Chapter 16 #2
I lifted my gaze to meet his. “Perhaps, but as a thief, I am accustomed to judging people for myself.” And I irrationally wanted to believe there was something in him worth risking for…a secret wish I couldn’t deny any longer.
He sighed. “You’re being reckless.”
A faint smirk tugged at my lips. “Recklessness is a thief’s trademark, alongside an instinct for danger.” Though the danger I sensed now had little to do with traps or guards and everything to do with him.
He studied me for a long moment, as though searching for something.
I shifted beneath the weight of his attention, unsettled by how easily it seemed to reach past every defense I had ever relied upon.
And yet despite myself, I couldn’t look away—the part of me that wanted to be seen craved this gaze that looked beneath the surface.
“What are you trying to prove, Mirelle?”
We’d circled back to the topic I’d tried—and unsuccessfully—attempted to evade. For a moment, I could not speak. I grasped for the familiar instinct to lie, to deflect, to turn the question aside as I always had…but for some reason I couldn’t, not with him.
I lowered my gaze, unable to look at him as I answered. “Perhaps…part of me wanted to prove you wrong. If you turned out to be trustworthy…” I hesitated, my fingers tightening slightly at my sides. “…then it would be easier to walk away. To avoid—”
I faltered, the rest not meant to be spoken aloud. Yet the words tumbled free before I could stop them.
“—to avoid wanting something I’ve spent years teaching myself not to need.” I exhaled unsteadily. “I don’t know how to trust anyone. And yet…I find myself wanting to trust you anyway. It goes against everything I believe in, but I don’t want to be closed off anymore.”
The admission felt fragile in the open air between us. Heat rose to my face, but I could not bring myself to take it back. Nor could I regret it upon seeing the tenderness that softened his expression at my confession.
An almost reverent silence settled between us, charged with the emotions we were tentatively exploring together.
I became acutely aware of the space between us—how little distance there was, how easily it could vanish if I was ever brave enough to bridge it.
But though fear kept me still, Evander shifted, barely more than a few inches, but enough to close that fragile distance all the same.
My breath caught. For a moment, it seemed as though he might reach for me again. His hand lifted slightly before halting mid-motion, as though some unseen restraint held him back.
His gaze briefly dropped to my lips. The realization sent an unexpected warmth through me, stealing what little breath I had left. Before I could decide whether or not to accept his unspoken offer, his hand lowered and he withdrew, shattering the moment before it fully began.
“It means more than you know that you confided in me,” he said. “I hope to be worthy of the trust you desire to place in me.”
“That is not the wish of a manipulative man,” I said, seizing onto the shift in conversation before the lingering emotions—both pleasant and worrisome—could resurface.
“You claim your counterpart is greedy and selfish, yet he warned me before I touched the mural that caused me to fall back asleep.” Try as I might, I couldn’t reconcile the two versions of him—the man who manipulated, and the one who warned.
Evander’s brow furrowed. “I…don’t know. I was admittedly surprised by that.”
I frowned. “Are you aware of your movements in both worlds?”
“Only in fragments,” he said. “Shadows and impressions, like viewing events through a reflection rather than experiencing them directly.
I saw a glimpse of the moment you transitioned to this world…
and him calling after you. His gaze sharpened slightly.
“The timing suggests the curse took hold at a rather inconvenient moment for him.”
I tried to recall what had happened just before I’d fallen asleep.
But as always, the memory slipped through my grasp, as though several key memories had been displaced in the dream…
or rather, the real world. The distinction wavered, just for a moment, enough to send a faint ripple of disorientation through me.
I blinked, trying to follow the unbidden thought before it vanished completely.
But before I could grasp it, Evander straightened and stood.
The loss of his steadying presence was immediate and strangely noticeable.
Before I could miss it too long, he turned and extended his hand to help me to my feet.
I accepted it slowly, trying to ignore the subtle thrill I felt as his fingers enclosed around mine.
He noticed the puzzlement filling my expression. “I’m not sure how long you’ll be awake for. There’s something I want to show you.”
Without waiting for my response, he turned and began walking. I hesitated a moment before following.
The path curved through the roses, their blooms fuller than I remembered, their color so deep it bordered on unnatural.
As we passed, one brushed against my hand.
The petals didn’t dissolve beneath my touch nor blur as dreams often did—they bent, soft and real, leaving behind the faintest trace of their scent on my skin. Too real.
A flicker of a memory tugged the edges of my mind, stirring my powers—one filled with roses in full bloom from a place within this dreamscape I was certain I’d never visited in person, even as the lost recollection felt strangely like mine. I blinked and it vanished.
I didn’t realize I’d stilled until Evander slowed up ahead, glancing over his shoulder in a silent question. I buried my sense of unease and hurried to catch up.
For all the dreamscape’s breathtaking beauty and detailed imagery, it was still shrouded in ruin and neglect, a conflict of opposites that really made it appear as an illusion from a dream. Yet the deeper we walked, the more the illusion began to fracture.
Beyond the vibrant roses and sunlit paths, there were traces of ruin—crumbling stone half-buried beneath new growth, fractured pillars standing where something greater had once been. Restoration and decay side by side, as though the world could not decide what it was meant to be.
“Each time I come here, the world seems to change,” I murmured, my gaze tracing the jagged edge of a broken arch now threaded with blooming vines. “As though it’s rebuilding itself.” Almost as if each new setting was being recreated by my imagination.
I expected another carefully worded evasion that would leave me with more questions than answers, but to my surprise he responded plainly.
“That is because of you. Every time you move between these two realities, something is lost from where you came from and restored here. When you awaken, more returns.”
“Don’t you mean whenever I fall asleep and enter this dream?”
He regarded me with quiet patience. “I’ve told you before: this isn’t a dream.”
My breath suspended as I considered his claim. Everything around me seemed to be proclaiming its reality until I could no longer ignore the evidence. But if this was no dream…what did that mean about the world with the other Evander, the world that housed my reality?
I felt momentarily lost, adrift in this sea of uncertainty. I struggled to grasp for something steadier. “Dream or not, at least you aren’t speaking in riddles like your counterpart.”
He shrugged. “I have no reason to hide anything from you. It’s precisely why I chose to warn you.”
“Warnings and answers are not the same,” I said. “I’m surprised you’re willing to offer the latter.”
He was quiet for a moment before responding.
“I don’t believe most in the other world are withholding information intentionally,” he said.
“They’ve simply forgotten and no longer possess it.
” His expression darkened suddenly. “The same cannot be said of my counterpart. I believe he alone has retained his memories, which is what makes him so dangerous and thus unworthy of your trust.”
The warning seemed to echo faintly in the space around us, one part of me still didn’t want to fully believe. “If you two are the same person,” I said slowly. “Then do you know what he’s after?”
Evander hesitated. “In part,” he admitted. “But whereas he has retained much of what was lost…I have not.” His gaze drifted briefly to the ruins around us. “It seems my memories were the price of his clarity.”
That answer did not settle anything, but instead made the fracture between them feel sharper.
Evander glanced towards a path winding deeper into the ruins.
“There is much I still don’t understand: the curse, the nature of these worlds, the imbalance between them.
I’ve been researching as much as I can in an effort to help my kingdom.
” His gaze returned to mine. “This is one particular finding I believe you’ll find enlightening. ”
I yearned to accept his invitation, one which my rebellious heart yearned to view as a courtship outing disguised as a research expedition.
I had never been pursued by a man before, either in my dreams or while awake.
That thrill eclipsed even my curiosity to learn more information about this world and the sleeping curse that had descended upon it.
But the shield I’d erected over my heart didn’t yield so easily. “How do I know that you’re not deceiving me as well? You caution me against trusting your counterpart, yet you ask for that same trust in return?”
A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth.
“Then perhaps it is time I offer you more than warnings.” His expression softened, revealing a warmth that had been hidden beneath his previous restraint.
“It’s admittedly hypocritical to desire trust I have yet to earn, but can you fault me for envying him for having the opportunity to spend time with someone so beautiful and intriguing? ”
My breath caught and a blush rose unbidden to my cheeks; I hastily looked away before he could see it.
No one had ever spoken to me like that before, not without wanting something in return.
Every instinct I had honed over years of survival warned me to keep my distance—to remain cautious, detached, unentangled.
But that instinct had already begun to falter the moment I’d met him.
Whether these two versions of Evander were one and the same or something far more complicated, I was already involved more deeply than I should have been.
Yet for all the risk, I didn’t think I was strong enough to resist.
It would be easier to indulge that curiosity within the safety of a dream; surely nothing could actually happen to me if this world existed only in my mind. I lifted my gaze to meet his once more. “This had better be worth it,” I said lightly, though the words carried more weight than I intended.
His smile deepened. “I won’t disappoint you.” His words carried a promise I wanted nothing more than to hold.
He motioned for me to follow him down the path.
Despite my initial agreement, for a moment, I remained where I was.
I knew I should draw a boundary between us before it was too late, but as the distance between us widened with each step he took, something in me resisted the thought of letting it grow.
Before reason could persuade me otherwise, I found myself following. With each step, I had the distinct, unshakable sense that I was walking willingly into something far too real to ever be a dream, a place I wouldn’t be able to escape…and I no longer wanted to.