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She smiled it greeting, but it was tight and cold. “I didn’t expect to find you on Earth without a Weaving to attend to.”
Nor had I expectedher, but I was wise enough to bite my tongue. “This is my old village,” I managed weakly. “Occasionally I like to visit…” I trailed off.
“Indeed.” Her eyes narrowed at me before flickering down to my satchel. “What do you have there?”
My breath caught. Oh no, she’d seen me hide the jar…though how suspicious she would find it when the dream it contained was invisible to her was difficult to tell, and her cold, stoic expression gave me no hints to what she could possibly be thinking.
My mind scrambled for anything to say to dissuade her suspicion, but my words trapped in my throat. Ember didn’t wait for my weak excuses. In two strides she’d reached me and yanked my bag from my shoulder, from which she plucked the jar containing my dream.
For a moment she stared at it, turning it over in her hands so that it caught the fading light. “What is this?”
I wiped my sweaty palms against my skirts. “Nothing—”
“Don’t lie,” she hissed. “I don’t know what convinced the Dream Council to give you any chance to remain in our world, but there’s something suspicious about you. Magic is pulsing in this jar, and I’m determined to figure out what it is.”
She dropped my bag unceremoniously onto the ground and pocketed the dream. I stepped forward. “Wait, you can’t—”
But in a sizzling crack she disappeared. I stared after her, my mind numb with shock over what had just happened.
“Well, that went well,” Stardust said. “Now the Head Nightmare has prime evidence needed to suspend you. I told you this quest was foolhardy.”
I barely heard her. It was impossible to think through my rising panic. My heart pounded so furiously I could feel it against my ribs.
No, this couldn’t happen. No, no, no, no…
I struggled to control my sharp breaths, even as I desperately tried to uncover a solution out of my predicament. But what could I do? If Nightmare Ember figured out that the jar contained a dream…no, that couldn’t happen.
In the midst of my panic, a single word filled my mind:Darius. The moment I thought of him, I didn’t hesitate: I created a ball of magic in my hand in the manner I’d seen Iris and Angel do whenever they sent a summons, then curled it around my fingers, ink for my message.
Darius, I need your help. Please.
The words formed in the air as I wrote them, and when I finished they gathered together to form another glowing ball, which immediately flew up in the air towards the Dream World to deliver itself. Stardust stared open-mouthed after it.
“You’re sending forSpiderweb? Are you crazy, Eden?”
“He’ll help me,” I managed breathlessly. He had to, for if he didn’t…I had no one else to turn to. My emotions from the past several minutes overcame me and I found I was too weak to remain on my feet any longer. I leaned against my dream-watching tree and slid down the trunk to the lawn below.
I tried not to allow my mind to drift to my worries as I waited—especially as I realized too late that in my fluster I’d forgotten to tell Darius where I was—but it did anyway. My anxieties played across the stage of my thoughts, and I imagined myself being suspended half a dozen times, as well as what would happen to the Dream World because I’d failed. And I’d feltso closeto figuring out how to use my dreams to help them. Now one of the dreams I’d captured was in the Head Nightmare’s clutches. If there really was a way to excavate a dream’s magic, and Ember found a way to accomplish what I hadn’t, she could potentially use it against the world I loved. The thought finally caused my fragile hold on my emotions to falter and my tears escaped.
My worries were so relentless that when Darius appeared, I was emotionally exhausted. He arrived in his usualcrackof lightning, his eyes frantic with worry. Despite my earlier concern he wouldn’t know where to find me, I found myself unsurprised that our strange connection had led him to me. Stardust’s gaze was immediately suspicious, but I didn’t care what she thought; after all his help and what had transpired during our outing a few days before, I trusted him.
His worry deepened when he found me slumped against the tree. He stepped forward urgently. “What is it, Eden? What’s happened?”
I weakly tried to stand and he was at my side in an instant to help me to my feet. His concerned gaze first took in my tear-streaked face followed by my scraped palms. “Your mother—she took—” I could barely speak.
His eyes widened. “My mother?”
“She was on Earth, she saw me—she took something of mine, something that can be used to hurt me. I need to get it back. Please.”
It was only after I made my jumbled plea that I fully realized what I was asking: for him to help me against his own mother. How could I be so presumptuous to ask such a thing of him? But even though my request defied sense, my heart had led me to seek his help.
His brow furrowed. “My mother stole something of yours?”
I nodded. “A jar. If she finds out what’s in it—” I clutched my stomach, nauseous in my fear.
His eyebrows rose. Undoubtedly I’d just tipped my hand that the jar of mine still in his own possession was significant after all…though I had no doubt he’d already concluded that. If he hadn’t returned mine, what made me think he’d retrieve the one Nightmare Ember had stolen?
“I’ll get it back for you.”
