and the next one isn’t a memory. I let it play out in the background as I process what I’ve learned.
Chester had a dispute with Leal. He also had to be careful about antagonizing him. Leal had something on him, something that would’ve come out in case of his death. Could it be that Chester went ahead and killed him anyway? Or is my earlier theory correct, and Chester has been killing those who voted him off the Council? But then why didn’t Leal make good on his threat? Why didn’t his secrets about Chester get out?
