Chapter 32
I smelled the next room before I could see it.
Salt and flowers. The wormy odor of fresh earth. The brush of a storm-soaked wind. Tree roots, pine needles, and sun-warmed fur. Damp rocks and cracked acorns and sweet dandelions. Tart berries. Gentle touches of lavender, sage, mint. And roses. The soft, powdery scent of roses. Peonies. Tulips.
And about one hundred other things that I couldn’t name.
“It smells…” I wasn’t sure which word could possibly do it justice.
“Most say ‘heavenly.’ But I’ve heard one or two dreamers who thought it too rustic. As if the smell of earth is a thing reserved for animals.” Aris took a deep, cleansing breath. “Or those of common blood.”
“That’s ridiculous. It smells incredible. Like joy and wonder.”
She led me to a glass bridge that split the center of a cavernous antechamber.
Except there was no ground under the bridge—no visible ceiling, either.
Only pillared walls connected the room’s various parts.
Under the bridge was a vista of a great forest, and above the bridge, where the chamber’s ceiling cracked apart, was a cyclical sky.
Dawn, day, dusk, night. The sky rotated quickly, mesmerizing in its pure depiction of the sun, moon, stars, and clouds.
It illuminated the bridge and the forest with new colors every few steps.
It was life itself, captured in a room.
No, it was more than life—it was idealized beyond what would be possible outside the Realm.
The trees were too even, the sky too wondrous, the flowers too full, the rocks too precisely placed.
Still, I couldn’t help recognizing the chamber’s majesty.
It was, after all, the essence of earth made into its fullest potential.
And as we walked across the bridge, my footing unsure in my new slippers, I breathed deep and examined all that I could.
A strange emotion welled up in my chest, hollow and uncomfortable.
I wanted to share this experience with someone.
Wanted deeply, achingly, to share what I was seeing, hearing, and smelling.
Eden and Elliot would have loved Evernight.
It was the culmination of everything we’d ever imagined: bright, beautiful wonders in a place safe enough to fully enjoy it.
No demons, no darkness, no hunger, no fear.
It was why, I think, Eden had finally relented when I’d begged her not to drink the elixir.
Because dreaming just once would be worth it.
And for hundreds of dreamers centuries ago, it was worth it.
I swallowed hard, focusing on my footsteps instead of the pain in my heart.
And the Shadow Bringer—I’d very much like to watch his eyes as he beheld this room.
“Every year, a different Weaver is charged with furnishing Evernight,” Aris explained, softly interrupting my wandering thoughts. “It is Weaver Ceres’s year, though she is not in charge of this season’s Revel.”
Furnishing Evernight. As if the scene were no more elaborate than a rug or a houseplant.
She pointed at the sky, growing heavy with the colors of dawn.
“This room is enchanted to change at precise points on the bridge. But only to the beholder.” She gestured at a family ahead of us.
They laughed as several plumed birds flew overhead, circling once before diving underneath the bridge.
“By the time we reach that point, it will be day. But they will be farther along, so they will see the onset of dusk. Three cycles pass before we reach the end.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It is. And tedious,” Aris sighed. “And a few hundred paces too long.”
“What’s the purpose of it, then? To be beautiful and tedious?”
She shrugged. “Evernight serves a different purpose for each of its inhabitants. And it’s best to be aware that some purposes are more sinister than others.”
At its end, the bridge forked into three paths. The dreamers, dressed in their finery, continued forward. Their accompanying scholars did not. With a quick curtsy or bow, each scholar left them to continue on. Alone.
“Go to the middle bridge,” Aris directed. “Revels are for the Weavers, their acolytes, and dreamers. We scholars have other matters to attend to.”
“Like making dreamers look acceptable?” I asked, fluffing the folds of my dress.
“You look more than acceptable,” she said approvingly. “You should be thankful I found you. Others would have put you in yellow. Or worse, pink.”
“If that’s the case, I’m very thankful. I doubt Erebus would recognize me if I were wearing pink,” I said with a grin. Aris returned my smile, but her expression felt a little sad. And expectant, somehow. “I hope you’re chosen by a Weaver,” I added. And I meant it. “I hope your brother is, too.”
Aris bowed, and when she stood again, she straightened her back and held her chin high. “Enjoy the Revel. Perhaps I will see you again, one day.”
And she left me to continue alone.
I hesitated at the end of the path, taking a grounding breath. In the flurry of being whittled into a finer, more elegant version of myself, I had nearly forgotten where I was. And, perhaps even more importantly, where the Shadow Bringer was.
And where was the Shadow Bringer?
More dreamers passed by, continuing to the Revel.
Women in floating gowns and glistening facial adornments.
Men, some with their eyes and lips defined by paint and powder, in equally brilliant clothes.
Supple fabric, open necklines, dramatic hemlines, intricate layers and beadwork.
There were a few children, too; some of the younger ones beamed with excitement, but others seemed listless, as if they’d already been to Evernight a thousand times, and this was just another boring familial requirement.
Adults and children. Beautiful, chattering dreamers of all ages.
But no Shadow Bringer.
Maybe he’d decided to pursue whatever it was he wanted to do now that we could be seen and felt. Maybe he’d figured I’d only get in his way. I gritted my teeth, considering. Okay, so maybe I would get in his way. But that would only be because I was brave enough to try.
I decided to follow the next family, a man and woman with their son and daughter, slowing my pace so as to not draw attention to myself.
The mother and father walked with fluid movements and raised chins, maintaining their grace and poise even in the casual audience of their immediate family.
The guise of Realm attire couldn’t hide what—or who—they probably were: royalty. Or near enough to it.
My mother and father had tried to mimic that kind of elegance once. Tried to fold it into their steps and smear it over their hard edges and dirt-covered lines. A tired king and his dutiful queen.
I folded my arms over my chest, frowning at the turn my thoughts had taken.
Who was I to judge my parents? I was just as broken as they were. If not worse.
The middle passageway brightened significantly as we neared the exit, widening and arching up in time with our progress. At the top, the bridge paused in its ascent, caught by a swirling veil of mist that obscured our steps.
The daughter visibly balked, shivering as soon as the mist touched her skin. “This had better be good,” she said with a sigh. “The last time they did the mist, it was so dull. And the mock battles. Who even cares about war demonstrations? There are only so many ways someone can die.”
The brother glared at her, more than ready to participate in a battle of his own with his sister. “You think everything is boring. I should throw you over the bridge. Then you wouldn’t have to suffer the intolerable dullness any longer.”
“Is that how you punish your servants, too? Throw them over your drawbridge? How utterly simplistic,” she hissed, flicking her hair over her shoulder and quickening her steps.
“I may tire of boring things, but at least I have more creative pursuits than throwing my heart at every man or woman who looks my way. Unlike you, who spent the last Revel with that pathetic lord’s ugly son. ”
“Ugly?” he snapped back. “Ugly? What’s ugly is your gross stain of a dress. Why would you ever wear orange?”
“How does this look orange to you? It’s peach,” she insisted, nearly shouting. But she picked at her dress, anyway, examining the fabric. “Just—just stop talking to me. I don’t need the validation of a fool.”
Their mother spun around, her mouth frozen in a serene smile.
Which made it all the more frightening as she said, “What is truly dull and ugly is finding yourself sitting in your bedchamber, miserable and alone, while everyone else in society is enjoying the Revel. Your father and I can see to it that you never attend one again.”
The siblings immediately straightened their backs and squared their shoulders, as if to remind their mother how prim and perfect her children truly were.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
The mother had already turned around, no longer bothered by her children’s bickering, but the brother and sister spun at once, eyes wide behind their masks.
“The audacity,” the sister gasped, mortified.
The brother frowned at me before dragging his eyes from my feet to the top of my curled hair.
Then he smirked, as if discovering a strange, disturbing secret.
“You’re some fledgling acolyte’s new pet, aren’t you?
You must be so overwhelmed.” He made a point to look around us.
“Oh dear, I’m sorry. Have you been forgotten already?
You poor thing. The acolytes can be so fickle. ”
“I’m no one’s pet,” I snapped. “And my friend is waiting for me inside.”
“It really is a pity to Revel alone. And in such a depressing dress, too,” the sister added.
The brother cocked his head and thumbed his chin. “Actually, it’s quite a nice dress.”
“It absolutely is not,” the sister insisted.
“Who made it? And your face. The glamour that they did with your eyes is striking.”
“What do you care about that wretch?”