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What did he mean bythat? Did he consider me easy competition? It looked like it was time to give him a rude awakening.
My emotions burst free. Caspian thought me a mediocre weaver, Angel and Iris refused to forgive me, my old home and former life were gone forever, and Shade and Darius were likely paired. Every injustice rushed to the surface, fueling my movements with a power beyond my own.
It was the most effortless weaving I’d ever done. My flowers fused together with very little effort, stitches previously difficult now ones of ease. My bunch of seemingly random details seamlessly formed as frightening sensations unfolded, each an extension of the unwanted feelings riddling my heart. Piece by piece, stitch by stitch, the nightmare came together—the sensation of falling as Easton unwrapped from his mother’s careful swaddle. Pain, betrayal, loneliness, fear, doubt, rejection...every hidden emotion trickled from their previous prison to my weaving fingers, intertwining with my stitches to make them unbreakable.
I finished in record time, completing my nightmare quilt of five flowers before Caspian’s dream quilt of three. He glanced up, mouth agape. “You’re done already?”
As Caspian continued to fumble with his own dream, I tucked my nightmare around Easton and watched as it seeped into him. For the first time in a Weaving, I didn’t watch my dream either in my weaving mirror or by tumbling inside; instead I watched my Mortal’s face, feeling a sick delight as I did so.
It quickly became apparent that my nightmare was stronger than whatever pathetic dream Caspian had thrown together. When he finally finished, he placed it on Easton, but it had little effect. I relished the obvious distress the newborn was experiencing as he squirmed restlessly in his cradle, quickly waking up in tears.
The nightmare ended with no signs of having been interrupted by my competition. I’d dealt with dreams once during a time that now felt so long ago—they couldn’t match the emotion of nightmares; fear was far too powerful.
As my dream dust twirled from the completed nightmare to seep into my locket, I turned my triumph on Caspian. He gaped at me, eyes full of shock, which caused me to experience a flutter of pleasure. He now knew exactly whom he was dealing with. Good.
I flexed my hand in front of me to examine my black fingernails. “You obviously underestimated me.” I raised my gaze to his and smirked. “But you’d be wise never to make that mistake again.”
Thus was the beginning of my second weaving assignment, with the Pair of my former friend, and I knew it would be a glorious one.
Chapter 7
Icradled the snow globe Darius had given me in my lap and stared at it, my nightly ritual. Its swirls of colors twirled in a waltz, so beautiful yet so confusing as memories from the night of the flying colors filled my mind.
So much had changed since that night, one of many when I’d experienced beautiful feelings of affection and closeness with Darius. That night felt so long ago now that there was an insurmountable distance between us—a distance that felt even larger the more I continued to steal from him, increasing the burning guilt that seemed a constant presence.
I squeezed my eyes shut in an effort to try to escape the ever-present guilt weighing against my conscience at the knowledge of my continued crime against Darius. As much as I ached to escape the memory, the moment I’d decided to steal from him a second time returned, a greater betrayal against him after the remorse that had eventually followed the first theft.
Stealing from him a second time had been far worse, for it’d been doneafterI’d learned that not only had he not turned me in, but he’d instead chosen to help me with my nightmare weaving. The third time had been even more difficult, and the fourth even more so, as well as the fifth. Over and over. Each time I subjected myself not only to seeing him every night, but to the constant battle of avoiding giving in to my desires to talk with him. Last night I’d decided to follow him to his Weaving for his other Mortal and stolen the nightmare he’d woven for him instead, trying to ignore the fact that my true motive in doing so was because it hurt to see Maci so tormented every night.
And then there were the questions: Why did he continue to do nothing with every theft? And why did I continue to do it, despite how wretched it made me feel?
While the answer to the first question remained a mystery, I received an answer to the second one, a realization that only came from much unwanted self-reflection during the late hours of the night when I struggled and failed to sleep. My heart’s longing for Darius made me yearn to give him a reason to think of me, even if he did so unfavorably, and part of me longed for a portion of him, even if it was a nightmare that had to be taken. And most of all, a part of me deep down wanted a means to escape this dark world, even if it had to come as a consequence of being a person I secretly didn’t want to be.
Whatever these yearnings, they weren’t enough to alleviate the guilt that followed, the one that enveloped me now.
I continued tracing the snow globe, my thoughts wavering between my remorse and the sweetness of the memory from the night he’d given me such a gift. During our conversation at the flying colors show, we’d discussed how Darius created nightmares because he found scary things more interesting.
“But someone like you wouldn’t understand such a reason,” he’d told me. “You’re a Dreamer, after all.”
But Iwasn’ta Dreamer. I’d become like him and the other Nightmare Weavers: I created dreams of fear to frighten my Mortal as he slept. In the past few days I’d crushed Caspian night after night with very little effort. Despite my victories, my elation at my success had quickly faded, leaving me feeling...empty. I always felt empty. I sometimes doubted I’d ever feel anything else.
“Eden?”
I reluctantly tore my gaze from the snow globe. Bolt perched on my bedpost, staring at me with worry filling all eight of his eyes.
Seeing him made me think of Darius and the many nights we’d woven together with an occasional comment from Bolt hidden in the tufts of his hair or a snide remark from Stardust. A sharp pang pierced me to think of him, an ache so acute it left me breathless.
“What is it?” I managed.
Bolt descended gracefully from the bedpost on a strand of silvery thread before scurrying closer, his gaze not once leaving mine. “Are you very unhappy?” he asked tentatively.
I sighed, and instead of answering, I found myself once more staring at the snow globe and the swirls of colors twirling almost hypnotically within it.
“Are you unhappy, Eden?”
I returned the snow globe to its permanent place on my nightstand, and after staring at it a bit longer, I finally glanced at Bolt’s agitated expression. “Yes.”
Distress deepened his expression at my answer. “But why?”
