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Galaxy seemed indifferent to the anger raging like a tornado inside me. He thumbed through the pages of Darius’s notebook, leisurely reading my long-hidden secrets. He paused, his eyebrows raising at something evidently interesting.
“More condemning evidence. Investigator Cedar, do you have proof to back up this particular claim of Nightmare Darius that Dreamer Eden can not only see and enter dreams, but actually capture them?” He tilted the notebook towards Cedar, who nodded briskly.
“Certainly, Dreamer Galaxy.”
With a snap of his fingers, the gold Council doors swung open, and a member of the Investigations Team bustled in, arms laden with dream jars from my room. My heart plummeted.
“We conducted a search of her dwelling and found these jars of magic, all tested and belonging to Dreamers who’ve reported thefts this past year,” Cedar said. “One also matches the description of the jar that Head Nightmare Ember confiscated from the suspect, one she reports was later stolen.”
“They’re not—” I began, but Galaxy nonchalantly waved my denial away and motioned towards the Investigations Team.
“Search her.”
Cedar snatched my bag before I could peep in protest and sifted through it with intense vigor. He scooped out a single jar, cracked but not broken, the sliver of a golden dream captured within flickering like sunlight. His brow furrowed as he examined it.
“Bay, run a test to determine whose magic this is.” He handed it to an Investigator with penetrating crimson eyes and returned to my bag. After rummaging through my dream flowers, he pulled out the reality rose and my nightmare flower, the last of the damning evidence.
Gasps broke the thick silence as everyone stared in wide-eyed horror at the flowers clutched in Cedar’s grasp. It took a moment for Galaxy to find his voice. “It was you. You’re the one responsible.”
I frantically shook my head. “No. I mean, I didn’t know. I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t deny it, the evidence is indisputable,” Galaxy thundered. “You, a supposed Dreamer, have a nightmare flower in your possession, which undoubtedly links you to the nightmare flowers that have been popping up like weeds all over the Cultivating Fields. What’s more…” He seized the reality rose from Cedar and held it at arm’s length like Darius had done. “Unless I’m mistaken, this is from the Ebony Market. Confirmation, Investigator Cedar?”
“Indeed it is. The Investigations Team has been trying to pinpoint the market’s location for years.” He now pored over Mother’s notebook, which he’d discovered buried at the bottom of my bag. “Dreamer Galaxy, this notebook contains detailed notes about some of the contraband plants we’ve been trying to track down.” He switched back to Darius’s notebook. “It appears Nightmare Darius found traces of them while searching the area he found Dreamer Eden.”
Galaxy seized the notebook and searched it with a hungry fervor. “Of course, this plant must have come from Ebony herself—or one of the Nightmares thought to be her accomplices, with whom you were spotted conspiring at the border the other day. There’s no room for doubt.”
I struggled to speak through the tears clogging my throat. “I don’t know anything about any of those plants.”
“Lies,” Galaxy hissed. “As the daughter of their creator, you undoubtedly know all about the Ebony Market, and probably even had a hand in growing these illegal plants which corrupt Mortals’ dreams. So typical for a Nightmare.”
My stomach clenched. “I’m not a Nightmare.”
“Unfortunately, you indisputably are,” Galaxy said. “Magical children always inherit the same magical identity as their parents. Ebony revealed her true Nightmare colors long before she was suspended, so as Ebony’s daughter you’re just like her—not a Dreamer at all, but a Nightmare as dark as they come.”
My horror escalated. I wasn’t a Nightmare; I couldn’t be. Nightmares were dark and evil creatures, and that didn’t describe me.
But even as every part of me yearned to deny it, memories of my past Nightmarish behavior pierced my mind with doubts: the moments of sick pleasure whenever I instilled fear into the villagers’ hearts, the times I’d considered covering my mistakes with lies in order to stay in the Dream World, doing the impossible by creating a nightmare flower in Dream Realm soil, my frequent thefts that robbed Dreamers of their dream dust, how each of my attempts to help the Dream World had ended in disaster…even my own powers were out of the ordinary, defying the natural laws of magic. Could they really bedark magic?
“Test complete.” Investigator Bay handed my dream jar to Galaxy with a respectful bow. “This magic belongs to Dreamer Angel.”
“Ah, the Dreamer you’ve lived with all this time?” Galaxy stroked his chin. “She’s just recently reported another large dream dust theft and insists we take action against her weaving partner, Nightmare Blaze, but it appears he was nothing more than a red herring. You’re the dream dust thief.”
I ached with every fiber of my being to deny it, but I couldn’t contradict the horrible, haunting truth.
“I can see the truth in your eyes, Dreamer Eden—or should I sayNightmare Eden.”
I shuddered at the address, one that both felt cold and uncomfortable, and yet…also a part of me. “I swear it was an accident, I didn’t mean—”
Galaxy held up his hand and I fell silent; after all, I was guilty, never mind my innocent intentions. “Stealing requires deliberate action, and Nightmares are deliberate in everything. There’s nothing accidental about it.”
My eyes burned with tears as Galaxy continued listing the accusations against me like he was reciting passages from the dictionary. I wanted to continue to fight, but my throat had sealed, as if my spirit had finally given up.
Galaxy returned to the condemning notebook. “Nightmare Darius records that you learned to cultivate from your mother, Ebony, whose training would give you the necessary skills to plant nightmare flowers in the Cultivating Fields, which you had ample opportunity to enter as a supposed Dreamer. Because you have the ability to steal any magic you need, you’ve likely lost Weavings on purpose so your Mortal would be saturated with nightmares, giving your true world, the Nightmare Realm, more power. You’re undoubtedly also connected to that strange magical fire that erupted in that Mortal village several months ago that we originally attributed to your mother, and there’s already proof that you had a hand in the threat at the flying colors as well—”
“No, you’re wrong.” Tears streaked my cheeks, but they did nothing to soften the Council’s unrelenting and unjust attack.
“Don’t waste your breath on feigned innocence; our case against you is irrefutable.”
