Sleep. I just need to sleep. Start fresh tomorrow. Draegan and Jude don’t even know about what Rook learned from Tatiana yet, and I have no idea if he’ll have a chance to speak with them tonight.
Tomorrow, we’re all going to have to come together and make a real plan. Not just for finishing the Codex transcription and figuring out what it all means, but for getting our hands on the rest of this so-called prophecy. Demons and fae teaming up against the world? That’s not going to end well for anyone. We need to get ahead of it, if we can.
Whether I’m the so-called “chosen one” or not.
After a quick shower to calm my still-raw nerves, I pull on a pair of yoga pants and one of Jude’s T-shirts and crawl between the sheets, grateful to have a night alone in my own room.
A night where I can just… reset.
But sleep takes forever to find me, and when that elusive mistress finally claims me, she drags me into depths so dark and murky, I’m certain I’ll never again see the light.
I dream of the city in ruins again, of people marching through the streets while dark fire burns down the world around them.
I dream of children screaming for their parents, watching in sheer terror as fae armies gut them with swords.
I dream of my gargoyles turning to stone and crumbling to dust before my eyes.
I dream of Zorakkov, chaining me to him for eternity, beating me, torturing me, carving my flesh to summon his minions from the bowels of hell.
And I dream of Judgment. The Tarot card with the naked woman rising from a cauldron of flames, a phoenix from the ashes.
Only it’s no longer just a Tarot card—it’s as real as anything I’ve ever experienced. I’m standing with her in the center of her cauldron—a massive iron structure as large as a house, the top open to reveal a starless sky and a full, blood-red moon.
“Blood on the moon,” she says, reaching for my hand. Flames ripple along her skin, but her touch doesn’t burn me. She’s kind. Calming.
“What does it mean?” I ask.
“You have a task to accomplish. You mustn’t fail.”
“I won’t,” I insist, resolute, though I have no idea what I’m promising. “But what—”
“Shh.” She presses a flame-touched finger to my lips. “We are not alone.”
The walls of her cauldron flicker, my bedroom coming into view.
I’m on the knife’s edge between asleep and awake, my mind spinning. I try to get back to the woman, to my task, but something is keeping me here, tugging at my consciousness…
The floor creaks as someone kneels beside the bed. A strong hand smoothes my hair, warm breath tickling my lips.
The scent of him envelopes me.
Draegan.
With a soft sigh, I reach for the gargoyle before me, wrapping my hands around his horns and urging him closer.
“Draegan,” I whisper, slowly blinking up at him. The room is pitch black; I can just barely make out his silhouette. He doesn’t utter a word, and for a moment I think my eyes are playing tricks on me, but no. It’s definitely him. His presence is overwhelming.
“Sleep, little mortal,” he whispers, stroking my hair. “Just sleep.”
I open my mouth to tell him no, to ask him to stay, to promise him whatever terrible things we’ve said and done to each other don’t matter. But I’m tired. So very, very tired, and the woman in the cauldron is beckoning me back to that dark, quiet place inside me, and I slip back under her thrall before I can speak another word.
I’m back in the cauldron now, but it’s no longer dark and quiet.
Fire rages around us, and she lifts her palms to the sky, urging the flames higher.
“It is time,” she says, and I nod.
“I’m ready.”
