I stall, because the pretend-play is fun, but I want an actual answer this time. “No… I am asking seriously. Have you moved into town? Are you really called Tristan?” I add with a small smile.
He sighs. “I was warned this is a conversation we will need to have. I understand that it can be hard to believe when you have lived your whole life in the sun, but what happened by the river is no joke nor trick. You are bound to a shadow wielder, and I have come to take—leadyou back to the Nightmare Realm. Body, soul, and shadow. Unlikesomeelves in the past, I will not abduct you. You have made a pact out of your free will, and I will be your guide. We don’t even have to go tonight.”
Okay, this is getting a bit too freaky for my taste, but he goes on.
“Speaking of which… Let’s keep the fact that I’m courting you between us.”
I frown, but my heart beats faster. “You’recourtingme?”
He laughs and leans back. “Well, yes. And I will be free to do so once you’re Gloombane’s Dark Companion, but it’s considered er… in bad taste to court another’s promised before the couple is officially bonded. Though I think that Gloombane lost that privilege when he sent me as his replacement, right?”
My head is spinning, and I stop him with a gesture. “We can go back to LARPing later, but I want to talk for real. Know therealyou.”
Tristan lowers his voice. “I am prepared to prove my words.”
He rolls up one of his sleeves, and the veins going up his forearm make me salivate. Maybe I could just go with the flow and roleplay tonight? What’s the harm?
“Behold, this is—”
“Your pizza!” the waiter says excitedly, and places two steaming plates in front of us with a broad smile.
Tristan freezes. He looks between the waiter, me, the pizza, his forearm. I guess whatever his grand reveal was supposed to be, got spoiled.
I clear my throat. “Thank you,” I say, and Tristan quickly does too.
Once the waiter walks off, he hums. “Would you rather… eat first?”
“No, no, go ahead.” I’m far too curious.
He looks around conspicuously, and I’m about to laugh, but then something slides out from under his sleeve as if it’s alive. I don’t know what I’m looking at, but it’s black and grey, a bit like smoke, a bit like shadow, most definitely moving yet rests flat onhis skin, like a tattoo. A moving tattoo of a… snake? What is that even?
I jerk back and raise my hands, my pizza forgotten despite the hunger. “Okay, you’ve got to tell me how you’re doing this. And the wings? The spikes? Was that some kind of illusion? Are you like a professional magician?”
“No. An illusion is what makes my kelpie look like a horse here. It obscures reality.”
I cock my head. “Kelpie? Like the mythical water horse creatures from Scotland?”
But he is not done and captures my gaze so intensely I’m pinned to my seat. “Thisis reality. Both my wings and this are the result of shadowcraft, and this is an eel that lives on my body. I’ve got three.” When he says that, another snake-like head peeks out from under his sleeve and slithers toward his hand. “One for every shadow wielder I killed. The dying breath of their power is condensed in these creatures.” Tristan shakes his head. “You don’t believe me because it seems purely visual to you. I’m more than happy to bend the reality you know. Give me your hand.”
I don’t know what to say. He sounds like a crazy person, but the movement on his skin is… there. I can’t deny it, only look for alternative explanations, so I place my fingers in his palm, my heart thudding as a sweet warmth winds through my body.
Tristan looks around once more, but no one is there to disturb us. He guides my hand to the table, holding his own on top. “Solid, right?” When I nod, he paints around it with his fingertip, and I’m… disturbed when darkness spills from under my palm. I flinch in panic, because something is very wrong here, but he keeps my hand in place, only to push it down.
My flesh sinks into warm softness of… what? The table? I watch half my forearm disappear in a darkness so complete it can’t be rivaled by anything I’ve ever seen.
Tristan laughs. “How about that? You just dipped your hand in the Shadowild. You can feel it, and you can see it with your very own eyes, right? I would have used my wings for a presentation, but they’re far too big and would draw too much attention here,” he adds as if he hadn’t used them at the frat party.
How is he so calm when his words speak of the impossible? Terror is an ever heavier ball at the pit of my stomach, and I rip my hand out, glad to see it whole. “What the heck? How— Shadowild? What’s going on?”
I stare at the black, hand-shaped hole in the table, then dare poke it with my finger, and yes, it definitely goes in.
“A tiny entrance into the shadow realm. It’s very safe,” he adds quickly. “Unless one gets lost there, but that’s another matter.”
“But… how?” I utter, watching him pick up one slice of his pizza. He seems as shocked by the stretch of the cheese as I am by what he’s just made me experience. “I don’t understand… Those kinds of things only exist in books!”
Or do they?
They might not be common but if someone living in the middle ages saw a television, or a plane, surely they’d also call such things impossible illusions. Does that mean that… some fantastical things aren’t purely the product of imagination but real phenomena most people never encounter?
