Lucille #2
The thought should’ve filled me with joy. I was one step closer.
Except, in days, weeks, maybe even months, something gruesome would happen in front of the gates of Hell that involved my father.
The glass pieces shifted, zooming in on the rune on my father’s neck as if in answer.
“Okay, I’m listening.”
I pulled open the heavy door, the smell of old parchment washing over me. The firelight dangling from the ceiling intensified as I approached the center of the library.
My stack of books wrapped around my messy notes like they were hiding all my unanswered secrets.
I sat and added the newest image to my papers, then shut my eyes.
“Where can I find information on the rune on my father’s neck?” I whispered into the quiet, empty library.
Of course, there was the option to seek out my father and ask him. But after everything, I figured dream-walking would prove a lot more effective.
Somnivado led me to what appeared to be someone’s brightly painted sitting area and mini library.
There were two levels of books.
The top level, reachable only by a tall ladder, contained leather-bound books on wooden shelves marked with runes. If I recalled correctly, I was pretty sure that rune made it impossible for anyone but the owner to remove them from the shelves.
Hopefully the information wasn’t up there.
I turned, finding a kitchenette lined with porcelain teacups and pots.
That didn’t help me any.
“I can’t be in the castle anymore,” I muttered to myself.
Not with the bright, cheery walls.
Creeping farther into the room, I noticed three doors. Two were closed and one was open. The open one looked to be a study.
I slipped through the small gap.
Books lined the shelves behind the large desk, along with various objects.
I paused on an object I recognized instantly.
Tsal-mawet.
I had to be in the castle then.
But these rooms weren’t my father’s or Ronen’s, so whose were they?
I shifted my attention to the desk, finding a paper titled Unmaking Ceremony.
The words glistened like they’d just been inked. A quill rested atop the paper, partially covering a marking with familiar looping details.
Excitement zipped through me, tugging at my lips.
I picked up the quill, and there it was—the rune on my father’s neck.
“Princess!”
I snapped my head up to Cato.
His face was flushed from his neck all the way to his bald head. His eyes were pupil-less, swallowed by darkness and starry specks.
He threw up a hand. “Leave!”
Somehow I was ripped from my dream-walk and shoved back into the present moment.
I blinked around the library, then shot up from my chair.
I gathered my notes, a couple books, and luscelered back to my rooms before Cato came storming out of his sunshine-yellow hidey-hole.
What the hell was the Unmaking Ceremony?
And why did Cato want to hide it from me?
I shut my bedroom door and paced in front of my fireplace.
Cato was selective about the information he gave me—that wasn’t anything new.
But to react like he did? I’d never seen him so furious.
I needed to read the rest of that paper.
But how?
Dream-walking wouldn’t work, not now that he knew.
An idea eventually came to mind, one that was idiotic but potentially the only way I’d get the information.
And if they were the answer to opening the gates, I didn’t care. I’d do it.
I slumped onto my bed, exhausted and knowing I had one more dream-walk to do.
Last time, asking where Melanie was hadn’t proved useful. But that had been the wrong question. Or the wrong question at the wrong time.
Somnivado opened me to the dream realm and to anyone who dreamed.
The question I asked before dream-walking allowed me to direct my subconscious to the best dream that’d answer my question.
Asking Where is Melanie? hadn’t helped because the question had been too specific.
What I needed to ask was: How can I find Melanie?
Taking a deep breath, I held that thought in my mind and dream-walked.
I ended up in a thick, unsuspecting green forest. Unruly shrubs reached my shoulders, and plush green vines strangled every tree within sight.
I expected chirping birds and movement in the brush. Instead, my ears rang with eerie silence.
Peering through the minimal gaps in the foliage, I spotted a quaint stone cottage.
I moved toward it, pushing through the brush, then jerked my hands back with a hiss.
Small cuts lined my palms.
I gave the brush around me a closer look and found hidden thorns beneath the leaves of every shrub and even the vines on the trees.
Heavenly Hell, what was with me dream-walking to forests that sought to hurt me?
Coating my exposed extremities and uniform in Glory, I stepped out of the carnivorous brush, then froze.
A figure swathed in a dark maroon cloak peeked through a side window.
I shifted my weight, about to move back into the forest, when I paused.
The color of the cloak hooked me.
Maroon?
It wasn’t like it was an unusual color, but I’d seen something similar once before.
The female who had given my mom my necklace had worn that color cloak.
I stepped toward her, and the dream changed.
Somehow, I stood inside the stone cottage looking out at the cloaked figure.