Nineteen
Rural Virginia
Giselle had woken exhausted, and she had to drag herself to Professor Blanchard’s classroom. The dream kept playing behind
her eyes. Nadiya’s hair flowing in the wind, the sunlight coaxing the shades of gold from her skin. Her smile, subtle and
rare but uninhibited. Giselle felt a certain breathlessness every time she recalled it.
But that made it all the more difficult to return to Professor Blanchard. She was both afraid that Nadiya would be there and
afraid she would not. She didn’t want to put Nadiya through that again, and yet—
Giselle’s turmoil was short-lived. When she pushed open the door to the classroom, Professor Blanchard stood behind the teacher’s
desk, alone.
That same gaunt smile stretched across his face. “Giselle,” he said. “How lovely to see you again.”
“It’s not like I have a choice,” she said, surprised by the bitterness in her tone.
“Indeed,” Professor Blanchard said, glossing over it. He held out a plastic case with a pair of nodes. “Let’s not waste any
time. Put these on.”
Giselle stared down at them. She thought about Nadiya again, but not the version of Nadiya from the dream—the version of Nadiya
in the classroom, slumped over at the desk, tears drying on her cheeks. A sudden flush of anger rose to her face.
“No,” she said. “I don’t want to.”
Professor Blanchard tilted his head. “And why not?”
“Because . . .” Giselle dug her fingernails into her palm. “Because you haven’t explained anything. I still don’t know why I’m here, or why any of this matters. You tortured Nadiya, and you made me be a part of it. I’m not doing it anymore. I won’t.”
By the time she finished speaking, her heart was pounding. Professor Blanchard merely regarded her.
“Haven’t you felt it?” he asked. “The rush?”
“No, I . . . What are you talking about?”
“The rush,” he repeated, “of pure power. Of influence. I may have told you to press those memories into Nadiya’s head, but
you did it yourself. And that is the least of what you can do.”
Giselle opened her mouth to speak, but then fell silent. She hadn’t felt what he was talking about, not quite—yet hadn’t she? When she had brought Nadiya into her dream? Her stomach clenched.
“Aren’t you tired of it?” Professor Blanchard went on. “I’ve read your file. Your friends abandoned you. Your family cast
you out. You may well have rotted away in that jail cell, had Dr. Iver not come for you. And you couldn’t do anything about
it.”
Tears leaped to the corners of her eyes. “Stop it.”
“Don’t cry, Giselle. Can’t you see? None of this is just for me. It’s for your sake, too. Let me teach you. Let me help you
reach your potential. I promise—you’ll never be so powerless again.”
Giselle squeezed her eyes shut briefly. She remembered it all, and she hated that she did. The cold air that pricked her skin
as she walked down that lonely gravel road. Bonnie, shutting the door in her face. The unforgiving wood of the park bench
where she’d slept. Sutton, spitting his words through the bars of her cell: It’s your kind of sin that He isn’t too keen on pardoning.
Almost unconsciously, her arm stretched out. Her fingers shook as she curled them around the plastic case.
“Good girl,” Professor Blanchard said.
That night, Giselle slept with the nodes on again. As soon as she slipped into slumber, the dream resurrected itself. The lake. The trees. The whisper of the wind.
Only this time it was dark, and the moon’s reflection rippled on the water. The stars cast down their cold silver light. Giselle
stood on the shore, chill prickling her skin, listening to the distant cries of the birds that hunted at night. It was only
when she heard a faint rustling that she turned around.
Nadiya stepped out from behind the willow tree. Her black hair was loose again, falling in a silken sheet to her waist, and
she had on the same gossamer dress, like nothing Giselle had ever seen her wear in the real world. That thought occurred to
her with a needling of guilt.
“I’m sorry,” Giselle said in a rush. “I shouldn’t have—you must want to wear something else.”
Bewildered, Nadiya merely stared at her, and then in another moment, she changed. The dress dissolved into nothing and was replaced immediately by a pair of dark jeans and a leather jacket. The same outfit
she had worn when Giselle had met her for the first time, at the jail in Belle.
Nadiya looked down at herself, brow furrowing. “How did you do that?”
Giselle felt a pulse of adrenaline. She did have power here. It was her dream.
“I just . . . imagined it,” she said. “I remembered.”
Slowly, Nadiya drew closer to her, footsteps hesitant. The grass wavered, damp from an earlier rainstorm. That was just the
way Giselle remembered it, too. Everything was just the way she remembered it.
“I thought you wanted a chance to see inside my head,” said Nadiya.
They were standing near enough now that Giselle could glimpse her own reflection in Nadiya’s dark eyes. “I did,” she said. “But—I wasn’t sure you would come again.”
“I wasn’t sure, either.” Nadiya glanced out over the lake, and then back to Giselle. Her gaze was intent.
“But you did.”
“It just seemed like the right thing to do.”
Giselle suddenly felt very warm, in spite of the cold.
“Does any of this make sense to you?” Nadiya asked. “How I was able to visit you here? In your dream?”
“I think it’s starting to,” Giselle replied. Then she hesitated. She felt somehow reticent to share what Professor Blanchard
had told her, and what they had done the previous day. She was even more reticent to tell Nadiya how it made her feel. Powerful. She had never felt anything close to it before.
Nadiya inched forward again, and now she stood at the very brink of the lake, her position precarious. “What do you think
would happen if I went in?”
“Don’t go in. I couldn’t follow you. I can’t swim.”
Nadiya frowned. “Really?”
“I’ve never waded past my knees. Sutton was always so sore about it. He kept wanting to have these romantic skinny-dipping dates. . . .”
Immediately, Nadiya’s nose wrinkled. “I can’t believe you were ever with him.” There was an edge to her voice.
“Me either.” Giselle felt even warmer. In a teasing tone, she added, “But at least he wanted to hang out with me in the light
of day.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t want to be seen with me, in the real world. I get it. You have a reputation to maintain. . . .”
“That’s not true,” Nadiya said. She was silent a moment. Then: “There’s an exhibition this Friday, at the amphitheater. Dr. Iver wants us to demonstrate our skills, and show off the new line of weapons we got from Auric. You should come.”
Giselle’s heart pulsed. “So I’ll finally get to see you in your element?”
“It will be more impressive than roughing up Sutton, at least.”
“Okay.” Her heart leaped again. “I’ll be there.”
And then, just like it had before, the dream shuddered away.