Page 128 of The Diamond in the Rough

I didn’t have much to do with that, I reminded her.

No? Rumor has it that a certain shifter needed your help to figure out where you were.

I grimaced at the reminder.I wasn’t supposed to invade his dreams, I admitted.

I really don’t think he had those particular circumstances in mind when he told you not to,she said mildly.

So you knew about that.

I saw his face, sunshine. When he learned what you can do.

I sighed.Oh.

So whatever happened in your shared dreams, or whatever didn’t, I know it changed things.

I nodded.

And that changed them again, then.

Another nod.

Would you like me to tell you a story?she asked after the silence stretched for a while.

Yes, please.

Sylvia had leftan hour or so before, and I’d taken her advice and made myself some tea—I’d gotten myself a sampler at some point, and there were a few packets of Sleepy Time chamomile in there.

I’d drunk half of it, and now it was just getting cold.

I’d learned that I didn’t really like chamomile tea.

And I wasn’t any sleepier than I’d been before it, either.

I was staring at the ceiling when I felt it. This niggling, tingling sort of feeling in the corners of my brain.

A shifting shadow with tiny, scrabbling claws trying to find a way in.

Fear thrilled through me, strange and uncertain.

Again, I felt it, trying to find purchase, trying to reach me, to… Find me.

I drew in a deep breath, trying to calm my rapid pulse.

The fear wasn’t mine.

But I recognized it.

I closed my eyes.

I wasn’tsure where I was—this wasn’tmydream, it was his. There was no river. No tree.

I looked around me, trying to figure out where he was.

I was surrounded by ruins and brambles, trees and vines and brush overgrowing everything. Choking out the dim light from what had to be a half-moon or less, to judge by the darkness. Then again, light doesn’t always make sense in dreams.

How to reach him.

How to rescue him.