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“Do you want to tell me about it?” Ryan asked gently. I appreciated him asking instead of just demanding that I tell him about it. I was surprised that I was even confiding in him, but he had been a pivotal part of my dream and maybe he could help me shed some light on it.
Ryan was silent while I told him the details of my dream, seemingly unfazed when I told him about finding him injured on the floor. It was nice to not have someone gasp in horror when I spoke about the gruesome things I saw in my sleep. Ryan took it in stride and I reminded myself that he was witness to the same kind of horrors at night.
“What do you think it means?” I asked when I was done recounting the dream.
“It’s hard to tell. Dreams tend to be so cryptic that it’s often hard to understand what they mean until after the fact.” Ryan thought for a few moments before continuing. “In the dream, I told you that the answers aren’t where you think they are. That they’re not with who you think they are. It’s warning you not to trust those that are untrustworthy.”
“Even if it’s me,” I said, parroting the words from my dream. Those words filled me with trepidation. What did it mean? If I couldn’t even trust myself, who could I trust?
“I wouldn’t take the words literally. I think it’s just a warning to not trust those around you without good reason. That you need to be careful.”
I know who Ryan was referencing as untrustworthy but I didn’t want to start an argument about Simon so I stayed silent. I was relieved when he didn’t push it. I kept mulling over my dream until I felt the beginnings of a headache. I looked up to find Ryan watching me, and for some reason it made me flush.
“Do you have dreams often too?” I asked, grasping for something to say.
Ryan shook his head. “No, only every once in a while. But I’ve heard of other seers having them more frequentl
y. They’re usually meant to convey a message but the difficulty is trying to decipher the message before it’s too late.”
I was distracted by a glint of metal at Ryan’s neck and leaned forward to get a closer look. A small medallion was hanging by a short chain around his neck.
“Is that iridium?” I asked.
He nodded as he reached up to touch it. “It was my mother’s.”
“Do your parents still live in Seattle?” I was curious about Ryan’s personal life but had been too consumed with everything going on around us to delve into it.
“No, my parents passed away a while ago.” He said it matter-of-factly, but I instantly felt remorse at my nosiness.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “It was a long time ago.”
He didn’t volunteer any more information and despite wanting to know how his parents had passed away, the last thing I was going to do was pry. Neither of us spoke for a while.
“How much do you know about palladium?” Ryan’s voice startled me, even though it was low and quiet.
“Not much, besides the fact that it makes iridium pretty much null and void, as well as seers’ powers. Vardogers are able to overtake seers while wearing it and pretty much makes them impossible to destroy.” I hesitated before continuing. “I don’t know if Marie told you that it works a little differently for me. I have to actually be touching the palladium for it to make me powerless. I’ve been able to destroy vardogers that have been wearing palladium.”
For some reason, telling Ryan this made me feel a little vulnerable. I wasn’t sure if I should hold my cards a little closer instead of telling him everything, but he just nodded as if he wasn’t surprised by what I had revealed. “Marie told me. It’s what convinced your father even more that you hold the key to their immortality.”
“Is there anything else I need to know about it?”
“I don’t know much more than you,” Ryan answered. “As you know, it’s not just any type of palladium, but a special type that holds these powers.”
“Palladium that reflects shadows,” I said in a hushed tone.
Ryan grimaced as he spoke. “No one knows exactly what the origins of it are. A few pieces were rumored to have been found decades ago in the home of a seer that was mysteriously killed. It was said that this seer found a source in the Navajo Mountains in Utah. The fellow seers who found the palladium at his home didn’t know what it was, but they could feel that it held energy. They dispersed the few pieces amongst themselves, but no one to date has figured out the identity of those seers. It’s become even more urgent recently, now that we know the powers of palladium hurt seers instead of helping us. We’re trying to destroy any we can find, but it’s been an uphill battle finding all the pieces.”
My mind went immediately to the piece of palladium that was still in my dresser, the piece I had found at the scene of my mother’s car accident. The words were on my lips, to tell Ryan that I had a piece of palladium, but I stopped myself. Although I knew how dangerous palladium was, I wasn’t prepared to give it up so quickly. There was so much we didn’t know about it that I wasn’t convinced that it was entirely bad. I also had to make sure not to disclose too much information to Ryan. I could tell him about it later if it was necessary, but for now I decided it was better to keep it from him.
Ryan was studying me, and I reasoned with myself that he had no idea what I was thinking. Nevertheless, I felt like I was transparent and he could tell I was hiding something from him. Instead of prying, he just gave me a faint smile and leaned back in his chair.
I looked away from him and studied my hands clasped in front of me. I lifted my head quickly when I heard him standing up.
“I’m going to get some sleep,” he said softly. “Wake me up in a couple of hours so we can switch.”
I nodded, holding my breath when he paused in front of me, looking at me like he wanted to say something more, but he just gave me a small smile before walking out of the bedroom and closing the door behind him.
