“But you said you talked to her,” Lana said, her brow creasing. “Is she speaking Draconic?”
“She learned it,” Conrad said faintly, thinking back to the earlier dreams. At the time, he hadn’t questioned the strangeness of his new friend’s failure to understand him… especially given that so many of their earlier encounters had been almost completely physical.
“This is incredible,” Cato murmured, almost to himself. “I could spend the rest of my life studying what’s going on here—”
But before Cato could continue, there was a strange shimmer in the air, and Conrad whipped his head around as the mist around them began to drift towards a central point, thickening into a rectangular shape that hung in the air before them. He realized he was holding his breath as the shape grew and stretched, remembering the day that felt so long ago when Lana had first summoned a portal like this one. He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to break her focus—he just stared, frozen to the spot, as the mist shifted and thickened. And then, as though through a clouded window, he realized he could make out vague shapes in the rectangle. Cato was beside him, moving silently to get a better view of the nascent portal, his gray eyes alive with shock and reverence… and Conrad spared a glance for the Fog around them, wondering exactly how much strange power it had held all these years without their knowing.
“Lana,” Cato whispered, nodding at the portal. “Lana, you’re doing it.”
“I know,” the Queen gritted out, her voice strained. “Conrad?”
He swallowed hard, squinting to try to make out the dim space that lay beyond the portal. “I can’t quite make it out…”
“Try harder.” Lana’s voice was shaking. He obeyed, moving closer, willing the tendrils of gray mist to move out of the way… and then, just a glimpse of deep green. The color of the walls of his dream woman’s bedroom. And as if that glimpse had somehow strengthened the connection to the other world, he realized he could see more—he could make out the painting that hung on the wall beside the window, the enormous bed that took up almost all of the room’s floor space. But the bed wasn’t empty. There was a shape just visible beneath the heaped covers, a shape he’d seen a hundred times in his dreams, a thousand. Her sleeping face on the pillow was serene, her curls falling such that they just obscured her face… he felt his fingers twitch to reach out and brush that soft hair behind her ear, to wake her with a gentle kiss and feel her smile spread across her lips—
“That’s her,” he murmured, spellbound. “That’s the woman from my dreams.”
“I see her,” Cato breathed. “Lana?”
“I see her too.” The Queen’s voice was still unsteady, but she flashed Conrad a quick smile nevertheless. And then, as quickly as it had appeared, the portal was gone. Lana sat down on a fallen tree nearby, breathing hard, and Cato uttered a whoop so loud that it must have echoed through the trees for miles. Conrad simply stood where he was, shell-shocked. He’d have known her face anywhere. That had been her, there wasn’t a single doubt in his mind… and both Cato and Lana had confirmed that they saw her, too.
The woman he’d been dreaming about was real. She was real. He was torn between whooping for joy like Cato, who was now capering furiously around the clearing, and burying his head in his hands with frustration.
He could feel Lana’s gaze on the back of his neck, and he turned to meet her eyes.
“I did it once,” she said calmly, for all the world as though she’d been following his thoughts. “I can do it again. We know she’s there now, Conrad. We’ll get through to her.”
He nodded his gratitude… but worry still twisted in his gut. She’d looked so peaceful, lying there… and so vulnerable. What if by the time they got another portal open, they were too late?
Chapter 7 - Mira
Mira had hoped that going back to sleep might reunite her with her mysterious suitor. Something about the dream had unnerved her—the way he’d paced around the room, the way he’d told her she was in danger. Silly as it was, she wanted to return to the dream just to make him tell her that everything was okay, that they could go back to wandering her neighborhood and having hot, steamy sex in whatever setting she chose to summon for them. But she woke midmorning after a restless few hours of fruitless tossing and turning, her sleep too shallow to hold even a regular dream, let alone a special one…
Probably for the best, she told herself as she reluctantly dragged herself out of bed. He was clearly becoming a crutch for her anxiety, and she didn’t want something so pleasant to be tarnished by the horrible stuff that was going on with her right now.
With all her work now canceled or postponed until a later date, Mira felt strangely at a loss about what to do. Her instinct had been to cancel work to give herself a clean slate to focus on her mental health, but now she wished she’d at least brought a few projects home to keep her mind occupied. Instead, she checked all the locks on the doors and windows again, unable to stop herself from peering down the street to see the familiar shape of the van, still menacing her from where it was parked.
She’d always loved living alone. But now, with horrible images of stone-faced men in dark clothing circling through her mind, she wished that she’d made different choices. The annoyance of a housemate’s dishes piled up in the sink would have been a welcome relief compared to what she was feeling right now.
When her phone rang, she nearly jumped out of her skin. Heart pounding loud in her ears, she picked it up and checked the screen, feeling a rush of relief at the familiar number on the screen. It was her therapist’s office. Not Eddie, not the scary silent blocked number, not anyone at work telling her that yet more scary men had been asking for her… her voice was shaking when she answered the phone. Another cancellation had come up, they told her—an appointment was available the very next day if she’d prefer.
“That would be great,” Mira whispered, feeling herself dangerously close to tears. She thanked the cheerful receptionist and hung up the phone, suddenly exhausted. Talking to her therapist would help, it always did. But if she was honest, the only person she wanted to talk to right now was the man from her dreams. It wasn’t rational, how badly she wanted to see him, to have him pull her into his strong arms… but neither were her fears, were they? If an imaginary threat could make her feel this terrible, surely it would be okay for an imaginary protector to make her feel safe again. But she’d never been able to summon him at will. She even took a nap on the couch, something that had never been a habit for her, but to no avail.
Sunset was what she’d really been dreading. As the dark closed in and the lights along her street started switching on, Mira closed all the windows after a final check of the locks. At least she’d done something useful with this anxious day—she’d deep-cleaned the whole house, more or less, and the kitchen was gleaming when she headed in to put together some dinner for herself. Food always brightened her mood, and by the time she’d eaten, she was feeling almost normal again. Normal enough to check her emails. A few new client inquiries, a couple of friendly responses to her apologetic cancellation—and something from the front desk?
Mira’s heart sank to her toes. More men had come by, the email told her. They’d refused to leave their names or their contact information, but they were very insistent about wanting to speak with her. She deleted the email on impulse, as though that might somehow erase the event it had been describing… then she buried her face in her hands and let the sobs shake her whole body.
There was absolutely no way she was going to be able to sleep tonight. Part of her kept wanting to call the police… but what could she tell them? At the end of the day, what crime had been committed here? Some people had asked for her at work, and there was a van parked on her street. Hardly breaking news. Cops didn’t appreciate having their time wasted… until she had something concrete to worry about, she couldn’t call them. Still, she kept her phone in her hand with 911 dialed as she made a final check of the doors and windows, making sure everything was locked as tightly as possible.
She’d been in such a state of high alert that when the knock on the door came, she barely reacted. She was in her pajamas, about to plug in her phone to charge, and she was half convinced she’d imagined the knock completely when it came again, sharp and hard. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had knocked on her door. She rarely had friends over, and she got most packages delivered to her work address these days. And this late at night, she couldn’t think of a single good reason for a stranger to be knocking at her door.
Grateful that the lights were all off and the blinds all drawn, Mira unplugged her phone and crept as silently as she could into the living room, eyes fixed on the suddenly terrifying shape of her front door, just visible in the gloom by the contrast between its dark wood and the cream wallpaper that surrounded it. A third knock, quieter this time… then silence. Ten seconds, twenty, thirty… she counted her breaths as she stood frozen in the living room, hardly daring to move in case she made a sound to alert the visitor to her presence here. Desperate, adrenaline-charged hope hit her like a truck. Maybe they’d go away. Maybe it really was something completely innocent—a passerby who’d found something in the street, a door-knocking politician who’d lost track of time, anything. Anything but a group of hulking men in dark clothing, walking out of the shadows with purpose and menace in their faces…
The sound of metallic scraping reached her ears, and she flinched, feeling a tear roll down her cheek. The scraping continued—she could hear the tumblers in the lock on her front door shifting and turning as whoever was on the other side of the door did their skillful work. How long did it take to pick a lock? How long could she stand here, frozen to the spot like this, until the door simply swung open to reveal her?
Eventually, that fear outweighed the one that kept her frozen to the spot. Whoever was out there had decided she was asleep, and they were breaking in. There was a chance, still, that she could scare them off. So she took a deep breath… then slammed her fist as hard as she could into the wooden door, raising her voice at the same time.
“Get away from my house!”