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A dream, her mind reminded her.
“Lucian!” she screamed, then spun back toward where she’d been and noticed the hedge. It had always been large, looming like a massive wall around the cottage, but it had been beautiful, with bright white flowers and broad green leaves. Now, however, it rose so high she couldn’t see the top, and any passageway through it was gone. The white flowers were withered, the leaves dull and gray, now tightly woven with vines accentuated with impressive thorns.
Something’s not right.Her mind was trying to tell her. She bent forward and groaned, clutching her stomach.
“Brinna?” the voice called out, far away but ringing like a vibrant bell. It was Lucian’s voice.
She gasped for breath as the pain in her gut eased. Images rushed through her like phantoms. The darkling. Sol. Lucian. His father. Her dream of Lucian. Nix and Auri and Mattias at Sol to bring her home. Sitting around the table in the cottage. Her family assembled as they drank tea. Waiting for their mother to tell them… something. Then Tarley had fallen forward onto the table. Followed by Jessamine. Then their father, and Brinna hadn’t been able to keep her eyes open as the darkness of unconsciousness had rushed toward her.
“I’m here!” she cried out to Lucian, grasping onto one of the vines. Color leached back into the plant where she touched it.
“I can’t see you.”
Brinna pulled her hand back, the color fading. She looked at her hand, gray like everything else. “I’m behind the hedge.”
“Keep talking. I’ll find you,” he said.
She didn’t understand why she’d conjured Lucian, but she wasn’t going to be picky.
She spun back toward the cottage and realized it was drained of color and life, filtered in shades of gray. She thought back to sitting at the table, to the tea, and bent forward again as a pain struck her once more. “I’m stuck,” she gasped. She thought of Jessamine looking at their mother and saying, “You didn’t,” just before she’d collapsed.
“Trapped. She trapped us.” Brinna’s heart tightened in her chest as the pain in her stomach faded, and she looked up at the hedge once more. Her mother had done this! Rather than tell them, she’d poisoned them.
“Are we dead?” she asked and closed her eyes, allowing her mind to move. It floated away from her, flying toward the cottage, then into it, finding her family. Her parents curled together, asleep in front of the fire. Mattias in her parents’ bed. Asleep. Through the cabin and up the steps. Each of her sisters, herself, tucked into their beds. All sleeping peacefully, or so she believed. When she opened her eyes again, she was in her dream body.
“Who? Are you in danger?” he asked. When she didn’t answer, he called her name again.
“No.” She turned back to the hedge. “I’m safe. I think–”
“I’m at the hedge,” Lucian said.
“At the cottage?” Brinna rushed to the hedge but didn’t touch it.
His voice was faded on the other side. “I can’t see you.”
Brinna shut her eyes.Think. Think. Think.
“Brinna?” Lucian’s voice carried through the hedge, the warmth of it grabbing hold of something inside her.
“Lucian?” She opened her eyes, and there he was, standing an arm’s length away in beautiful, vibrant color. “Lucian!” She rushed forward, into his arms, and the terror of being alone receded.
His arms wrapped around her, pressing her close. He was so real. The strength of his back shifted under her hands, the scent of sunshine—warmth and citrus and clothes fluttering on a line—filled her senses, the strength of his body molding to hers. She tightened her hold around him, afraid of letting him go.
The sound of tearing paper interrupted her contentment, her peace, followed by the pins and needles of a limb reawakening as blood rushed back.
Lucian was ripped from her grasp.
“Lucian?”
There was no answer.
“Lucian!” she screamed.
He was gone.
He wasn’t real,she reminded herself.You’re in a dream.
You’re in a dream!
