Page 136 of Whisper of Nightmares

She will not look.

She will stay in the darkness of her eyelids all dream long if she has to.

Anything to avoid a dream world without him.

A brimstone tears her from her despair. “I take it that means it didn’t work?”

Euphemia’s eyes burst wide. Crystal eyes watch her from the upper landing. Autumn hair braided back against his scalp. His beard shaven, she’s surprised to find.

They’re back in Náströnd she realizes. Only it’s no longer Náströnd at all. The bones and dust are gone. The cobwebs and deterioration, vanished. It looks exactly like Thorfell Manor now only more luminous, like what she imagines it might’ve looked like before it had been gutted. Paintings line the walls. There are vases on the floor with actual plants growing inside them.

There is a warmth about this place.

It makes Euphemia never want to leave.

It also makes her remember that it is just a dream.

Not real.

Although, something about what he said gives her pause.

If this is all in her head, then her head already knows that it did work. The dream ward saved Dagfinn. It woke him up.

So why would her Dagfinn say otherwise?

Euphemia marches up the stairs to meet him on the upper landing. “What do you mean it didn’t work?”

He flinches from her intensity as she stands on the tips of her toes just to stare him down.

Dagfinn gestures around him. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

The breath leaves her lungs.

Euphemia settles back onto the pads of her feet, her mind whirring.

This doesn’t make sense. If Dagfinn is here—truly—then what is the thing in Thorfell Manor?

The moment she questions it, the answer barrels into her.

Spirits.

“It’s alright,” Dagfinn says reassuringly. “These things happen. Sometimes it takes me weeks to get a draught right. Tell me what happened and we can try again⁠—”

Euphemia reaches for him. She touches him all over. His face. His chest. His arms.

“Is it really you then? Are you truly here?”

Dagfinn doesn’t seem to mind the contact, though he turns concerns by her question. “Yes, I am here. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Euphemia tears away from him and starts pacing.

“Euphemia?” he asks, warning darkening his tone. “What happened?”

As coherently as she is able, Euphemia tells him everything. About her failed attempts to locate the roseroot. About Maryam’s unexpected arrival. About the dream ward. About the Dagfinn who was all wrong.

“I don’t understand,” he says once she’s finished, a harrowing look in his eyes. “What would be making my body move while I am not in it?”

“I think I have an idea.” She swallows, and tells him about the strange things that have been happening. “Your mother confirms it. There are spirits in Thorfell Manor. And I think she might have accidentally invited one into your body.”