Chapter 51 Emory
STARS FOLLOWED EMORY INTO WAKING. Above her, the desert sky was a tapestry of fiercely burning constellations, but its beauty did nothing to chase away the stain of the nightmare she’d emerged from.
The corpses. The lunar flowers. The keys becoming ash.
The umbra sinking its claws into a Dreamer whose face was all too familiar and entirely impossible.
Enough of this. She needed to face this darkness inside of her—confront it at the root.
Gathering some provisions, she tiptoed away from her sleeping friends and the slumbering dragon. Ivayne and Vivyan were circling the perimeter of their camp, as they always did, but Emory would find a way to evade them, too.
“Where are you going?”
Emory’s heart rose into her throat. She turned to see Vera watching her from where she perched on a small boulder at the edge of camp, an arm tucked lazily beneath her head as if she’d been stargazing. There was no judgment in her voice, not even surprise, just faint curiosity.
“I have to find the Shadow,” Emory whispered, willing her to understand.
Vera didn’t say anything for a second. “You know they’ll be furious with you, right? Leaving when we’re so close to the next door. A door we need you to open.”
“I can’t go near it until I get my magic under control.” If it was anything like the Wychwood, they could expect this world’s door to be on a ley line too. She wouldn’t risk hurting the keys again.
At Vera’s silence, Emory thought for certain she would go alert the others. But Vera only lifted the compass-watch from where it hung around her neck and extended it to Emory. “Take it. This way you can meet us at the Sunforge.”
Emory’s suspicion about who she’d seen in the sleepscape with Kai grew as she looked at Vera, but she pushed it back, not ready to open that can of worms just yet.
She grabbed the compass and lingered, uncertain of what to say.
Sudden guilt stabbed through her as she thought of how she’d been keeping Vera at arm’s length, overwhelmed by the fact that they were cousins.
Vera had been nothing but gracious, giving Emory the space she needed to process this on her own.
And now this. Another kindness Emory didn’t deserve.
“I’m sorry,” Emory said, hoping those small words conveyed everything she couldn’t bring herself to say. She vowed to herself she would give Vera a proper chance when she came back. “Tell Romie she can reach me in dreams.”