Page 156 of Carousel

It doesn’t matter. I’ll just have to bleed him out.

I squeeze my eyes shut tighter. Keep trying.

I feel a pressure through my body. He’s pushing back. Flooding me.

“Ara,” he says again, strained. “I came here to speak with you – and it is using up a lot of my magic. So, let me speak.”

I do nothing but let out a long, heated breath.

I open my eyes.

I gasp.

The smoke has dissipated, and the world is brighter for it. The air is hazy, as if lit with rays of light from an unseen sun, and crane flies drift by lazily. A gentle breeze ruffles my hair.

He’s still in front of me, just where I left him.

“How did you do that?” I whisper.

“You did it yourself,” he says, with the thinnest lift of his shoulders. “There is nowhere you have more power than in your dreams.”

My head spins.

He steps forward. Another step, and he would be part of me.

“Ara. I am going to will you to wake up. I believe – now our magic is stronger – I will be able to do it from my cabin. And then we are going to meet, in our world, on the Deck 6 stairs.”

“I don’t want to do that,” I reply, quickly.

He tilts his head. “Don’t you? These memories. I believe, when you find one, I gain one. And you seem to have found many, tonight.”

“Yes,” I say. Then, “No.” Then, “I don’t know.”

He looks at me oddly. Like he either can’t understand me at all – or can, quite perfectly.

“What’s my favourite colour, Ara? I remembered yours. Maybe when I did that, you remembered mine.”

“I don’t know it.”

“You do know,” he insists. “You must know.”

I don’t. I want to tell him that.

But my mouth betrays me. The answer falls right out of me.

“Black,” I say. “But a soft black. Like the sky on a clear night.”

I want to scream.

“You love to read,” he continues. “You can speak all twelve of the known languages, including the Muted Word, which is spoken by your great-great grandmother, who is still alive due to her rare blood magic. You have a special bond with her.”

“Stop it.”

“You would not consider yourself religious, but you do pray to the Sisters, now and again. Not that you would ever tell anyone.”

“Drake,” I say, sharp. “This doesn’t matter. These are some superficial things the Queen – I know she’s your mother, by the way – must have told you about me⁠—”

“You are lonely. You are lonely all the time. You are strong. You are good. You go out of your way to be those things. Yet people use you. They lie to you. Ruin you. It maddens you. There is a darkness in you that would swallow you whole if you were to let it.” Quietly, he says, “Sometimes, letting it is what you want.” Almost a whisper, he says, “Sometimes, it’s the only thing you want.”