Chapter Thirty Two #2
Gwyneth makes a strangled sound and covers her face.
Theo snorts.
“I think I’m missing something,” Hart utters.
“You are missing entirely nothing,” I snap.
Charming’s grin widens. “Technique?”
“Yes. Thrusting like a Bunkum is not a technique.”
“Daphne,” Gwyneth groans.
I point at her. “See? This is why sisters need boundaries and separate wings of the castle.”
“I’m going back to bed,” Charming says.
“No, you’re not,” Gwyneth snaps, shooting him a look that makes him pause. She drops her hands and fixes me with the expression that once meant she was about to drag me by the ear out of a very poor life decision. “Nightmare. Now.”
That sobers me completely, but doesn’t stop me from trembling like a leaf as I think about everything that happened during my dream.
Nash notices and drags me backward until my spine presses against his chest. One arm wraps around my waist, steadying me without pinning me.
Grounding me. The others settle around us in a rough circle, every pair of eyes on me.
“I dreamed of ruin,” I begin. “Not old, but fresh, violent ruin. The kind that happens because something powerful has decided the world should crack in half.”
The room stills further.
“The sky was wrong,” I continue. “Low, split open, gold burning through it like a wound. There was a battlefield with bodies everywhere. Some dead, some moving.” I swallow. “All of it was familiar.”
Malachi’s brow furrows. “Familiar how?”
“Like I knew it. Not because I’ve seen it before, but because some part of me remembers it.”
Gwyneth says nothing, but her gaze flicks to mine. “Anything else?”
“There were banners. A black one with a gold crown split in two. A green serpent eating its own tail. A tower crumbling in a storm. They meant something.”
Genie’s expression shifts into one of recognition with a hint of fear. And that bothers me more than the dream.
I keep going before anyone can interrupt. “The bodies rose, and one of them looked at me. I think I knew him. His face was wrong, burned and shadowed, but I knew him anyway.” I drag in a breath. “He called me Harbinger.”
Hart’s jaw tightens. Malachi swears under his breath, and most worrisome is the way Charming stops lounging and sits forward.
“And then?” Gwyneth asks.
“And then they all started saying it. Over and over. Harbinger, harbinger, harbinger, like I was supposed to know what it meant.” I shake my head. “He said I ended them.”
“That you ended them?” Nash repeats, voice low against my ear.
“Yes. I told him I would remember if I’d done something that dramatic, because I’m chaotic, not forgetful.”
Malachi’s lips twitch despite the tension. “Fair.”
I lean into Nash for a tempo before continuing, “Then the sky split. Something huge was behind it. Ancient. Watching. There was a voice.” I close my eyes because even now I can hear it. “‘You were not meant to wake.’”
My fingers curl around Nash’s arm. “Then the man touched my wrist, and the world shattered. I woke up choking on smoke that wasn’t there.”
No one speaks. The fire crackles. A capon clucks softly from beneath the chair.
Genie breaks the silence first. “That was no ordinary nightmare.”
“What gave it away?” I deadpan.
He glares. “There are degrees of not ordinary. This was a very high one.”
Gwyneth moves to stand. “I’ve seen pieces of it before in my dreams.”
All heads turn to her as she squares her shoulders. “Not the exact same, but enough. The battlefield. The symbols. The sense of aftermath.”
“You’ve never mentioned it,” Hart says.
“I wasn’t certain what it meant, and I’m still not.”
“But enough to know this is bad,” Charming says.
“Yes.”
Nash presses a brief kiss to my temple. “It said you were not meant to wake?”
“Yes.”
“Then waking changed something,” Malachi says.
Genie gives a reluctant nod. “It may have shifted more than one path.”
“Speak plainly,” Hart growls.
“Plainly?” Genie repeats. “Fine. Daphne and Gwyneth were born to deny the Idols their power. But then Daphne dying and refusing to stay that way has elevated her into a realm-wide problem.”
I blink. “That is both rude and flattering.”
“It wasn’t meant to flatter.”
“Yet it did.”
Hart sighs. “Focus.”
This is me focused. “The voice felt—” I search for the right word and hate that it comes so easily. “Big. Like the All Knowing if he were less dusty and more threatening.”
Genie swears under his breath, which draws everyone’s attention.
“What?” Gwyneth asks.
Before he can answer, something thuds against the door leading to the library.
Everyone is on their feet in an instant. Nash shoves me behind him. Hart has a dagger in hand. Malachi reaches for Excalibur. Sir Sweeps-A-Lot launches himself off the sofa in a righteous blur.
The second impact is softer. A scrape, followed by silence.
Hart moves first, crossing the room with predatory calm. He yanks the door open, but no one is there, just a small bundle on the floor, tied with black ribbon.
“Well,” I say, peeking from behind Nash’s shoulder. “That’s less threatening than expected.”
Hart crouches, examining it without touching it.
“Don’t open it with your hands,” Gwyneth warns.
“Wise,” Charming murmurs.
What else are they going to use? Their feet?
Hart uses the tip of his knife to lift the ribbon. Oh, that works. The bundle unfolds into a sheet of parchment so white it glows. Words bleed across it in shimmering gold.
I shove past Nash because patience is not one of my virtues.
“What does it say?” Theo asks.
Hart’s eyes skim the page, and a frown settles over his face.
“Read it,” I demand.
He hands it to Gwyneth. She looks once, then twice, her expression shuttering. That’s worse. Why are they being so dramatic? I snatch it from her.
The words writhe for a moment beneath my gaze before settling into place.
The Stone Sisters are commanded to present themselves on the next full moon. An audience has been prepared. Come willingly and unarmed. The Idols await in the Temple of Eternal Narrative.
“The Temple of Eternal Narrative?”
Malachi leans over my shoulder. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s either hidden or masked,” Gwyneth says.
I lower the parchment. A summons. An audience. Unarmed. I snort at the ridiculousness. As if we’re just going to serve ourselves up to the Idols in some super-secretive place no one knows about.
“It’s a trap,” Hart says flatly.
“Of course it is,” I reply.
Nash’s arm wraps around my waist again, but this time, it feels less like comfort and more like a brace before impact.
The letters shift once more, reforming in front of my eyes.
For every diurnal you fail to appear, one damsel from the village in So Far Away will lose her head.
Starting with The Stirling Sister.
I suck in a breath and meet Hart’s eyes.
Charming sighs. “We don’t go.”
I turn to him. “Oh, we’re going.”
Everyone starts talking at once, arguing over strategy and the likelihood of the threat becoming a reality. I stand in the middle of the chaos and process everything from the threat to the demand. The world is indeed a strange place when I’m the calm one.
Genie declares that he knows where this temple is. That’s something, at least.
I lift my voice over all of them. “They can’t stop us.” That cuts through the noise. I hold the parchment up. “If they could, we’d already be dead.”
Silence rolls through the room.
I catch everyone’s eyes, including Charming’s.
“They’re frightened,” I murmur. “Not the other way around.” The words shimmer as if they don’t appreciate my tone.
Tough. I crumple the parchment in my fist. “Four nights from now, we’ll arrive and see what the Idols want in their Temple of Eternal Narrative. ”
And somewhere beneath the fear and the nightmare is the creeping sense that the world is shifting around us. Because traps work both ways.
Sometimes, the bait bites back.