Chapter 10
Ten
After that night, it was official: Dani, McKenna, and Oliver were fast friends.
They spent the rest of the evening together back at the apartment, Dani and Oliver spilling everything to McKenna about OneiroLabs, the dreams Oliver was having, and Silva’s intentions.
McKenna, aghast at the situation, pledged to help in whatever way she could.
The next day, Oliver grabbed lunch with McKenna, then came by the café for a few hours during Dani’s shift.
As they drank their cinnamon bun latte, they started research on oneirogenic plants with the books they’d borrowed from the library, and let Dani do a Celtic Cross on them for tarot class.
Despite Silva’s charm, which Oliver claimed was helping, Dani couldn’t help but worry about them, especially as she watched them fight the urge to nod off in the middle of turning a page or when they zoned out in the middle of her explaining what the three of Cups meant.
They didn’t talk about it much, but what had happened at OneiroLabs still lingered in Dani’s mind, particularly the woman who had been so lost in her dream that she’d lashed out with her powers.
The only thing that comforted Dani was knowing that Professor Silva was on the case, with Katya and Oliver helping out in their own ways.
Friday, the day of the party, brought with it a cyclone of anxious excitement.
Predictably, Dani had trouble concentrating in class, and she was too nervous to eat her banana nut muffin from Quarter Cast. She breathed a sigh of relief when her professor dismissed them from her final class of the day; she was ready to go home and figure out what on earth she was going to wear, costume or otherwise.
She was crossing the OS lobby toward the exit when she heard someone call her name. Her head swiveled back and forth several times till she spotted the source peeking out from behind one of the curtained alcoves along the wall: Professor Silva, waving her over.
Dani’s heart sank. What could she want now?
Double-checking that no one was watching, she hurried over to Silva and ducked behind the curtain, where a velvet-cushioned study nook awaited.
“What’s going on?” Dani asked as soon as the curtain fell behind her. “Is everything okay? Did I forget to give you your notebook back?”
“No, no,” Silva said. “Everything’s all right. Would you sit a moment, Miss Lionet?”
Dani squeezed her lips together. This was giving her serious déjà vu. “I honestly need to get going.”
“Solo per un minuto.”
She didn’t want to—like, really didn’t want to—but Silva looked so plaintive that Dani caved. She slid into the booth that had been built for students to practice tarot readings and wedged her hands between her knees as Silva took the seat opposite her.
“Thank you,” the professor said. “I’m sorry to insist, but I—” She took a breath, then met Dani’s gaze with uncomfortable directness.
“I need your help again, Miss Lionet. I know I said I only needed your assistance with the one task, but what you discovered at OneiroLabs was incredibly helpful, and incredibly concerning. I’ve communicated with the leaders at my organization, and they agree that we need to escalate our efforts to learn more about—and hopefully stop—what OneiroLabs is trying to accomplish. ”
“That’s great. I think you should do that,” Dani said. “But why do you need me?”
“They’ve given me approval to move forward on acquiring more details about the formula for the lucid dreaming product,” Silva answered. “They’ve also given me permission to offer you a great deal more in compensation if you’re willing to assist in the matter.”
Dani felt a surge of annoyance, and with it, a spurt of boldness. “Can we cut to the chase?” she said. “I’d appreciate it if you just told me what you want.” Just like she had the other day at OneiroLabs, she imagined adding color to her words, this time a bright, forceful red.
The careful politeness dropped from Silva’s face.
“I’m going to steal the formula from OneiroLabs,” she said, Dani’s efforts rewarded with a bold bronze in her mind.
Whatever she was doing—using the colors in the other direction, to activate her power—it was working.
“And I need you to help me. I’ll pay you twenty-five thousand dollars if you agree. ”
Dani was shocked into silence for a full minute, her jaw working up and down as she chewed on that.
She had asked for the truth, but that didn’t mean it cushioned the blow.
Hecate’s bones. Twenty-five thousand dollars?
That was an outrageous amount of money, enough to pay for a whole semester at the Leap, even without her scholarship.
With her scholarship, it would secure her spot here for an entire year.
Dani’s mouth instantly began to water. Her sophomore year paid away? The concept was so foreign it spoke another language. She could cut back on her hours at the café. She could quit playing la ruota. She could get her homework done on time. She could get some sleep. She could—
She could get expelled. She would get expelled if they got caught, and she couldn’t see how they wouldn’t. Steal the formula from OneiroLabs? How?
She didn’t need to know. Dani shook her head, vaporizing her tempting fantasies. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t.”
“Please,” Silva said, with unexpected desperation. “With Katya’s technical savvy, Oliver’s knowledge, your gift, and a few other pieces I haven’t put into place yet—we could do this. We could help not only Oliver but anyone else OneiroLabs has hurt.”
Tears sprang at the back of Dani’s eyes.
Of course she wanted to help Oliver; she cared about them.
But this—this was too much. She felt the pressure of Silva’s gaze, her throat closing, the carbon dioxide turning into poison in her lungs.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped, then jumped up from the booth, tore through the curtain, and ran.
When Dani opened the door back at the apartment, McKenna rose from her makeup-laden vanity and said, “Finally! I have a few thoughts on your color palette for tonight and wanted to try some experiments on you. I—Dani? Why do you look like someone turned you into a frog and back?”
Dani collapsed onto McKenna’s bed and told her everything Silva had said, tears finally spilling down her cheeks.
“What am I supposed to do, Kenz?” she said.
“I want to help, but if we get caught, I’m automatically expelled.
And it’s a lot of money—like, a lot of money—but that won’t matter if I get kicked out.
I worked so hard to get here. But what if something bad happens to Oliver, and I could have prevented it? ”
“Oh, Dani,” McKenna said. “You can’t think like that.
What you saw at OneiroLabs sounded terrifying, and someone definitely needs to get to the bottom of what’s going on—but I find it hard to believe that’s something that could only happen if you were involved.
You said Silva was sent here by some organization, right?
If they’re willing to give a random college student that much money, surely they could pay an actual expert to come in and help. ”
Dani hadn’t considered that. “Maybe you’re right,” she said, rubbing the tears from her eyes. She sat up, just now noticing that McKenna had raided both of their closets and hung about a dozen outfits around the room.
“Listen, babe,” McKenna said, “this is a really tough and shitty situation, and I want to help Oliver, too. But you don’t even know what Silva wants you to do.
What if it all goes south, you get kicked out and so does she, and Oliver’s in the same spot they’re in now?
I don’t know. I think Silva means well enough, but it’s a lot of responsibility to put on a teenager. ”
That was definitely true.
“Do you still want to go to the party tonight?” McKenna asked. “It could take your mind off things.”
Dani hesitated. “I don’t know. I think so?” Kass’s smile appeared in her mind’s eye, and she felt the fist of tension in her diaphragm start to unclench. “But Kenz—” She swallowed. “I’ve never really been to a party before.”
A funny look came over McKenna’s face. Dani had seen it once before, on the night they’d drunk all that vodka, when Dani had asked about her mother.
It had all come flooding out of McKenna then, how her mom had been actively sabotaging McKenna’s attempts to leave home, first hiding her acceptance letter from Fox’s Leap and then refusing to help her pay for it, but her father, from whom she’d inherited her fairy blood—and from whom her mother had long since been divorced—stepped in with a big enough check to cover McKenna’s tuition.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she now asked Dani, who nodded, afraid to break the spell. McKenna scooched closer, glanced around like she was checking to see if anyone was listening, then stage-whispered, “I’ve never been to a party either.”
“What?” Dani said. “Really?”
“Really. The kind of parties they had in my town were more like smoking in the back of someone’s pickup in the middle of a cornfield. Not exactly the kind of event that occasioned a full face and a glamour.”
“But I thought—your dad never took you to any fairy balls?”
A shadow of melancholy darkened her friend’s hazel eyes. “He always promised to,” she said. “I used to spend summers and holidays at court when I was a kid, but, for some reason, that tapered off as I got older.”
Dani bit her lower lip. “That sucks. I’m sorry.”
McKenna shrugged. “If nothing else, it made him feel guilty enough to pay for me to come here.”
“And thank Hecate for that,” Dani said emphatically. “Now we’re in this together.”
“Absolutely,” McKenna said, and she tossed her hair, her vulnerability solidifying into something much more familiar: the sparkling confidence she usually kept buttoned up around her like one of her fabulous coats. “We’re both party virgins. So what do you say? Are you in?”