Page 53 of Realm of Dreams & Shadows

I shake my head. I’m not going to see that man again until I’ve worked up the nerve to ask the bigger question. “Chase,” I say. “And if he blows me off again, I’ll ask him in a dream. I mean, that’s the thing, right? Fight the monsters in the dreams before they find a way through?”

“Will that fix the barriers? Or just hold the monsters back? And the barriers between what? Us and the nightmares? Or are there more?”

“No clue,” I admit, thinking that being some sort of prophecy girl really should come with a manual. “But I guess I need to figure it out soon.”

“You know I’m in for the research,” Tia says as we walk through the quad.

“Thanks,” I say.

She hip-butts me. “Always happy to do whatever it takes to keep out the monsters.”

There’s a moon tonight, and we’re not the only folks walking through the dappled light that cuts through the Widow Maker’s leaves, painting patterns on the stone walkways.

I see a couple making out in shadows, two girls arguing on a bench, a tall, lean man with dark hair that falls across his forehead, and many others out for a stroll or hurrying back to their dorm after a date. I envy them, not knowing about barriers and prophecies and nightmares walking in our world.

We’re circling the Science Center as we head for Hamilton Hall when I see him again. Onyx Eyes. The same lean and gawky man I saw before, watching me from the shadows between buildings.

He’s wearing a thin coat that catches the breeze, and those huge eyes seem to glow in the moonlight.

“Tia,” I whisper. “We need to hurry. Now.”

But he’s already moving toward us with fluid, predatory grace. There’s something inhuman about the way he moves—too smooth, too silent, and yet awkward at the same time.

And then, when he lifts his hand and sends a dagger hurling straight toward me, I know that we’re really and truly fucked.

Chapter

Fifteen

Iyank Tia to the ground and am frantically searching for something to use as a weapon when I realize that Onyx Eyes wasn’t aiming for us—he was nailing the disgusting creature with the peeling skin and pustule-covered face that now has a knife through his third eye.

I flinch when a leathery hand appears in front of my face. A hand belonging to Onyx Eyes.

I scramble to my feet, ignoring his offered hand as I move to Tia. She’s standing now too, and I step in front of her, pushing us both back into the shadows.

“Cora Lyte,” he says, his voice low and refined, the accent almost—but not quite—British. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Who the hell are you?”

He tilts his head, and I see tufts of white hair sticking out from under a black skullcap. He doesn’t reply. Just studies me with those unsettling eyes. “Someone who understands what you are. What you’re becoming.”

“I’m not becoming anything,” I say, as he moves to the monster, now a pile of disgusting flesh, and yanks out the knife. The moment he does, light bursts from the wound, and the entire creature seems to be sucked in upon itself until all that’s left is the brightest light I’ve ever seen—and then absolutely nothing at all.

“We’re going,” I say, yanking at a trembling, pale Tia, who stumbles into step beside me, whispering, “Oh, god, oh god, oh, god, what the hell was that thing?”

“Hell sounds about right,” I murmur, my mind spinning too fast to land on answers. All I want is to get back to our dorm.

I steer us toward the Science Center doors, figuring we can cut through the well-lit building. But I freeze when another movement catches my eye—a second figure detaching from the deeper shadows beneath an ancient oak. As it steps into a shaft of moonlight, my blood turns to ice. It’s human-shaped, yet wrong. Too tall and too thin, with limbs that bend at impossible angles. And its face…

Oh, god. Its face.

A blank oval of pale flesh, entirely featureless except for a wide slash of a mouth filled with needle-like teeth.

It leaps like a circus gymnast, landing in front of me and grabbing my arm. Tia screams as I wrench my arm free, then tug us both backward, my own scream trapped somewhere in my throat. As we stumble, Onyx Eyes whirls toward the creature, his coat flaring. “Vexarin,” he snarls, holding that same silver blade. “You dare hunt here?”

“Run,” I breathe to Tia, the word catching in my throat even as I wonder who—or what—is Vexarin.

We turn and run back toward Whitehall, just trying to get the hell away, but the creature—Vexarin—moves with inhuman speed to block our path. Up close, it’s even more terrifying—its skin gleaming with an oily sheen, its body twitching with barely contained energy.