Fifteen
Rural Virginia
Giselle woke to the sound of birds singing.
No, she quickly determined. She was not awake. As she stepped through the sweeping fronds of a willow tree, the leaves tickling
her face, she realized that she was dreaming. Sunlight filtered through the branches, spreading a dappled pattern on the forest
floor. The forest? She had to be dreaming.
As Nadiya had instructed, she had put on the nodes before falling asleep that night. The skin on her temples was still red
and irritated, but she had been so tired that she’d found it easy to slip into slumber.
Giselle parted the willow branches. The chirping of the birds, the soft, damp earth beneath her bare feet—all of it was familiar.
It took her a moment to orient herself, to adjust to the glare of the sun, and then she realized where she was.
Before her, the lake glimmered like a coin. The surface rippled with the current and with the leaping of silver-backed fish.
The mountains rose, blush purple, in the distance, their peaks wreathed in low-hanging clouds. Her chest knotted with homesickness.
She knew this place.
The branches rustled behind her. Giselle turned around.
Nadiya emerged from behind the willow fronds. Her black hair was loose, sweeping around her shoulders. Giselle had never seen
it unbound before. And instead of her leather jacket or her Valeran uniform, she wore an ankle-length dress, pale and gossamer.
Briefly, Giselle was at a loss for words.
But Nadiya managed to speak. “What is this place?”
“We just call it ‘the lake,’ ” Giselle whispered. Somehow, it felt right to be quiet. “It’s a few miles outside Belle. I’ve been coming here since I was little.”
“No,” Nadiya said, joining her at the water’s edge, “I mean—how are we here?”
Giselle glanced around again, casting her gaze over the lake and then turning back to Nadiya. In the sunlight, her dark eyes
gleamed like polished stone. She looked just as Giselle knew her. Solid. Real enough to reach out and touch.
“I suppose anything is possible,” Giselle said at last, “in a dream.”
“This is your dream, though.” Nadiya raised a hand to shield her eyes as she looked out at the water. “I think I’m just . . .
visiting.”
“Has this ever happened before?” Giselle asked. “With the nodes?”
“No. Usually I can’t dream at all when I’m wearing them. That’s why Dr. Iver gives them to me. So I can forget.”
A slight wind ruffled Nadiya’s hair, sweeping the strands back from her face.
Giselle swallowed. “Forget what?”
Nadiya turned to look at her. Even now, in the path of the midday sun, she seemed so inscrutable. Distant, somehow—like a
dream within a dream.
When she didn’t reply, Giselle said, “You’re very hard to read, you know. But I think you like it that way, don’t you?”
“It’s better than being an open book.”
“Like me, you mean?”
“Well,” said Nadiya, “I am the one in your dream. And this isn’t the first time I’ve been in your head.”
Giselle flinched. “I’m sorry, Nadiya. About—about what happened in the classroom. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t
have listened to Professor Blanchard. It wasn’t right, putting my own thoughts in your mind.”
Nadiya was silent. The lake water lapped against the pebbled shore. She drew a deep breath and then said, “It was better than the alternative.”
Giselle frowned, uncomprehending.
“It was better than seeing what I was seeing.” Nadiya’s voice was tight. “I don’t know how he was doing it, but . . . Professor
Blanchard was playing my own nightmares in my head.”
“Nightmares?” Giselle’s stomach clenched.
Nadiya nodded and pain flashed across her expression. “My worst memories. The same ones I see every night, without the nodes.
Or at least . . . I did. I don’t know if I would anymore. I hadn’t tried to sleep without them until . . .”
Abruptly, Nadiya looked away, and Giselle thought she caught a faint flush on her cheeks. Heat rose to Giselle’s own face
in return. The sunlight dappling the waves turned the lake water gold.
“So why here?”
Nadiya turned back to her. She was gold, too, but only in a way that Giselle could see. That sunset-orange color that was
threaded to the three syllables of her name. Nadiya.
“I used to come here a lot,” Giselle replied. “Catching salamanders and skipping stones with my little sisters. Sutton had
this boat, and he took me out on the water to give me my promise ring.” She almost laughed at the memory, how absurd it felt,
how distant from the person she was now.
Ever so slightly, Nadiya’s brow furrowed. “A promise ring?”
“It’s stupid,” Giselle said quickly. “He’s stupid. I can’t believe I ever—never mind.”
Her face was blazing, but a gentle breeze lifted from the water and cooled it. Nadiya’s dress fluttered in the wind.
“You didn’t dream up a boat,” Nadiya said. “Or a promise ring.”
“I would never dream of Sutton.” Giselle fought a smile. “This is where my daddy taught me to fish. Before he left.”
Nadiya tensed. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. It was a long time ago. I could say I hardly remember him, but . . . well . . . that would be a lie.”
“Right,” Nadiya said. Her gaze flickered, out over the water again, and then back to Giselle, dark eyes shining. “I lost my
father, too.”
Giselle grew still.
“Both of my parents. That’s what my nightmares are about. The same ones, every night.” A distant quality came into Nadiya’s
voice. “They were murdered when I was nine. Dr. Iver took me in. He’s been . . .”
“Like a father?” Giselle supplied.
“Sort of. Almost.”
The words I’m sorry felt insufficient. So instead Giselle said, “You’re very brave.”
Nadiya’s mouth thinned. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Being dealt a bad hand doesn’t make people brave. It just makes them unlucky.”
“I’m not talking about what you’ve been through,” said Giselle. “I’m talking about what you’ve done. Here. Now.”
“And what have I done?”
Saved me, she thought. From Sutton in the jail. From the whispers and gossip of the other Valeran students. Even today, Nadiya had
come for her. Endured her own nightmares for Giselle’s sake. And now she had risked plunging back into those same nightmares,
to meet Giselle here—in the surreal landscape of her dreams.
But the words got caught in her throat. Because Giselle wasn’t brave. She followed orders. She let Sutton slip the promise ring on her finger, she swallowed the laxatives her mother gave
her before the pageants, she let her grandmother throw her out into the cold. And she hadn’t hesitated when Professor Blanchard
had told her to violate Nadiya’s mind.
“You’ve been my friend,” Giselle replied at last. And that was perhaps the most insufficient thing she could have said.
Nadiya folded her arms across her chest. “That’s a pretty low bar to be considered brave.”
“You care about me.” Giselle’s heart thumped as she spoke. “At least, I think you do.”
“You aren’t sure?”
“I’m never sure with you. Maybe you’re just pretending.”
It felt like standing on the edge of a cliff, height pulsing in the soles of her feet. Even kissing Bonnie hadn’t seemed so
dangerous. And Nadiya was still an arm’s length away.
“If I am pretending,” Nadiya said slowly, “it’s a very easy thing to do.”
Giselle’s pulse raced. Maybe none of this was real. Maybe it was nothing more than her own dream, her own fantasy. And if
it was, why shouldn’t she step closer? Why shouldn’t she reach out, and—
But if it was real, in some way, if Nadiya was in fact dreaming the same dream, or visiting Giselle in hers, then she couldn’t. She would
never push herself on Nadiya again.
And now the dream was starting to fade at its edges. The sunlight dimmed. Giselle felt an ache in the pit of her stomach,
and hurriedly she said, “Maybe you can show me your dream tomorrow.”
Nadiya’s face was unreadable. “You don’t want to see what’s in my head.”
“Try me,” Giselle said, and then it was all gone. Darkness closed in. She drifted back into the oblivious depths of slumber.
Giselle woke with a start, breathing hard. She shot up in bed and fumbled for the lamp’s pull string. The light clicked on and her room at Valeran—once strange, but now familiar—was illuminated. The nodes on her temples had gone cold, and she removed them with shaking fingers.
Once she managed to calm her breath, Giselle reached for her tablet. She opened the messaging app and selected Nadiya’s name.
Did you see it? she typed out.
Nadiya’s icon pulsed, indicating that she was online. Giselle waited, her heart in her throat.
Yeah, Nadiya wrote back. I saw it, too.